SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: Etch A Sketch!

The Etch A Sketch is yet another classic toy that Josh and Chuck love and respect. Learn all about this Hall of Fame entry today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:07Josh Clark?

  Hey, everyone. It's time for our episode on Etch A Sketch, the little tablet that you could draw on using two dials for some reason, and then when you made a masterpiece, you would shake it up and start over again. Or if you're a real jerk, you could shake up someone else's masterpiece when they weren't ready to shake it up yet. This is a good one. I guess all of our toy episodes were good ones, so it goes without saying, but it is a good one.

• 1:36Josh Clark?

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

• 1:46Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chucky Bryant, and there's Jerry, the delicious dish Roland.

• 1:58Josh Clark?

  And this is stuff you should know, the vintage nostalgia edition that went off to China and then got sold to a different company edition.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  So do you wanna, I have a rough list of classic toys we've covered. You wanna hear it?

• 2:12Josh Clark?

  Oh, lay it on me, Charles.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  I'm sure I've missed something, but it did help me think of some more that we should do. Slinky?

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  We did Slinky? Oh, yeah, we did Slinky. Okay, yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Lego?

• 2:24Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Barbie?

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Her boyfriend, G.I. Joe?

• 2:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was a good one.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Sorry, Ken.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  Wait a minute. Wait a minute, I'm sorry. Did we specifically do a G.I. Joe one or an action figures one?

• 2:38Speaker 03

  I think both. We definitely did action figures, although maybe not.

• 2:42Josh Clark?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  I'll cross check that. Hot Wheels?

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  So, so this is a made up list is what you're saying?

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Hot Wheels?

• 2:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm glad you didn't, you didn't call it Hot Wheels.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Easy bake oven?

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Play-Doh? Silly Putty?

• 3:00Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Do you count Boomerangs?

• 3:02Josh Clark?

  Eh, sure.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Do you count Monopoly?

• 3:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yo-yos?

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  Of course.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Hula hoops?

• 3:12Josh Clark?

  I knew Hula hoops was after yo-yos. I just knew it.

• 3:15Speaker 03

  Teddy Ruxpin, we covered him in our Christmas show this year.

• 3:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, that's a deep cut right there.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  And then, that's all I have, but I could have sworn we did it on Frisbees, but I cannot find it.

• 3:28Josh Clark?

  I, yeah, I feel like we did Frisbees too, because I think we talked about like Fral for something at some point.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's out there and I just didn't, or maybe it's under Flying Disc or something.

• 3:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's possible. Cause yeah, we made that joke about calling it a novelty Flying Disc because Frisbee like used to sue everybody who called anything else a Frisbee.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  Maybe. I'll have to look, but that, there's probably more out there, but that's a solid, you know, 12 or 13.

• 3:55Josh Clark?

  That's pretty good.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Which leads us to Etch A Sketch.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Yes, one of the hundred, top hundred toys of the century, according to, um, I want to say, not the Toy Hall of Fame, it's just in the Toy Hall of Fame.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  I think according to some snot-nosed kid who makes lists online.

• 4:15Josh Clark?

  All right, uh, this is the hundred best toys of the century. This is the hundred best guitar solos of the seventies.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Oh, man, I'd love to do a show on that.

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  That would be pretty cool. I can't remember who named that, that, who made that list, but it's a high honor. It's a high accolade, even if we can't remember who came up with it. Like the Etch A Sketch is a ubiquitous toy. Everybody knows what an Etch A Sketch is, unless you go to France and then they'll say, "Oh, you mean la crame magique." And you, you might say like, well, why would they have anything to say about the Etch A Sketch in France? Turns out, buddy, the Etch A Sketch is actually French in origin. Did you know that before this?

• 4:55Speaker 03

  I did not.

• 4:57Josh Clark?

  I didn't either.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Because it seems like super American, you know, it looks like a TV and just feels like pure Americana. So when I realized it had some French stank on it, uh, my dreams were dashed.

• 5:12Josh Clark?

