Speaker 1: Well, friends, we've reached the end of our playlist. The
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know Twelve Days of Christmas Toys. This
Speaker 1: one's one of my all time favorite episodes, not just
Speaker 1: toy episodes, but favorite episodes. The Easy Bake Oven which
Speaker 1: had this huge cultural impact. It still does today. If
Speaker 1: you want to make somebody nostalgic, just say easy Bake
Speaker 1: Oven and watch their eyes well up with tears. It's
Speaker 1: really fun. At any rate, we want to thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on this journey through our Christmas toy episodes,
Speaker 1: and we want to wish all of you happy holidays
Speaker 1: and Merry Christmas. From Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Ramsey over there. The
Speaker 1: Huge which means it's I'm for Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: Nostalgia Edition Colon ts Hodgman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done a few toys. Playto slinkies, right, what else?
Speaker 1: What does a boomerang count as a toy? Uh?
Speaker 2: That's away alive, mate.
Speaker 1: We've done tons, we did silly putty, Silly putty.
Speaker 2: Sure, we did.
Speaker 1: You know a bunch that the balls, Yeah, the balls,
Speaker 1: the Ball's episode How balls work?
Speaker 2: They round and they bounce.
Speaker 1: We said balls like a million times in that episode.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, this one's kind of cool though. The easy
Speaker 2: bake oven, which I never had one. Did you ever
Speaker 2: have one in your home?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No.
Speaker 2: I don't think my sister had one either.
Speaker 1: I was a pretty tubby kid, So it's possible that
Speaker 1: my mom was like, make sure your brother doesn't know
Speaker 1: you have one of those, Do not feed your brother
Speaker 1: or anything from there.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting that this is one where sort of
Speaker 2: a very simple idea and you never can tell what's
Speaker 2: gonna hit. Toy wise, nothing super complex about this other
Speaker 2: than you could literally bake food and sort of pretend
Speaker 2: to be an adult in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: That was the basis of it. Being an adult. That
Speaker 1: was kind of Kenner's thing. And Kenner, the people who
Speaker 1: made Star Wars toys, were the ones behind this, and
Speaker 1: they were very much into toys that like let kids
Speaker 1: pretend they were grown ups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was their bag. Yeah, I have a new neighbor.
Speaker 2: Actually shout out to Rick Kathy. Hey, guys, well.
Speaker 1: They really got under your skin. Huh what. Rick and
Speaker 1: Kathy got a shout out on the podcast and their
Speaker 1: new neighbors geez.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he worked for I was talking to him
Speaker 2: and I was like, he seems like a good guy.
Speaker 2: And he's like, what you know, what do you do? Rick?
Speaker 2: He's retired, now what did you do? And he's like,
Speaker 2: I was away an action figure designer for Kenner And I.
Speaker 1: Was like, wow, whoa what?
Speaker 2: Years he came on after his first The first thing
Speaker 2: he worked on was the Tim Burton Batman movies. Nice
Speaker 2: and he stayed on for a long time, like his
Speaker 2: whole career, like after they were sold and everything. Wow,
Speaker 2: pretty neat.
Speaker 1: That is very cool. Yeah, good for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he still does wonderful sculpture. So oh, I'll
Speaker 2: bet just go after Rick Watkins's art online and check
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to check it out.
Speaker 2: But I mean Kenner, it is such a big deal
Speaker 2: to like to people our age and of many ages.
Speaker 2: But I didn't realize that they I didn't realize their
Speaker 2: origin as a company.
Speaker 1: Remember in the We Talked, we did a whole action
Speaker 1: figures episode. Remember, oh yeah, and we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about Kenner. Was that a two part episode? Or was
Speaker 1: it just like an hour and a half long.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was just long.
Speaker 1: It was very long. But Kenner almost didn't do the
Speaker 1: Star Wars ones if I remember. But for us at
Speaker 1: least that Kenner on the map. What I didn't realize
Speaker 1: is that Kenner was already on the map as far
Speaker 1: as toys go. Yeah, And one of the ways that
Speaker 1: they got there was from the Easy Bake Oven, which
Speaker 1: debuted November of nineteen sixty three, right around the time
Speaker 1: that John Kennedy was shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Kenner had been around since the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2: Albert Philip and Joseph Steiner formed the company after, as
Speaker 2: legend goes, one of them saw a bubble you know,
Speaker 2: maker bubble wand or whatever you call them, yeah, and
Speaker 2: was like, hey, if I could do a gun that
Speaker 2: shoots bubbles, we might be onto something. And that was
Speaker 2: their very first product, is the bubble Matic gun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then whatever less than twenty years later, the Easy
Speaker 2: Bake Oven. Even though as we learned today and yesterday,
Speaker 2: there had been toy ovens since like the Victorian days.
Speaker 3: Yes, like really really dangerous I know, like real real
Speaker 3: little ovens, yeah, like wood burning, pellet solid fuel stoves
Speaker 3: made of cast iron that were sized down for little
Speaker 3: kids to use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically like, here's the oven that can kill your parents,
Speaker 2: We'll just make a smaller one that can kill.
