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Lord of the Rings pinball machine, 2003. The Strong, Rochester, New York. Pinball Playfields has a machine for everyone, and there’s always fun to be had. Part I highlighted a number of older machines, classics in their own rite. Part II contains a series of more modern machines, many of them from the exhibit’s generous sponsor, the Stern Pinball Company. The Lord of the … [Read more...] about Pinball Playfields: A Flippin’ Fun Time, Part II

The Toy Association will host a live, online event on February 22 at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. It is vital that toy industry members attend. Let your thoughts be known, no matter which side of the issue you land on, on this critical question: Should Toy Fair move out of New York City? Click here to attend the meeting. Passcode: 557917. … [Read more...] about Attend The Toy Association Annual Meeting and Speak Your Mind

If it moves, Toy Fair will become impermanent, and impermanence is where irrelevance begins. As you have learned by now, The Toy Association is considering moving Toy Fair out of New York. The first Toy Fair took place in 1903, and I do not believe that thought has ever been given to moving the show to a different city. Each year I publish a piece I wrote entitled … [Read more...] about Keep Toy Fair in The Big Apple!

Minnie and the Green M&M will more than likely change in the years to come, and a once hip generation will mourn. The Walt Disney Company has decided to bring Minnie Mouse’s clothes “up-to-date” with a new pantsuit designed by Stella McCartney. What would seem to be an innocuous decision has, in some quarters, drawn anger. Check out this world’s longest headline from … [Read more...] about Minnie Mouse’s Pantsuit Provokes Outrage (I can’t make this stuff up)

Ocean Shipping Lines Are Buying Cargo Planes One of the world’s biggest cargo shipping companies (they own over 1,000 cargo ships), Maersk, has decided to buy cargo planes and start shipping cargo by air. They are not the only shipping company to do so. That’s according to a Wall Street Journal article by Costas Paris, “Why the World’s Biggest Ocean Shipping Lines Are … [Read more...] about Disruption Report #44, More Cargo Planes, No End in Site for Supply Chain Snarls, and a New Way to Source in Mexico

6 post-pandemic predictions about how cities will be different going forward – Rice Kinder Institute for Urban Research Tariffs, Supply Snarls Spur Search for Factories Closer to U.S. – Bloomberg News Playing to win: are Mattel movies about to take over Hollywood? – The Guardian What We Can Learn From How the 1918 Pandemic Ended – New York Times Is 2022 the year of … [Read more...] about Richard Gottlieb’s Curated List of Recommended Reading

Ladies’ Guide to Football (cover), 1966, The Strong, Rochester, New York, USA. A recent addition to The Strong museum’s collection got me thinking about how gender intersects with professional football and what’s changed (or hasn’t) since the mid-1960s. The item that caught my eye was a 1966 promotional booklet from Birds Eye frozen foods. Titled “Ladies’ Guide to … [Read more...] about Ditch the “Ladies’ Guide to Football” and Get in the Game

​​Click here to listen to this episode In the second of their conversations recorded last November at The Strong Museum of Play in Rochesters, NY, Richard and Chris talk with games curator Nicolas Ricketts. Listen in as they talk about the histories of some of the games in the collection. From great stories about how the games were acquired to their impact on the culture, … [Read more...] about The Strong Museum of Play: Game On

John Baulch is, without a doubt, the most informative and entertaining observer of the British toy industry. John recently promoted, attended, and wrote about the U.K. Toy Fair, one of the few trade shows of any kind to take place in 2021, for his magazine, Toyworld. John Baulch It is with John’s permission, that I am publishing his account here in Global Toy … [Read more...] about The U.K. Toy Fair As Reported by Toy World’s John Baulch

And Now There’s a Cardboard Box Shortage Yes, there is a shortage of one of those elements in the supply-chain that we take for granted – cardboard boxes. According to “The History of the Cardboard Box:” The first corrugated cardboard box manufactured in the US was in 1895. By the early 1900s, wooden crates and boxes were being replaced by corrugated paper shipping … [Read more...] about Disruption Report #43 – Customer Returns Up 6%, a Cardboard Box Shortage and Wages Increase 4%