WEBVTT - Selects: How Easy Bake Ovens Work 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.920 Hi, everybody, it's Chuck here on a Saturday. I'm not 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:05.400 gonna be weird this week, I promise you. I'm gonna 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.520 take you back in time though, to November, because this 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.280 is one of our episodes on famous toys. We love 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.600 doing these apps, their nostalgia bombs for everyone that listens. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.760 And this is all about the easy Bake Oven. That's 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:26.160 why it's called how Easy Bake Oven's work. Welcome to 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:35.520 Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.160 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.160 Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Ramsey over there. The usual, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.120 which means it's time for Stuff you Should Know. A 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:52.599 nostalgia edition. Colen T. S Hodgman. Yeah, we've done a 0:00:52.600 --> 0:01:01.800 few toys. Um plato Uh, slinkys right, what else? Well 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.839 does a boomerang count as a toy? Uh? It's away 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.559 alive mate. Um. We've done tons, we did silly putty, 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.160 silly putty, we did um uh you know a bunch 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.759 that the balls. Yeah, the balls the balls episode How 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.959 Balls Work? They round and they bounced. We said balls 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.920 like a million times in that episode. Uh. Yeah, this 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.560 one's kind of cool. Though, the easy bake oven, which 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:31.240 I never had one. Did you ever have one in 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:33.959 your home? I don't think so. No. I don't think 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.440 my sister had one either, although I was a pretty 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.000 tubby kid, so it's possible that my mom was like, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.240 make sure your brother doesn't know you have one of those. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.080 Do not feed your brother anything from there. But it's 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.800 interesting that this is one where uh, sort of a 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.640 very simple idea and you never can tell what's gonna 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.880 hit toy wise, nothing super complex about this other than 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.360 you could literally bake food and sort of pretend to 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.480 be an adult in the kitchen. That's that was the 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.880 basis of it. Being an adult. That was kind of 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.720 Kenner's thing. And Kenner, the people who made Star Wars toys, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.679 were the ones behind this, and they were very much 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.919 into um toys that like let kids pretend they were 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.720 growing ups. Yeah, that was their bag. Yeah. I have 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:27.360 a new neighbor. Actually, shout out to Rick Kathy. Hey, guys, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.880 where they really got into your skin? Huh? What? Rick 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.080 and Cathy got a shout out on the podcast and 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.560 their new neighbors. Jeez. Yeah, because he worked for I 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.560 was talking to him and I was like, he seems 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:39.800 like a good guy. He was like, what you know, 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:41.720 what do you do? Ricky's retired? Now what did you do? 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.800 And He's like, I was a toy and action figure 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.160 designer for Kenner And I was like, wow, whoa what years? 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.600 He came on after his first The first thing he 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.280 worked on was the Tim Burton Batman movies. Nice and 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.320 he stayed on for a long time, like his whole career, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.640 like after they were sold and everything pretty that is 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.560 very cool. Yeah, good for him. Yeah, so he still 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.920 does wonderful uh sculpture. So I'll bet just go after 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.799 Rick Watkins art online and then check it out. I'm 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:14.840 gonna I'm going to check it out. But I mean, 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.600 Kenneda is such a big deal to like two people 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.480 our age and of many ages. But I didn't realize 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.120 that they didn't realize their origin as a company. Remember 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.480 that we talked. We did a whole action figures episode, remember, 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.400 and we talked a lot about Kenner. Was that a 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.440 two part episode or was it just like an hour 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.840 and a half long? It was very long, but um, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.600 Kenner almost didn't do the Star Wars ones if I remember, 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.920 But for us at least that put Kenna on the map. 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.400 What I didn't realize is that Kenner was already on 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.800 the map as far as toys go. And one of 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:51.760 the ways that they got there was from the Easy 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:56.440 Bake Oven, which debuted in November of nineteen, right around 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.280 the time that John Kennedy was shot. Yeah, but Kenner 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.120 had been around since the nineteen forties. Um Albert Philip 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.400 and Joseph steiner Um formed the company after, as legend goes, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.360 one of them saw a bubble you know, maker bubble 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.240 wand or whatever you call him, and it was like, hey, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.800 if I could do a gun that shoots bubbles, we 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.000 might be onto something. And that was our very first product, 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.919 is the bubble Matic Gun, and then whatever, less than 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.080 twenty years later, the Easy Bake Oven. Even though, as 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:32.159 we learned today and yesterday, there had been toy ovens 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.599 since like the Victorian days. Yes, like really really dangerous 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.599 I know, like real real little ovens like wood burning 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.960 pellet solid fuel stoves made of cast iron that were 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.920 sized down for little kids to you. Yeah, basically like 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.359 here's the oven that can kill your parents. We'll just 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.400 make a smaller one they can kill you. Yeah. Um. Yeah, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:03.280 So the children's play oven function play oven um history 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.240 very kind of closely tracks the real oven history, right 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.479 Like when there were cast iron, wood burning ovens, there 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.320 were kids versions of them. As they as real ovens 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:18.320 moved into electric ovens, there were kids versions of them. Apparently, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.360 UM Lionel the train the model trainmakers, they made some 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.080 in the thirties. Also, we want to give a shout 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.760 out to Lisa Hicks and the people at Collectors Weekly 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.920 for a great article we also used for this episode two. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.640 But um in the thirties there were electric ovens. By 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:42.400 the forties or fifties, I think there were fiberglass insulated ovens, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.520 electric ovens. It was just like a small oven for kids, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:51.960 but they were ovens. They were extremely dangerous. And Um 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.359 Kenner had this really great idea and the reason that 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.200 this idea came about at Kenna to begin with, So 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:03.000 apparently Kenner was really big on having like ideas could 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.080 come from anywhere. Anybody in the company float an idea 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.920 and people would listen. And they had like regular meetings 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.719 where you know, there were bull sessions. Maybe they ordered 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.440 some like chow Maine or something like that. Everyone rolled 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.800 up their sleeves and relaxed and and spat out ideas, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.159 and one of the salesman from Kenner came back in 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.640 from the field and said, you know what, I saw something. 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.400 I saw some pretzel vendors keeping their pretzels warm on 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.200 the street using a lightbulb. What if we used a 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.520 light bulb to heat up an oven for the little 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:41.320 kiddies And somebody, I think Charles House, Ralph House, well, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.359 Norman Shapiro was that gentleman, and then Ronald House. Ronald 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:50.680 House was the big time inventor for Kinner, who had 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.479 a couple of like really big products under his belt, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.479 and he was like that that's an ace's idea. That's 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.359 exactly how we talked. Probably everyone hated him for it, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:03.800 but he was really good at inventing toy so they 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:05.760 had to put up with that. Yeah, but Kinner's deal, 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.080 like you were saying, was find things that mimic adult things. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.400 And that's like kind of I bet like kids are 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.840 gonna dig that stuff. And they did from like and 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.440 kids still do little toy lawnmowers and toy bulldozers. And 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:21.960 I mean, Ruby's got a little cleaning set with like 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.360 a duster and a dust pan and a mop and 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.240 she she o C D no, But I mean all 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.080 the time she will say, you know, come on, daddy, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:32.880 let's clean, and she'll hand me a mop. That's a 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.440 little low c D. Well, no, that's good then, yeah, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.240 I like where she said it. Did you have one 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.400 of those um plastic safety razors so you could shave 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.080 next to your dad? No? I did, but I was 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.280 I think a lot of boys are pretty obsessed with 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:49.760 shaving before they have whiskers, and I think I heard 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.040 that they would actually stimulate hair growth. And I was 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.760 about to say, I remember being worried about that. Yeah, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.600 because I didn't have I had a pretty I mean, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.080 looking at me now, you would never know, but I 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.160 didn't have a lot of facial hair going on until 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.480 well into college. Was it like lacking or did it 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.920 come in patchy just a little bit, sort of like 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.200 my brother is now. He just stayed in that phase 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.640 where your brother's got a perfect chiseled face. Well, I 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.320 know that's because he doesn't have a beard, but um, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.960 Scott can grow a pretty decent gotee now, but I don't. 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:22.800 I don't think he could grow the full beard, but 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.800 his his was. We were both spotty like a little 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.600 bit above the lip, a little bit on the chin. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.760 One part just kind of trace to line up to 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.920 your eye from around from under your nose. Yeah, but 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:36.559 I mean it was sort of a family thing. We're 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.840 not Harry dudes. We don't have very hairy legs or 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.080 it is odd that you have a full beard, like 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.920 I don't have hairy arms or anything like that. Your 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.200 your beast. I don't know if beasts is the right word. 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.320 But yes, I'm a little hairy. You're a Harry guy. 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.200 My chest hair definitely plucks out from under my shirt. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.160 Have you ever done any like a laser or anything 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.559 like that? Yeah, good for you. No, I'm just I'm Harry. No, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:01.760 I mean your normal. It's not like you're Robin Williams. 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.200 Yeah he was airy, Yes he was, God rest his soul. Yes, indeed. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.360 So back to the ovens. So, um, the idea has 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.320 been put out there now by Norman Shapiro, Yes, yeah, okay, so, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.079 and it was taken up by Ronald House and this 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.839 was this was huge and groundbreaking because again there were 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.280 safe there were um unsafe ovens for kids that have 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.240 been around since the nineteenth century. What these guys had 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.120 just happened upon was the way to make another unsafe 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.800 oven seems safe to parents. That was That was it. 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.280 That was the genius of this idea. That is what 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.920 made easy bake ovens take off. What they had figured 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.640 out was that if they used a light bulb as 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.640 the heating element, and believe me, a lightbulb can can 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.720 heat up an oven um Yeah, up to three fifty 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.520 which is a common baking jump. Yes, from a light bulb. 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:58.720 And actually at first as we'll see a pair of 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.160 light bulbs, but the fact is they're light bulbs and 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.040 parents are familiar with light bulbs. They don't seem weird 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.520 or scary. It's not a wood pellet. And the fact 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.240 that it's not like a heating element like in an 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.160 actual oven, it's just a light bulb. That is what 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.440 they used to convince parents that this was a safe 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.640 product that they could buy for their kids. It was 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.079 a genius idea, it really was. And like you tease 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.720 a second ago, the very first model, and if you 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:26.679 look at that very first one, it doesn't really even 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.800 look like an oven. Well certainly the new one doesn't either. No. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:32.839 I did go online. I was like, maybe I should 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.120 get one of those, But they're ugly now they I'm 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.880 sorry to the person who designed them. Yes, I'm glad 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.720 you said it. They're ugly little ovens. Yeah, they should 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:43.839 kind of go back to looking more classic. I think 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.480 it would be my advice. Um. But they used to 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:53.840 one incandescent bulbs at first, one over the top and 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.520 another under the bottom. Obviously they were trying to get 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.160 an even heat because you're baking things, right, and and 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.760 they very wisely designed this thing, um so that the 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:08.360 actual oven part was basically inaccessible to the kid on 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:14.079 either side. So just imagine a box. Um. Okay, oh man, 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.719 here's the way. It's my favorite thing when you try 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.000 to describe something. Let me see if I if I 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:24.240 close my eyes, it works. Uh. Imagine a box and 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.400 then coming out from either side of the box or 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:31.559 a couple of little little arms. But the arms are 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:37.319 half arms, and they're rectangular and hollow, and they're actually openings. 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.480 One opening, you slide in the uncooked thing that you 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.480 want to bake into the heating area of the oven, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.280 let it bake, and you push it through the other 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.839 the other side, the cooling chamber, and then it comes 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.560 out the other arm. Everyone Josh has had his eyes 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.559 closed that entire time, and it worked. I really painted 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.960 a great picture in your mind's eye. M yes, uh yeah, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.560 so that's what what's going on. You had the two bulbs, 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.360 um and in fact, let's go ahead and take a 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.559 break there. Okay, nice litt Cliffhanger. When we come back, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.960 I'll redescribe the easy bake oven again. It sounds good, 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.640 all right. We were at one bulb, right, yeah, I'm sorry, No, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.960 we were at two bulbs so long ago I couldn't remember. 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.720 I know there was a full ada. But then what 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.160 they did was they figured if they just engineered this 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.679 thing to distribute heat and whole heat a little better, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.400 almost like a convection of it. Yeah, exactly, like a 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.120 convection of him, that they could go down to one bulb. Yeah. 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:59.360 There was a dude named Charles hold On, I really 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.280 want to Yeah, Charles Cummings, Charles one bulb Cummings. Yeah, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.920 that's what he was known as. Charles Cummings was a 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.120 designer at Kenner and I think in the late seventies. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.880 He designed the interior of the oven so that the 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.560 bulb one bulb created confection current, so it cooked just 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.680 as well as two bold, but you just needed one. 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:25.320 Um and he owns the patent to that, which is 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.960 the way it should be. Yeah, he was the design 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.480 He came up with this pretty rare to Kennor. Of course, 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:32.760 I'm sure had an exclusive license to it, but I'm 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.280 sure he got like a decent amount of money from 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.040 that license agreement. That is the way it should be. 