Speaker 1: You, right yeah. Yeah, So the children's play oven functioning
Speaker 1: play oven history very kind of closely tracks the real
Speaker 1: oven history, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like when there were cast iron wood burning ovens, there
Speaker 1: were kids versions of them. As they as real ovens
Speaker 1: moved into electric ovens, there were kids versions of them.
Speaker 1: Apparently Lionel the Train the model train makers, they made
Speaker 1: some in the thirties. Also, we want to give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Lisa Hicks and the people at Collectors
Speaker 1: Weekly for a great article we also used for this
Speaker 1: episode two. But in the thirties there were electric ovens.
Speaker 1: By the forties or fifties, I think there were fiberglass
Speaker 1: insulated ovens, electric ovens. It was just like a small
Speaker 1: oven for kids, but they were ovens. They were extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1: And Kenner had this really great idea and the reason
Speaker 1: that this idea came about it Kenner to begin with.
Speaker 1: So apparently Kenner was really big on having like ideas
Speaker 1: could come from anywhere anybody in the company. Float An
Speaker 1: idea and people would listen and they had like regular
Speaker 1: meetings where you know, there were bull sessions. Maybe they
Speaker 1: ordered some like Chowmaine or something like that. Everyone rolled
Speaker 1: up their sleeves and relaxed and spat out ideas. And
Speaker 1: one of the salesmen from Kenner came back in from
Speaker 1: the field and said, you know what, I saw something.
Speaker 1: I saw some pretzel vendors keeping their pretzels warm on
Speaker 1: the street using a light bulb. What if we used
Speaker 1: a light bulb to heat up an oven for the
Speaker 1: little kiddies? And somebody, I think Charles Howse, Ralph.
Speaker 2: Howse Well Norman Shapiro was that gentleman ken Ronald Howse.
Speaker 2: Ronald House was the big time inventor for Kenner who
Speaker 2: had a couple of like really big products under his belt,
Speaker 2: and he was like that that's an ace's idea.
Speaker 1: That's exactly how he talked.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably, so everyone hated him for it, but he was
Speaker 1: really good at inventing toys, so they had to put
Speaker 1: up with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But Kenner's deal, like you were saying, was find
Speaker 2: things that mimic adult things. And that's like kinda I
Speaker 2: bet like kids are going to dig that stuff and
Speaker 2: they did from like, and kids still do little toy
Speaker 2: lawnmowers and toy bulldozers. And I mean Ruby's got a
Speaker 2: little cleaning set with like a duster and a dustpan
Speaker 2: and a mop.
Speaker 1: And she is she OCD no.
Speaker 2: But I mean all the time she will say, you know,
Speaker 2: come on, daddy, let's clean, and she'll hand me a mop.
Speaker 1: That's a little OCD.
Speaker 2: Well, no, that's good then. Yeah, I like where she
Speaker 2: said it.
Speaker 1: Did you have one of those plastic safety razors so
Speaker 1: you could shave next to your dad? No?
Speaker 2: I did, but I was I think a lot of
Speaker 2: boys are pretty obsessed with shaving before they have whiskers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think I heard that they would actually stimulate
Speaker 2: hair growth on my face.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, I remember being worried about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I didn't have I had a pretty I mean,
Speaker 2: looking at me now, you would never know, but I
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of facial hair going on until
Speaker 2: well into college.
Speaker 1: Was it like lacking or did it come in patchy.
Speaker 2: Just a little bit, sort of like my brother is
Speaker 2: now he just stayed in that phase where.
Speaker 1: Your brother's got a perfect chiseled face.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that's because he doesn't have a beard.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, but Scott can grow a pretty decent goateea now,
Speaker 2: but I don't think he could grow the full beard.
Speaker 2: But his was. We were both spotty, like a little
Speaker 2: bit above the lip, a little bit on the chin.
Speaker 1: One part, just kind of trace the line up to
Speaker 1: your eye from around from under your nose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean it was sort of a family thing.
Speaker 2: We're not hairy dudes. We don't have very hairy legs or.
Speaker 1: It is odd that you have such a full beard, Like.
Speaker 2: I don't have hairy arms or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Your beast, I don't know if beasts is the right word,
Speaker 1: but yes, I'm a little hairy.
Speaker 2: You're a hairy guy.
Speaker 1: My chest hair definitely plucks out from under my shirt.
Speaker 2: Have you ever done any like laser or anything like that? No, No,
Speaker 2: good for you.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm Harry.
Speaker 2: No, I mean you're normal. It's not like you're Robin Williams. No,
Speaker 2: he was hairy.
Speaker 1: Yes he was, God rest his soul. Yes, indeed, So
Speaker 1: back to the Ovens. So the idea has been put
Speaker 1: out there now by Norman Shapiro. Yes, yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: and it was taken up by Ronald House and this
Speaker 1: was this was huge and groundbreaking because again they were safe.