  You're like, it smells like champagne and cheese, which is kind of pleasant.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  No, I didn't really care. I thought it was, I thought it was great. Sketch, erase and sketch again. The, the log line that will forever be tied to this really interesting little toy. And, um, I can't remember who it is in this article, but they were interviewing different folks. I think it was someone from the company commented and I totally agree that like, it's amazing that today in, in the digital world and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and video gaming as it is, that this little, um, lo-fi toy that doesn't even have batteries in it, much less hook up to the internet, is still like super popular and still has a little bit of mystique. And I agree with them.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  And I think the reason why one of them is like, you look at it and you're still kind of like, how does this thing work?

• 6:05Josh Clark?

  Right. Well, we're going to ruin that mystique for everybody because we're going to explain how it works actually in this episode.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 6:13Josh Clark?

  But hopefully it won't affect Etch A Sketch sales because we love Etch A Sketch, you know?

• 6:17Speaker 03

  All right, should we go to France?

• 6:19Josh Clark?

  We will go to France sometime. It's apparently not clear whether it was 1955 or 1956. But in a little town called Vitry-sur-Sin, which means vitry on the Sin River, there was a company called, um, what was the name of the company Chuck?

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Lincrusta Company.

• 6:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Terrible name.

• 6:43Josh Clark?

  It is a terrible name, but the reason they call themselves that is because lincrusta is a type of wall covering that was really popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. You know, like, have you ever been into an old creepy abandoned house? And like the walls are covered in what looks like dimpled tin with like some weird patterns to it or whatever?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Hmm, no, but keep going.

• 7:08Josh Clark?

  Okay, so where if you you could rub your hand over it's very much it's like heavily embossed.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:14Josh Clark?

  Sometimes it's painted and it's it just imagine that as like Wayne Scotting in the house. That is lincrusta. And so that is one of the two things that this company made in the 50s. Lincrusta wall coverings and artificial leather. That is really neither here nor there, but I could I was with you. I was like, what kind of a name is that for a company? I looked it up and they just it basically be like if you and I called our podcast podcast, because that's what we did was make podcasts.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  Or called it Podcrust.

• 7:45Josh Clark?

  Podcrusta.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Just the name crust anyway. I think I know what you're talking about because I have a, we have a pie safe that has that metal tin stuff, but it's I've never seen it on a wall, but I bet it's about the same thing.

• 8:00Josh Clark?

  Virtually the same thing.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:01Josh Clark?

  Yep. Okay. So that's lincrusta and that's where this guy worked. His name was Andre Casagnes. Casagnes.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  I bet that.

• 8:10Josh Clark?

  What are you going with?

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Well, if it's French, wouldn't it be like Casson?

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Is that G pronounced?

• 8:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think you just nailed it, actually. Andre Casson.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Well, that's what we're gonna call him. And we have gone back in time. You didn't know 55 or 56. I say we go to 54. Just to play it safe, set up shop in France and maybe get some emails done.

• 8:34Josh Clark?

  All right, for a couple of years?

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Sure, why not? We could use a break. Um, cuz you know, podcaster burnout's a real thing.

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  It really is.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  As we've talked about.

• 8:42Josh Clark?

  We're dropping, we're dropping like flies.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Uh, all right. So he's working in this factory. It's, uh, north of Paris. And they are making these, uh, wall coverings like you're talking about. And he, this is a little confusing how this actually happens, if you ask me. Or at least the way the, the first article put it, it's confusing.

• 9:03Josh Clark?

  Oh, you're leaving it to me by notice by your, by your balls after that?

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, no, let's, I'll, I'll start it, but I just still don't quite get it. He marked up, uh, with pencil on a, uh, see-through decal. So like, he was putting on an electrical plate, um, like a light switch. And on that plate, like many things, has like a little see-through plastic that you peel off. Um, so he was writing on that. He peeled it off. But then that's where it loses me as to exactly what magic took place.

• 9:37Josh Clark?

  So, okay, remember this is Lynne Crusta and they make metal wall coverings, which means there's metal dust in the air. Metal shavings everywhere.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he's just breathing that stuff in.

• 9:47Josh Clark?