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.079 He also created the patent um Or he held the 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.600 patent for the add on popcorn maker that you could 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.960 put onto the easy bake oven. Too good for him, 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.800 good for you. Charles Cummings, Charles one bulb Cummings. He 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.360 probably lives on top of the mountain somewhere and on 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.760 a mountain of money. Uh so, all right, you're down 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.960 to one bulb thanks to Charlie Cummings. They initially wanted 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.000 to call this in nineteen sixty three when it was 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.199 two bulbs within debut. Yeah, right out of the gate, 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.040 they wanted to call it November of sixty three the 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.840 Safety Bake Oven, because they really wanted to drive this 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.479 home was that it was super safe, and the regulatory 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.200 bodies were like you can't. You haven't even sold one yet, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.000 Like we don't, We're not sure if this is going 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.160 to kill kids. You burned a dozen monkeys during the 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.720 product testing trial. Oh that's so awful. Um, but you 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.760 can't call it that yet because we don't know yet 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.280 whether it's truly safe. Go ahead and sell them, but 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.320 just don't still call it safe the safety bake oven. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.960 So they're like, well, what about easy? And they're like, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.920 are we still talking about this, We're done with you, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.840 go away and um they said. They were like, okay, fine, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.160 we'll call it the easy Bake Oven then, and they 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.480 sold it as the Easy Bake Oven and it sold 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.200 out immediately. They sold it, so November is right before 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.320 the Christmas season, actually in the Christmas season, I think 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.600 even back then, and they made a little more than 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.000 half a million units and told them all, like before Christmas, yeah, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.840 for which is expensive. That would be about a hundred 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.720 and thirty dollars today. No, yeah, that's a that's an 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:10.800 expensive toy. Wow. And if you look at the thing. 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:12.600 I saw a picture of one that's for sale on 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.240 eBay for really cheap. I think it was like thirty 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.160 bucks or something. Really it was unused in the box, 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.880 still needed to be assembled. But if you look at it, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:23.880 You're like, that thing looks like a death trap. It 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:27.320 looks like the four pinto of children's toys from the sixties, 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.560 you know, like the sharp metal edges. Yeah, you're like, like, 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.240 that's what it looks like, like like the baby strollers 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.560 we were pushed around. Yeah. Remember that that Dana Kroyd 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.200 SNLS get from years ago with the dangerous Christmas toys, 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:45.600 And there was one called the Bag of Glass so great, uh, 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:47.640 and that's all it was just a bag of shards 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.320 of glass. So yeah, they sold a half a million 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.480 and then they're like, we gotta make a lot more 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.520 of these for next year. Yeah, because this is back 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.480 at a time when toys didn't do that very often. 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.240 You know, it's like every Christmas now people are like, well, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.680 what's the toy we should go fight other parents for 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.080 tell us? Yeah, because I'm training in the ring. This 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.400 is when it right. This is when it happened organically, 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.040 when you put out a toy and if it became 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.600 like the fight worthy toy, that was a few and 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.000 far between things. The easy Bake oven was the fight 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.160 worthy toy right out of the gate. Yeah. So in 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.280 year two, I think they made about one point five 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.440 million sold all those and here was here's the little 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.440 bit of genius from Kenner is Uh, anytime you can 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.120 sell a supplementary product to the big thing, then you're 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:39.040 really cooking with gasnically Gilette Razor model. I think it 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.560 was King Gilette who came up with that. Yeah, So 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.040 what they did was they sold uh mixes, you know, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.200 these little instant mixes that you would pour and it 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.640 would make a little creddit cake. And they had twenty 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.760 five of these at first, And we're selling those like 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:57.480 crazy because if you're a kid. If if you're a kid, 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.960 you want all those, you're like, well, I haven't try 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 the strawberry cake yet. Plus also, it's a it's not 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.080 like you're putting this in like a book like some 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:07.840 baseball cars, and you're like, well, I've got this one. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.640 I don't need. You eat that thing and you need 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.080 another thing to replace it, and you poop it out 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.440 and you're not gonna eat the poop again. You're going 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.480 to go buy another one. And that was the genius 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.640 of the other genius idea of this whole thing. There 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.440 was a third genius idea to Kenna did this so right? 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:31.560 Not just no, the advertising. So remember this is kids 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:37.320 emulating grown ups. That was their thing, um it. They 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.080 advertised not just two kids through like archies comics, but 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.639 they advertised directly to their parents too. There were ads 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.320 for the easy Bake Oven on I Love Lucy and 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.160 on Hogan's Heroes. According to This This Collector's Weekly article, and 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.600 in these ads, if you look at a lot of 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.920 old ads and even some of the newer ads too 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.480 for easy bake Oven, it's a mom and a daughter, right, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.320 and the parent is like, oh, this is something we 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.840 can do together. I love baking. It's basically my whole life. 