Top 10 Famous Toys (That Started Out As Something Completely Different)

The first use of an infrared light and sensor system in toy form dates back to phaser guns put out in correspondence with the release of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” in 1979. However, the origins of laser tag began miles away from kids’ birthday parties and boys' nights out. And we mean that literally - given that it began with the military’s Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, aka MILES. Rather than train with real bullets, the US Army developed this laser tag system as a form of combat training for their soldiers in the late 70s and early 80s. It was in 1984 when we saw the opening of the first laser tag arena.

Harry and Patricia Kislevitz were artists in 1951 when a friend of theirs who made handbags gave them a roll of vinyl he didn’t want anymore. What the Kislevitz’ discovered was that pieces of the vinyl would stick to their bathroom walls and could easily be removed and repositioned. They even left pieces in the bathroom for guests to use in creating wall art. Seeing how much fun they and their friends had with it the couple decided that they had an actual commercial product on their hands. And they were obviously right, as over one billion Colorform sets have been sold.

Trench Foot was a serious problem for soldiers in WWI who spent long hours, days, and weeks with their feet in cold, damp, and less than sanitary conditions. It’s estimated that over 75,000 British casualties in the war can be directly related to the condition. Well, in the decades after the conflict, British inventor Edgar Ellington made it his mission to create a waterproof sock using latex and cotton that would protect soldiers from the aforementioned trench foot. Needless to say, the invention didn’t work and started leaking water - which caused an angry Ellington to throw it down onto the table. The ensuing explosion caught his attention and led to the first marketed water balloons - which Ellington called “water grenades” at the time.

Could a Wall Street stock trader survive in the woods against a seasoned outdoorsman? That’s what stock trader Hayes Noel and outdoorsman Charles Gaines wanted to find out in 1981. The men saw a paint gun in a farm catalog and decided that would be the way to settle the argument. Why a farm catalog? Well, that’s because paint guns were originally invented to be used by ​​loggers and cattlemen to mark trees and cows from a distance. There was never any thought of paint guns and paintballs being used on people, but after Noel and Gaines went at it, the path toward human paintball competition was inevitable.

A “dustless chalkboard.” That was the original idea behind what would become the Magna Doodle (you know, that thing hanging on the door of Joey and Chandler’s apartment on “Friends”). The Pilot Corporation of Japan (yes, the guys that make the pens) wanted to create a “dustless chalkboard” that could be used by company employees in sterile environments. However, when someone visiting from the Takara Toy Company asked about purchasing the “toy,” Pilot had their lightbulb moment and switched gears - creating the product on a vastly larger scale, marketing it to kids, and calling it Magna Doodle.

During World War II rubber was scarce and a vital component of many wartime necessities from tires to gas masks. So, while the American government asked its citizens to ration rubber, they also put money into finding synthetic rubber compounds to solve the shortage. While the credit for Silly Putty might be in dispute, there’s no disputing the fact that it came out of synthetic rubber research. It might sound obvious now, but what a couple of researchers found - acting independently - is that mixing boric acid with silicone oil produced the now iconic bouncy, stretchable material. It wasn’t quite good enough to replace rubber, but it was perfect for… whatever Silly Putty is good for.

One day in 1982 NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson was at home working on his idea for an environmentally friendly cooling system. In testing his invention he connected a high-pressure nozzle to the faucet in his bathroom and turned it on. How that had anything to do with a cooling system isn’t important. What is important is the hard stream of water that came out of the nozzle that day. Because when Johnson saw that, he didn’t just see water, he saw great toy potential. After years of working on prototypes, in 1990, the Super Soaker was born. Well, actually it was originally called Power Drencher, but the name was changed to Super Soaker in 1991.

It was 1972 and Leonard Fish and Robert Cox were working on their invention for a spray-on cast. To get their creation just right they had to find the perfect nozzle. Well, they ended up testing upwards of 500 different nozzles to find the one they needed. During the testing process, they came across one nozzle that created a fun string that would fly across the room. It didn’t take them long to recognize the toyetic potential - and with a little tweak of the formula (to make it less sticky), Silly String was born.

We’d love to tell you that Play-Doh was invented by Homer Simpson (get it? Doh!). But it wasn’t. It was invented in the 1930s by Noah McVicker - who created the non-toxic putty as a wallpaper cleaner. Then in the 1950s nursery school teacher Kay Zufall read an article about how the aforementioned putty could be used for art projects. Well, the kids loved it. And guess who Zufall’s brother-in-law was? If you guessed ​​Noah McVicker’s son Joe… you’re right. Zufall encouraged the McVickers to produce the compound for children and she and her husband came up with the name Play-Doh.

Everyone knows the lyrics to the Slinky song right? “Slinky, slinky/It's such a wonderful way to stabilize a ship's equipment in rough waters.” Okay, so that isn’t how the famous jingle goes - but it does describe what inventor Richard James was working on when he happened upon the Slinky. After accidentally knocking one of his stabilizer springs off of a shelf and seeing how it “walked” along the floor, James knew he had a cool toy in his hands. He spent the next few years finding the best metal and the perfect proportions and his wife came up with the name Slinky. Sales were slow at first, but after James did a demonstration at a local store the shelves emptied quickly.

Which of these famous toy origin stories surprised you the most?