  Right, all of them are. Um, what's crazy is this guy made it to that ripe old age of 86, had to breathe in that for years. But, um, so there's, there's metal dust everywhere, including on this electrical switch plate that he's installing. And I guess the decal against the plate. And I think what happened was when he marked on the decal and pulled the decal off, he'd seen that he had disturbed the metal shavings that were stuck to the underside of the decal.

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  Do you see what I mean? So like he, he had disturbed the shape. So, so there was like, the whole decal is coated in a, a metal dust. He marks on it with a pencil and the impression that he makes. Like gouges out lines on the backside of the decal. I know, it's really tough. It was magic. Basically, this man witnessed a feat of magic that still cannot be explained to this day. And that's where he got his idea for the Etch A Sketch.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Amazing. So, a big, big moment. He has that literal light bulb that goes off of his, or not literal, of course. Light bulb above his head. Although you never know. There may have been a light bulb in that factory, right above his head.

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  Why not?

• 11:05Speaker 03

  And he said, alright, this is, uh, this can be something. He, however, did not have a lot of money to sink into this weird idea. And so he had to partner with somebody with money. A man named Paul Chaz, C-H-A-Z-E, or maybe Chaz, if he's French.

• 11:27Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's good.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  And this guy had some dough, because he owned a plastic injection molding company.

• 11:32Josh Clark?

  This is like, early on.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  I wonder if we could count that as a toy? The, uh, the little plastic, uh, machines that spit out little plastic guitars in Chicago? And at zoos?

• 11:43Josh Clark?

  Oh, yes, yes. Mulderama. That would definitely count. Yeah, that goes on the list, yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  So, he didn't, it wasn't Mulderama, but it was plastic injection molding that this guy made his money from. Uh, and this is where things get a little confusing historically, because, uh, the man who, his accountant, his name was Arthur Grange.

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  You are nailing the French today. Try to run, French people. You can't. Chuck is pronouncing your words just beautifully.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  So, his accountant is actually given credit a lot of times, because he filed the patent, uh, under, uh, his name. Which, I'm curious about how that works legally.

• 12:24Josh Clark?

  Uh, he, so he was, do you remember the first time we did South by Southwest? And on the sign, it, it had like, somebody, I can't remember whose name it was, but whoever had like filed the application to get us into South by Southwest, it said that like, that's who was performing in the room that day.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  I don't remember that at all.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  I think this is the same, basically the same thing where as like the US government bureaucracy, the patented trademark office basically said whoever's name is on there, that is who is the patent holder. And since Grandjean, who was the accountant of Chez, who was the partner of Cassian, since he was the one who actually filled out the application and paid for the application for the patent, as far as the government was concerned, he was the, the person who patented the Etch A Sketch in the United States. Even though Grandjean made no claim on it whatsoever, immediately transferred the title over to Chez, he, he's, for, for decades, everybody thought Arthur Grandjean was the

• 13:30Josh Clark?

  guy who invented the Etch A Sketch.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Interesting. All right. So that was July 23rd, 1959, was when this patent was granted. And I guess we should just look at the, the little guy itself, the little TV looking, that iconic red frame with the two dials, uh, which it didn't have initially, we'll, we'll get to that. But, um, the underside of this screen here has what's known in the patent as a pole virulent material, such as aluminum powder.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  Is that French as well?

• 14:01Speaker 03

  I don't know. Uh, and then to keep that from clumping up, there are little tiny plastic beads. And then, uh, the two knobs control, um, again, from the patent, a movable tracing stylus. Uh, although initially it was a joystick, isn't that right?

• 14:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, basically like an Atari. But it served the same purpose and it was, it was held together the same way through an intricate system of pulleys and gears that, that moved the stylus either upward or downward. And then if you combine the upward and downward together, you could make diagonals and circles and stuff like that. But it's, if you, it's really tough to describe what's going on in an Etch A Sketch. But there's an How Stuff Works article from years back called Inside An Etch A Sketch, where the people at How Stuff Works like took one apart and photographed it and explained it step by step. And it really becomes much simpler and ruins any bit of magic there is to it when you see Inside An Etch A Sketch.

• 14:58Josh Clark?

  But it's still kind of wondrous, you know, like the engineer in you is like, wow, that's pretty cool.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's sort of like, I mean, it's not a negative image, I don't think, but what's going on when you're moving those knobs? There's a stylus that's actually removing, like the screen is coated with this powder. So it's actually removing powder, not adding something to the screen.