Speaker 1: There were unsafe ovens for kids that have been around
Speaker 1: since the nineteenth century. What these guys had just happened
Speaker 1: upon was the way to make another unsafe oven seem
Speaker 1: safe to parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was that was it. That was the genius of
Speaker 1: this idea. That is what made easy bake ovens take off.
Speaker 1: What they'd figured out was that if they used a
Speaker 1: lot light bulb as the heating element, and believe me,
Speaker 1: a light bulb can can heat up an oven.
Speaker 2: Sure three fifty Yeah, up to three fifty, which is
Speaker 2: a common baking stemp.
Speaker 1: Yes from a light bulb. And actually, at first is
Speaker 1: we'll see a pair of light bulbs, but the fact
Speaker 1: is they're light bulbs and parents are familiar with light bulbs.
Speaker 1: They don't seem weird or scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a wood pellet.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's not like a heating element
Speaker 1: like in an actual oven, it's just a light bulb.
Speaker 1: That is what they used to convince parents that this
Speaker 1: was a safe product that they could buy for their kids.
Speaker 1: It was a genius idea.
Speaker 2: It really was. And like you teased a second ago,
Speaker 2: the very first model in nineteen sixty three, and if
Speaker 2: you look at that very first one, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: even look like an oven.
Speaker 1: Well certainly the new one doesn't either.
Speaker 2: Now I did go online. I was like, maybe I
Speaker 2: should get one of those. But they're ugly now.
Speaker 1: They I'm sorry to the person who designed them. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said it. They are ugly little ovens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should kind of go back to looking more classic.
Speaker 2: I think that'd be my advice. But they used two
Speaker 2: one hundred watt incandescent bulbs at first, one over the
Speaker 2: top and another under the bottom. Obviously they were trying
Speaker 2: to get an even heat because you're baking things, right.
Speaker 1: And they very wisely designed this thing so that the
Speaker 1: actual oven part was basically inaccessible to the kit on
Speaker 1: either side. So just imagine a box. Okay. Oh man,
Speaker 1: here's the way.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's my favorite thing when you try to describe
Speaker 2: something official.
Speaker 1: Let me see if I if I close my eyes,
Speaker 1: it works. Imagine a box, okay, and then coming out
Speaker 1: from either side of the box or a couple of
Speaker 1: little little arms. But the arms are half arms, and
Speaker 1: they're rectangular and hollow, and they're actually openings. One opening,
Speaker 1: you slide in the uncooked thing that you want to
Speaker 1: bake into the heating area the oven, let it bake,
Speaker 1: and you push it through the other the other side,
Speaker 1: the cooling chamber, and then it comes out the other arm.
Speaker 2: Everyone Josh has had his eyes closed that entire.
Speaker 1: Time, and it worked. I really painted a great picture.
Speaker 2: In your mind's eye. Yes, uh, yeah, so that's what's
Speaker 2: going on. You had the two bulbs and in fact,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and take a break there. Oh oh, okay,
Speaker 2: a Nicett cliffhanger.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll redescribe the easy bake oven again.
Speaker 2: It sounds good, all right. We were at one bulb, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, No, we were at two bulbs right so
Speaker 2: long ago I couldn't remember.
Speaker 1: I know it was a full hour ago.
Speaker 2: But then what they did was they figured if they
Speaker 2: just engineered this thing to distribute heat and hold heat
Speaker 2: a little better, almost like a convection oven. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: like a convection of him, that they could go down
Speaker 2: to one bulb.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There was a dude named Charles hold On I
Speaker 1: really wanted. Yeah, Charles Cummings, Charles one bulb Cummings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what he was known as. Charles Cummings was a
Speaker 1: designer at Kenner, and I think in the late seventies
Speaker 1: he designed the interior of the oven so that the
Speaker 1: bulb one bulb created a convection current, so it cooked
Speaker 1: just as well as two bold but you just needed one.
Speaker 1: And he owns the patent to that. Oh really, which
Speaker 1: that's the way it should be. Yeah, he was the designer.
Speaker 1: He came up with this.
Speaker 2: It's pretty rare too.
Speaker 1: I think Kenner, of course, I'm sure had an exclusive
Speaker 1: license to it, but I'm sure he got like a
Speaker 1: decent amount of money from that license agreement. That is
Speaker 1: the way it should be. He also created the patent,
Speaker 1: or he held the patent for the add on popcorn
Speaker 1: maker that you could put onto the easy bake oven.
Speaker 1: Too good for him, Good for you, Charles Cummings.
Speaker 2: Charles one bulb Commings. He probably lives on top of
Speaker 2: the mountain somewhere. It's on a mountain of money. So
Speaker 2: all right, you're down to one bulb thanks to Charlie Cummings.
