#Molded plastic playsets 1960s cracker#

The hotplate was replaced with a light bulb in style similar to an Easy-Bake Oven. In an attempt to conform to more modern safety concerns of the period several product changes were incorporated to improve safety over the Mattel product. The ToyMax product is similar in concept to the Mattel product. ToyMax (Cedarhurst, NY) produced a similar product called the 'VAC-U-FORMER' in the early 1990s with the trademark filed on April 24, 1992. Mattel's VAC-U-FORM toy is well made and many are still in use today both as a toy and for small size part production in conjunction with other hobbies such as making R/C aircraft cowling and other parts.īecause very hot surfaces were easily accessible to a child (or adult) playing with the toy, it probably could not be sold today due to safety restrictions. Plastic refill sheets came in a variety of colors. In actual use almost any small object that could withstand the temperature of the heated plastic sheet for a few seconds could be used as a mold.

Several expansion kits were also available for molding various other shapes. When the plastic cooled it solidified, making an impression of the item. Then quickly and repeatedly pressing down on a spring-loaded handle on the side of the unit created a vacuum, sucking the plastic down over the mold and shaping it to it. When the plastic was soft, the holder was swung to the other side, over a mold of the object to be formed. īased on the industrial process of vacuum forming, a rectangular piece of plastic was clamped in a holder and heated over a metal plate. The Vac-u-form, was a toy invented by Eddy Goldfarb and released by Mattel in the 1960s around 1961 with the trademark filed on October 8, 1962. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Today, plastic toys remain a strong industry component, but the need to keep retail prices down has shifted most of their production to lower-wage parts of the world, especially China.This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Mattel's Barbie doll and LEGO's building blocks have created an inexhaustible variety of offerings that, a half-century later, still sell millions of products a year. Adaptable and sturdy polyethylene (hula-hoops, Little Tikes) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (LEGO blocks) provided an ever-growing range of toys and games. Older children and adults took up model-building, snapping and gluing together plastic parts to make cars, ships and airplanes.ĭecade by decade plastic toys displaced traditional materials such as cloth, wood, and metal.

#Molded plastic playsets 1960s cracker#

Millions of small toys produced by entrepreneurs Islyn Thomas, Louis Marx, and others, flooded five-and-dime stores and turned up in Cracker Jack and cereal boxes. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was developed in the 1930s and was used in dolls, balls, and soft toys, while newer machines made possible faster and profitable cellulose acetate and polystyrene injection molding, turning plastic powder and pellets into millions of toy cars, trucks, toy soldiers, model trains, and more. The baby boom provided millions of children as potential customers accessible through the new medium of television advertising. A century ago realistic blow-molded cellulose nitrate toys were mass produced with realistic details and in large quantities - but they were fragile and flammable! The development of durable and easily-moldable plastics and the metal shortage of the 1940s triggered the plastic toy revolution of the post-World War II years, when deprived of the military market, producers shifted production to consumer goods.