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