Speaker 2: They initially wanted to call this in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: When it was two bulbs, when it debuted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right out of the gate, they wanted to call
Speaker 2: it November of sixty three the Safety bake Oven, because
Speaker 2: they really wanted to drive this home was that it
Speaker 2: was super safe, right, and the regulatory bodies were like,
Speaker 2: you can't. You haven't even sold one yet, Like, we don't.
Speaker 2: We're not sure if this is going to kill kids.
Speaker 1: It burned a dozen monkeys during the product testing tries.
Speaker 2: Oh that's awful, but you can't call it that yet
Speaker 2: because we don't know yet whether it's truly safe. Go
Speaker 2: ahead and sell them, sure, but just don't still call
Speaker 2: it safe.
Speaker 1: The Safety Bakeup. And so they're like, well, what about
Speaker 1: easy And they're like, are we still talking about this.
Speaker 1: We're done with you, go away, and they said they
Speaker 1: were like, okay, fine, we'll call it the Easy Bakeup.
Speaker 1: And then and they sold it as the Easy Makeoven
Speaker 1: and it sold out immediately. They sold it. So November
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three is right before the Christmas season. Actually
Speaker 1: it's in the Christmas season even back then. Yes, And
Speaker 1: they made a little more than half a million units
Speaker 1: and sold them all like before.
Speaker 2: Christmas, Yeah, for fifteen ninety five, which is expensive. That
Speaker 2: would be about one hundred and thirty dollars today. No, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's an expensive toy.
Speaker 1: Wow. And if you look at the thing. I saw
Speaker 1: a picture of one that's for sale on eBay for
Speaker 1: really cheap. I think it was like thirty bucks or something.
Speaker 2: Really, it was.
Speaker 1: Unused in the box, still needed to be assembled. But
Speaker 1: if you look at it, you're like, that thing looks
Speaker 1: like a death trap. Huh. It looks like the four
Speaker 1: pinto of children's toys from the sixties, you know, like
Speaker 1: the sharp metal edges. Yes, you're like, like, that's what
Speaker 1: it looks like, like like the baby strollers we were
Speaker 1: pushed around then.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Remember that dan Aykroyd SNL skeet from years ago
Speaker 2: with the dangerous Christmas toys, And that was one called
Speaker 2: the Bag of Glass. That's so great, And that's all
Speaker 2: it was. It was just a bag of shards of glass. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they sold a half a million and then
Speaker 2: they're like, we got to make a lot more of
Speaker 2: these for next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is back at a time when toys
Speaker 1: didn't do that very often. You know, it seems like
Speaker 1: every Christmas now people are like, well, what's the toy
Speaker 1: we should go fight other parents for tell us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm training in the ring.
Speaker 1: This is when this is when it happened to organically.
Speaker 1: When you put out a toy and if it became
Speaker 1: like the fight worthy toy, that was a few and
Speaker 1: far between. Thinks the easy Bake oven was the fight
Speaker 1: worthy toy right out of the gate.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in year two, I think they they made
Speaker 2: about one point five million sold all those. And here
Speaker 2: was here's the little bit of genius from Kenner is
Speaker 2: anytime you can sell a supplementary product to the the
Speaker 2: big thing, then you're really cooking with gas.
Speaker 1: That's like the ironically the Gellette razor model. I think
Speaker 1: it was King Gillette who came up with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what they did was they sold mixes, you know,
Speaker 2: these little instant mixes that you would pour and it
Speaker 2: would make a little credit cake. And they had twenty
Speaker 2: five of these at first. And we're selling those like
Speaker 2: crazy because if you're a kid, if you're a kid,
Speaker 2: you want all those. You're like, well, I haven't tried
Speaker 2: the strawberry cake yet.
Speaker 1: Plus also, it's not like you're putting this in like
Speaker 1: a book like some baseball cards, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I've got this one. I don't need you eat that
Speaker 1: thing and you need another.
Speaker 2: Thing and to replace it and you poop it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're not gonna eat the poop again. No,
Speaker 1: you're going to go buy another one. And that was
Speaker 1: the genius of the other genius idea of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: There was a third genius idea to Kenner did this
Speaker 1: so right?
Speaker 2: The license?
Speaker 1: Awe? Not just no? The advertising?
Speaker 2: Oh sure?
Speaker 1: So remember this is kids emulating grown ups. That was
Speaker 1: their thing. It They advertised not just to kids through
Speaker 1: like Archie's comics, but they advertised directly to their parents too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were ads for the easy Bake Oven on I
Speaker 1: Love Lucy and on Hogan's Heroes. According to This Collector's
Speaker 1: Weekly article, and in these ads, if you look at
Speaker 1: a lot of old ads and even some of the
Speaker 1: newer ads too for easy Bake Oven, it's a mom
Speaker 1: and a daughter, right, and the parent is like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is something we can do together. I love baking.
