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Toy of the Century
Sponsored by Intertek
Testing Services
Lego is TOY OF THE CENTURY...
The Council of the BATR has chosen Lego as the winner of
the BATR Toy of the Century awards. It beat the teddy bear,
Action man and Barbie. From plastic interlocking building
bricks to bricks with implanted microchips to theme parks,
Lego was seen as having made a major contribution to children's
play over the last 100 years.
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LEGO
Ole Kirk Christiansen started his Lego toy company in Denmark
in 1932. Lego means 'play well' in Danish. (leg godt). Later
he discovered Lego in Latin means 'to put together'. Lego
bricks went on sale in the UK in 1955. The international
success of Lego is now the stuff of legends. Besides the
simple Duplo bricks for youngsters, the range extends to
Mindstorms, where dedicated bricks have imbedded microchips
to create robots which can be controlled over the Internet!
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| Game of the Century
MONOPOLY (Hasbro)
In the USA in 1933, Charles Darrow devised Monopoly. The
patent was filed 31st August 1935 while the game was on
sale in America. Based on an earlier game, The Landlord's
Game, it was at first rejected by Parker Bros., as being
too complicated to be a success. How wrong could they be!
It came to the UK in 1936, made under licence by Waddingtons.
Darrow died in 1967 having realised he had developed one
of the most successful board games of all times.
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| Craze of the Century
YO YO (photo courtesy of www.yoyoguy.com)
Rediscovered by Frank Duncan in Los Angeles in 1929 when
he saw waiters originally from the Philippines demonstrating
their traditional toy. The Yo-Yo can be traced back to ancient
Greece - in the Philippines it was a weapon (like a boomerang)
for hunting and war until later it became a sporting item
and a plaything. To promote his product, Duncan used celebrities
such as Mary Pickford and Bing Crosby (who sang 'My Little
Yo-Yo). In 1930 Frank Duncan brought over demonstrators
to Europe to play the music halls. The craze started to
spread all over the world, and seems to be frequently revived.
Last year the UK toy retailers sold yo-yos worth over £30m. |
The awards were presented at the BATR Awards Dinner held
on Sunday 30th January 2000 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel,
London attended by 600 guests representing all aspects of
the toy industry.
Click here to see the shortlist. |
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