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.399 I live in nine and I'm a woman, so I 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:12.880 would love to share that with my daughter. Maybe she's 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.359 old enough to have an easy bake oven herself. And 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.600 that definitely helped propel sales for sure, because it's not 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.119 just kids going on an easy bake Oven, it's the 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.439 parents going that'd be a great thing to do with 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.800 my kid. Yeah. And of course, as people evolved and 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.480 people became more woke over time, even though that word 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:34.520 wasn't used, um enlightened, maybe it became a bit of 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.119 a problem with gender roles and like this is for 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.160 moms and daughters their pink and that's what you're supposed 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.480 to do, is be in the kitchen baking for the men. Yeah, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.600 I mean very famously, the easy bake ovens always ended 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.760 with the disclaimer like this toy is not for boys. Yeah, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.560 it didn't really, but essentially it was like that was this, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.120 that was what was coming through. And the weird thing 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.760 is is far as as like legendary iconic a toy 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:07.760 as the easy bake oven was as gender roles and um, yeah, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.840 as gender roles evolved, I mean this was we're talking 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.200 like the early seventies when this really started to become 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.280 like a thing. The easy bake oven did not evolve 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.119 with it. As we will see. It wasn't until the 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.760 like early two thousand's that they started to like respond 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:24.880 to that kind of thing. And I saw an ad 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.480 for two thousand fourteen not a boy in sight, all 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:33.399 girls and um it just dancing around like the girliest 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.439 easy bake oven you could possibly imagine. They actually got 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.919 more girly as time went on and more girl focused. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.320 Um as gender roles went on, which is really weird 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:50.240 to me, not just non responsive but almost like no, 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.760 we're going the opposite way. Yeah, And then early two 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.879 thousands Hasbro who uh you know, they bought out Kenner, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.199 eventually makers of the classic Snoopye snowcob machine. I never 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:01.960 had one of those. You have one of those? No 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.280 neighbor did, okay, um, but you got to eat some 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.120 of that sweet see sugar ice. There was nothing like 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.000 the taste of I think the cherry one, I can't remember, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.680 but it was just the greatest snow cone you could 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.720 possibly have. And that's until you had a shave ice 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.920 later and you're like, oh, this is a lot better still. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.280 Number one raining champ really Number two is blue raspberry 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.119 slush Puppy. Yeah. See what I would always do was 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.120 um slurp that sweet liquid and that would be left 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.840 with just some faintly colored kind of just ice. Oh yeah, no, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.880 I know. It was the problem with it for sure, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.760 But if you did it right and you just kind 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.480 of let it settle, you got you know, through the 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.000 nasty stuff first when you got to the bottom, then 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.960 you got to the true like hyper hyper dense snow 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.880 cone experience. Yeah. I could never do that. I'd still 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.200 have problems regulating my like hot fudged to ice cream 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.560 ratio when eating a Sunday. Oh yeah, I just won't 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.480 even do it anymore. So you do all the hot 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.760 fudge first, and then you're left to some crutty ice cream. Yep, 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.960 that's I mean, that's standard creuddy delicious ice cream, right 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.760 this ice cream. That's some people around the world would 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.560 kill for his cud. He doesn't have any more fudge, dude. 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.679 I've been on a fifteen year campaign to convince Emily 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.119 that vanilla ice cream is like a legit flavor. I 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.639 think she's she still thinks that vanilla ice cream is 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.240 just like unflavored ice meal. Yeah, it's like it's the 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.560 one without the flavor added. Right now, vanilla is it 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.240 really delicious? It is? It is. It's subtle vanilla bean 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.880 ice cream like true flex so good. So in early 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.000 two thousand, they finally, like you said, tried in a 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.880 very ham fisted way to get boys involved with the 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.280 the que you easy bake queasy bake is that what 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.680 it is? Took me a second to because Q uses 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:53.240 separate word. So okay, now, so the queasy bake oven 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.840 and the mixer rader for you boys, you can make 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.320 mud and crud cakes and the lar delicious cocoon keys, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.320 and you know, not like, hey, just bake something good 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:08.959 because anyone can bake. Yeah, anyone can bake. And they 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.040 didn't like the girls don't don't use that one. Yeah, 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.159 it was it was only boys that showed up in 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.840 these ads. They're like, we really need to get boys involved. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.960 How can we do that? Oh, we'll make one specifically 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.719 four boys. That's like they're making cruddy cakes. I mean, 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.400 I know they're just trying to sell stuff, but when 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:27.600 in these meetings, in these marketing meetings that you just 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:29.960