Speaker 1: It's basically my whole life. I live in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three and I'm a woman, so I would love to
Speaker 1: share that with my daughter. Maybe she's old enough to
Speaker 1: have an easy bake oven herself and that definitely helped
Speaker 1: propel sales for sure, because it's not just kids going
Speaker 1: on an easy bake oven, it's the parent's going that'd
Speaker 1: be a great thing to do with my kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And of course, as people evolved and people became
Speaker 2: more woke over time, even though that word wasn't used enlightened,
Speaker 2: maybe it became a bit of a problem with gender
Speaker 2: roles and like this is for moms and daughters. They're pink,
Speaker 2: and that's what you're supposed to do is be in
Speaker 2: the kitchen baking for the men.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean very famously, the easy bake ovens always
Speaker 1: ended with the disclaimer like this toy is not for boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't really, but essentially.
Speaker 1: It was like that was this that was what was
Speaker 1: coming through. And the weird thing is as far as
Speaker 1: as like legendary and iconic a toy as the easy
Speaker 1: bake oven was, as gender roles. And yeah, as gender
Speaker 1: roles evolved, I mean this was we're talking like the
Speaker 1: early seventies when this really started to become like a thing.
Speaker 1: The easy bake oven did not evolve with it, as
Speaker 1: we will see. It wasn't until the early two thousands
Speaker 1: that they started to like respond to that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And I saw an ad for twenty fourteen, not a
Speaker 1: boy in sight, all girls and just dancing around like
Speaker 1: the girliest easy bake oven you could possibly imagine. It
Speaker 1: actually got more girly as time went on, girl focused,
Speaker 1: as gender roles went on, which is really weird to
Speaker 1: me to be that is not just non responsive, but
Speaker 1: almost like, no, we're going the opposite way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in early two thousands, Hasbro who you know,
Speaker 2: they bought out Kenner.
Speaker 1: Eventually makers are the classic snoopy snowcombe machine.
Speaker 2: I never had one of those. Did you have one
Speaker 2: of those?
Speaker 1: No? Neighbor did, okay, But.
Speaker 2: You got to eat some of that sweet sweat sugar ice.
Speaker 1: There was nothing like the taste of I think the
Speaker 1: cherry one, I can't remember, but it was just the
Speaker 1: greatest snow cone you could possibly have.
Speaker 2: And that's until you had a shaved ice later and
Speaker 2: you're like, oh no, this is a lot better still.
Speaker 1: Number one raining champ really Number two is blue raspberry
Speaker 1: slush Puppy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, what I would always do was slurp that
Speaker 2: sweet liquid and that'd be left with just some faintly
Speaker 2: colored kind of just ice.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, I know it was the problem with
Speaker 1: it for sure. Yeah, but if you did it right
Speaker 1: and you just kind of let it settle, uh, you
Speaker 1: got you know, through the nasty stuff first, when you
Speaker 1: got to the bottom, then you got to the true,
Speaker 1: like hYP hyper dense snow cone experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I could never do that. I'd still have problems
Speaker 2: regulating my like hot fudge to ice cream ratio when
Speaker 2: eating a Sunday. Oh yeah, I just won't even do
Speaker 2: it anymore.
Speaker 1: So you do all the hot fudge first, and then
Speaker 1: you're left to some cruddy ice cream. Yep, that's pretty I.
Speaker 2: Mean that's standard cretdy delicious ice cream.
Speaker 1: Right This ice cream that some people around the world
Speaker 1: would kill for is cruddy. It doesn't have any more fudge. Dude.
Speaker 2: I've been on a fifteen year campaign to convince Emily
Speaker 2: that vanilla ice cream is like a legit flavor. Sure,
Speaker 2: I think she's she still thinks that vanilla ice cream.
Speaker 1: Is just like unflavored ice milk.
Speaker 2: Yes, like it's the one without the flavor added, right,
Speaker 2: like no vanilla. Yeah, this is really delicious, it is.
Speaker 1: It is. It's subtle vanilla bean ice cream like the
Speaker 1: true the flex so good with you.
Speaker 2: So in early two thousand, they finally, like you said,
Speaker 2: tried in a very ham fisted way to get boys
Speaker 2: involved with the the qu easy.
Speaker 1: Bake queasy bake is that what it is? Took me
Speaker 1: a second two because Q use a separate word.
Speaker 2: So okay, now even hyphenated. So the queasy bake oven
Speaker 2: and the mixer rader for you boys, you can make
Speaker 2: mud and crud cakes and the larvalicious cocoon cookies and
Speaker 2: you know, not like, hey, just bake something good because
Speaker 2: anyone can bake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyone can bake.
Speaker 2: And they didn't like the girls don't don't use that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was only boys that showed up
Speaker 1: in these ads. They're like, we really need to get
Speaker 1: boys involved. How can we do that. Oh, we'll make
Speaker 1: one specifically for boys. That's like they're making cruddy cakes.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know they're just trying to sell stuff,
Speaker 2: but when in these meetings, in these marketing meetings that
Speaker 2: you just can't help but think there it's like a
Speaker 2: bunch of like eighty five year old men. Our it's
Speaker 2: our senate. Yeah that's in there, right.
Speaker 1: They're like screaming and pounding and yelling at each other
Speaker 1: about the idea of like selling this to boys. Oh man, well,
Speaker 1: after that, I feel like we take break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll go to our Senate chambers and regroup right
Speaker 2: after this. All right, So in nineteen sixty seven, the
Speaker 2: easy Bake oven is selling like hotcakes. Literally, General Mills
Speaker 2: buys Kenner and they did a couple of genius things.
Speaker 2: They partnered because they were General Mills. They had no
Speaker 2: problem because they owned Betty Crocker as well, I assume
Speaker 2: launching Betty Crocker branded mixes. And then later on they
Speaker 2: got into licensing deals with McDonald's and Pizza Hut Because
Speaker 2: here's the thing. You can bake anything in an easy
Speaker 2: bak oven because it's just a little oven. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: can make pizza, and you can make you don't have
Speaker 2: to buy these mixes. You can just bake cook that
Speaker 2: you made from scratch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's like a lot of recipes online easy
Speaker 1: bakeoven recipes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They actually don't taste like garbage, right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they did have a huge line of mixes though,
Speaker 1: and they sold more than one hundred million of them
Speaker 1: over the over the years.
Speaker 2: That's how they get you.
Speaker 1: But I mean they there. There were recipes for mixes
Speaker 1: for candy bars, pecan brittle, popcorn, bubble gum. You could
Speaker 1: bake your own bubble gum. Interesting, it is interesting. I
Speaker 1: would have tried that for sure. I want to see
Speaker 1: bubblegum come out in like a brownie pan. Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, I want some of that bubble gum. That
Speaker 1: looks amazing.
Speaker 2: We had a cotton candy machine, now that I remember what.
Speaker 2: It would just spin sugar and you would.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know what they do. Yeah, I wanted one.
Speaker 2: Yep. That thing was probably dangerous. It was probably like
Speaker 2: a nuclear centerfuge.
Speaker 1: What was interesting about those are fascinating to me was
Speaker 1: like the cotton candy. Oh, it's not called it's like
Speaker 1: a not the web sugar or something like that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to say web, but that's not it either.
Speaker 1: It's not really visible in the machine. Yeah, but when
Speaker 1: you stick in the little cone, it just builds up
Speaker 1: on it like it like it's just coming out of
Speaker 1: another dimension into this.
Speaker 2: One, like coming out of a spider's butt.
Speaker 1: It's awesome to see. Yeah, a pink and pink and
Speaker 1: blue spider's butt.
Speaker 2: Man. I had to go out yesterday to uh, I
Speaker 2: still have my pickup truck then, because I just kept
Speaker 2: it because it was paid for and I still moved
Speaker 2: and haul stuff occasionally. Yeah, I had to move something.
Speaker 1: Justify it to me.
Speaker 2: I had to move something yesterday and I went out
Speaker 2: and there was the most beautiful, huge spider web from
Speaker 2: a tree down attached to the rear tailgate of my truck.
Speaker 1: Me like chuck smash with this big.
Speaker 2: Spider right in the middle, and I was like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I just felt so bad. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: So you just put in reverse and pretended nothing, you
Speaker 1: didn't see anything. No.
Speaker 2: I actually plucked it off little by little because I
Speaker 2: wanted to ensure his safety. And the web just goes
Speaker 2: crumbling down into a long, you know, skinny string, and
Speaker 2: he climbs right up to the tree and I was
Speaker 2: just like, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I'm sure you are.
Speaker 2: Let's see you. He tried to sorry spit venom into
Speaker 2: my eyeball.
Speaker 1: He's like, what do you need your truck for? And
Speaker 1: You're like, I gotta go get peanut butter. He's like, oh, good,
Speaker 1: thank you for ruining thirty hours of my work.
Speaker 2: A giant vat of peanut butter that would only fit
Speaker 2: in my truck. All right, So let's let's fash forward
Speaker 2: here to the modern times. In two thousand and seven, okay,
Speaker 2: the Energy Independence and Security Act, when the government said
Speaker 2: by twenty twelve light bulbs have to increase their efficiency
Speaker 2: by twenty five percent. So bye bye one hundred watt
Speaker 2: incandescent bulb.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me just say something. Let me set
Speaker 1: that up to Over the years, the easy Bake oven
Speaker 1: had just remained a steady cellar for Kenner and then
Speaker 1: has Bro, and the design had been basically the same
Speaker 1: and went from two bulbs to one bulb. But it
Speaker 1: was this closed box where the heating element was, where
Speaker 1: there was a slot on the side. Remember I went
Speaker 1: through the whole thing, pushed it in, and it came
Speaker 1: out the cooling chamber on the other side. But really
Speaker 1: the design was the same. The outward look changed like
Speaker 1: it went from the weird its own thing to the
Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties it started to resemble a microwave.
Speaker 1: And then in response to this change in light bulb requirements,
Speaker 1: Easy Bake did a redesign in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: and for the first time ever, the easy bake oven
Speaker 1: actually looked like an oven, like a stove. It had
Speaker 1: little like fake burners on the top. It looked like
Speaker 1: a stove. And it was actually a front loader to
Speaker 1: where there was like a slot in the front of
Speaker 1: the easy bake oven and that's where you put the
Speaker 1: thing in, and that's what you actually pulled it out from, too,
Speaker 1: and it went right into the heating element. And they
Speaker 1: replaced the light bulb because again so long hundred light
Speaker 1: bulb because of the energy act with an action heating element,
Speaker 1: a ceramic heating element like an oven. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: an oven, so they made an oven. But then when
Speaker 1: they made the oven, they redesigned this thing so that
Speaker 1: you could put your fingers right into the oven while
Speaker 1: it was baking at its hottest temperature. And of course
Speaker 1: kids immediately started doing that.
Speaker 2: How did that one slip past?
Speaker 1: No idea?
Speaker 2: I mean, that just doesn't make any sense at all.
Speaker 2: So in the end, I think what close to two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty kids ended up with like second third
Speaker 2: degree burns. Yeah, one partial amputation of a finger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because kids would get their finger stuck in it, right,
Speaker 1: and it's just set and then some kids got their
Speaker 1: finger stuck in it while it was heated hot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yes, they were getting huge burns. So Hasbro was like, well,
Speaker 1: we'll do a recall, and they recalled like nine hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five thousand, I think ultimately a million of
Speaker 1: these things. They recalled. First, they tried to say, here's
Speaker 1: a little fix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's a retrofitted piece.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to snap it on and it'll solve everything.
Speaker 1: And apparently it did solve everything.
Speaker 2: They're like, why didn't you make it that way to
Speaker 2: begin with?
Speaker 1: Right, But most parents were not, like they didn't have
Speaker 1: their ears out that there was a recall of their
Speaker 1: easy bake oven and so the the kids kept getting burned,
Speaker 1: and finally Hasbro was like, just bring them back. So
Speaker 1: there's a recall of a million Easy Bake ovens from
Speaker 1: that two thousand and six redesign.
Speaker 2: That's a toy for them, like to if that would
Speaker 2: have ruined the easy bake oven, that would have been
Speaker 2: a big big deal.
Speaker 1: So what they did was they temporarily went back to
Speaker 1: an old design featuring a light bulb too, while they
Speaker 1: redesigned it to the new version. So then they came
Speaker 1: out in twenty eleven with that that really ugly designed
Speaker 1: what's called the Easy Bake Ultimate Oven.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm looking at it now. That things. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: It looks terrible.
Speaker 1: It's horrible. It's super It looks like it's on the
Speaker 1: go or something like that. I don't like it. It
Speaker 1: looks like a weird toaster oven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's sort of. It looks like it's trying
Speaker 2: to look futuristic and modern, which never ends up looking
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: No it doesn't. But they also made it pink and purple. Yep,
Speaker 1: super girly. That ads were flowers girl targeted. Yet there's
Speaker 1: flowers on it, and again they were like, nope, this
Speaker 1: is for girls. Boys don't play with us. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand, I think twenty thirteen, there was a girl
Speaker 1: named McKenna Pope, Yes, who is just a hero of heroes.
Speaker 1: She's amazing. I saw an interview with her on CNN.
Speaker 2: Pretty great.
Speaker 1: She's just so like self possessed and intelligent and like
Speaker 1: well spoken but also like a kid and know where
Speaker 1: she's a kid. She's just amazing. One of those clearly reincarnated.
Speaker 1: And she went on she started a petition to get
Speaker 1: Hasbro to make a gender neutral version of its Easy
Speaker 1: Bake Oven because her little brother liked to bake but
Speaker 1: realized that the Easy Bake Oven was for girls. She
Speaker 1: wanted him to be able to bake, so she said, Hasbro,
Speaker 1: why don't you make one that's gender neutral, and got
Speaker 1: something like fifty thousand signatures for her petition, and Hasbro
Speaker 1: came out with a new version of the Easy Bake
Speaker 1: Ultimate Oven, which was just a black version of it,
Speaker 1: black and a big silver.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised it wasn't like our brush stainless model. Sure
Speaker 2: like to emulate, you know, Kitchens, right, Yeah, she's gee,
Speaker 2: she's probably almost twenty years old. Now, Yeah, when what
Speaker 2: she's doing mckennapope, are you out there?
Speaker 1: She's some sort of like consumer protection lawyer. I'll bet
Speaker 1: probably so. I hope so, me too.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and six, they go into the National Toy
Speaker 2: Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: The same year that disastrous redesign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got in just under the wire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can't take it back.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to look here, and they're from their very
Speaker 2: own website, some of the landmark years, and it is
Speaker 2: kind of funny that emulated the styles at the time,
Speaker 2: unless they were just doing pink. Like in sixty nine
Speaker 2: they premiered the avocado Green. Yeah, the very next year
Speaker 2: was of his gold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very good metallic p You say that.
Speaker 2: A lot in our house. Oh, they had a potato
Speaker 2: chip maker, do we mention that? No, nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: the easy baked potato chip maker.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: And then in seventy eight they finally started putting a
Speaker 2: fake digital clock on it that always read twelve thirty. Okay,
Speaker 2: not for twenty. You see that a lot as a joke.
Speaker 1: Sure, and like the pothead joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like you'll see an alarm clock ad in
Speaker 2: like a skymall or something, and I'll say four twenty.
Speaker 1: Right, because the publishers are paying attention, they get it,
Speaker 1: doesn't know.
Speaker 2: Or they don't care.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: I remember years ago when we used to have a
Speaker 2: lot of illustrations on how stuffworks and had two in
Speaker 2: the house illustrators that I won't name, and remember one
Speaker 2: of them drew a like a park scene for me
Speaker 2: and the tree clearly had a marijuana leaf like embedded
Speaker 2: in it. And I was like, hey man, you can't
Speaker 2: do that, and he was like, oh, that was completely
Speaker 2: an accident, right. I was like, man, I wasn't born yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen a pot leaf before.
Speaker 2: I mean I thought it was funny, but like, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I couldn't do that. You got anything else,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Easy bake oven.
Speaker 2: Mac and cheese you can bake. Oh. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and three they they introduced the real meal oven, and
Speaker 2: you could That's when you could do like French fries
Speaker 2: and pizza and mac and cheese and stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that was the predecessor to the ceramic heating
Speaker 1: element that they eventually read the easy Bacon in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six.
Speaker 2: Good stuff, good stuff.
Speaker 1: If you want a nice blast in the past, just
Speaker 1: type in like easy bake oven commercials. There's one from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty that was just perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Was it rad?
Speaker 1: No? It was pre rad. Okay, it was like Carpenter's era, Gotcha,
Speaker 1: which was not rad but still lovely. Yes. I love
Speaker 1: the Carpenters me too. Well, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about easy bake ovens or the Carpenters or the
Speaker 1: Snoopy snowcom machine, just go onto the internet. It's a
Speaker 1: vast repository of stuff like that. And since I said
Speaker 1: that it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, I'm a freelance writer who works remotely, so
Speaker 2: I've been writing and traveling the world for the past
Speaker 2: year and a half. It's been wild. Since I've been
Speaker 2: traveling alone, it can get lonely, but from Mexico City
Speaker 2: to Bali to Tokyo, you guys have been with me,
Speaker 2: keeping me company, making me laugh, teach me all kinds
Speaker 2: of cool facts. As a content writer, I also feel
Speaker 2: a connection to y'all. We both have to research seemingly
Speaker 2: mundane topics sometimes and discover the cool interesting things about them,
Speaker 2: present them in a palatable way. People sometimes laugh when
Speaker 2: I'm telling them I'm writing something like the history of
Speaker 2: the eg McMuffin or the best month to buy a mattress.
Speaker 2: But I just point to your podcast as a sterling
Speaker 2: example of how gems and surprises lie within even the
Speaker 2: most unassuming topics.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Have you guys ever considered doing a show on digital
Speaker 2: nomadding never? I know it's becoming increasingly popular. Is more
Speaker 2: companies race remote working. I'm in a cafe and Madeline, Madaine,
Speaker 2: Columbia right now, and there are five digital nomads tapping
Speaker 2: away in their laptops as we speak.
Speaker 1: They would beat me up if they knew I'd just
Speaker 1: referred to them as digital nomads.
Speaker 2: The future is location independent. I say, thanks again for
Speaker 2: being so awesome. It's a short term dream of mine
Speaker 2: to digital nomad over to a country where you're doing
Speaker 2: a live show by you guys, a drink awesome. If
Speaker 2: you do read this on the air, please give a
Speaker 2: shout out to Mark Alexander, who insisted that I keep
Speaker 2: listening to you guys, even after I was initially slightly
Speaker 2: turned off by all of your sides and.
Speaker 1: Off tracking happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And that's funny because we had a lot of those today.
Speaker 1: You know. That reminds me of a totally unrelated story.
Speaker 2: She says, Now I very much learned to appreciate those.
Speaker 2: He would burst into tears and I would too, So
Speaker 2: thank you, Mark Alexander for turning on your friend. Maria
Speaker 2: Christina Laedonde.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, beautiful name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, Lalonde Leonde, Maria Christina Lalonde.
Speaker 1: And I hope that your buddy did just burst out
Speaker 1: into tears. That'd be amazing, pretty neat. Thanks for that. Email.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can find us on the web. But stuff Youshould Know
Speaker 1: dot com check out our social links there, and if
Speaker 1: you like, send an email to stuff Podcasts at houstuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
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