• 15:20Josh Clark?

  Yes, exactly.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  And of course, if you want to get that away and start a new picture, you just shake that thing up and that re-coats the screen once again with that powder.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so like, you know how your TV screen always has tons of dust on it, no matter how often you dust it?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  So that's because like that dust is attracted electrostatically through an electrical charge to the glass. That's, they, they take advantage of that same thing with the underside of the Etch A Sketch and that aluminum dust which sticks to everything, like it wants to stick to the glass because I think it's missing some electrons or something. And then when you move the stylus through it, you're just removing that, that dust, like you said, it's not a negative, it's the removal of dust. And that's an Etch A Sketch, like at its, at its core. And what's interesting Chuck is like, that is how an Etch A Sketch today works. That's how an Etch A Sketch worked in 1962. Like the, or two, meaning like also.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 16:20Josh Clark?

  But that, that dude, Andre Cassagni, said, this is how this is going to work. And it's, it's basically the same thing.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  That's pretty awesome. Let's take a break.

• 16:30Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  We're going to come back and talk about Coming Stateside, right after this.

• 16:43Speaker 04

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• 19:05Josh Clark?

  All right, so Chuck, so how did we agree on his last name? I think I'm butchering it still, and I even took years of French in high school.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  I think he said casserole.

• 19:16Josh Clark?

  All right, Andre Casserole. That seems, that seems wrong.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm still gonna go with Casson.

• 19:25Josh Clark?

  Okay, there you go. Andre Casson. He knew he was on to something. Like, this guy was an electrician. He was like, this is a great idea. This is a prototype I made. This is, this is worth something. So he and Cruz, I guess, funded a trip to the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 1959. And it was there that Casson was walking around saying, check this thing out. It is yours for a mere $100,000, which at the time was a lot of money. A hundred, I think it was $870,000 today. And that's what this guy wanted for the, for the right to produce this.

• 20:09Josh Clark?

  And every toy maker at the place said, no, including a little toy maker called Ohio Art. Everybody turned it down and Casson went home from the toy fair empty handed. But he, he didn't give up. He still persisted, but that was a, a big strikeout for him right out of the gate.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Ohio Art eventually settles on a number of 25 grand for the rights to make this thing. In the United States, it is still called La Crone Magique in France, because they had a different licensing deal over there from the, from the get go. And Ohio Art Company is pretty interesting. It started, did you see that thing?

• 20:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I did.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, they started out in 1908, founded by a man named, a dentist named Dr. Henry S. Wensler in Archibald, Ohio. He gets out of dentistry because he's like, hey, man, toys is the future. Toys is the future.

• 21:09Josh Clark?

  There's no future in teeth. In a decade, no one in America is gonna have teeth. It's just a losing trade to be in is dentistry.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he saw the way forward. He rented a music hall, hired 15 women, and they were making metal picture frames at first to great, great success.

• 21:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so they they use something called the metal lithography, which is a type of printing. And I think the metal refers to like the medium that you're using to print with, like the like you carve a picture out of metal and you put ink on it and then you print on whatever you want. But they were printing on to metal, like they had like these picture frames and pictures that were like a huge cellar of a cupid. It was a pair of like oval plates, basically, but they were metal printed printed pictures on them of like a cupid hanging out and then the same cupid sleeping. And it's just kind of like, whatever, like these days, it seems kind of it's got a tinge

• 22:12Josh Clark?

  of old timey creepiness. But in the first half of the 20th century, there were 50 million sets of those things sold in the United States, which is an astounding amount. It's basically every house in America had a pair of this. And that really kind of made Ohio art like a very viable business. But they eventually got into things like sand pails and little trucks and that kind of thing. Anything that was printed with metal before the time that plastic toys came along, they were into. So it wasn't a huge leap into the Etch A Sketch, but the Etch A Sketch was definitely different than anything that they'd ever kind of messed around with before.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  Did you know I've done metal lithography?

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  No.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was one of our in industrial arts, it was, you know, and at least at my school, each quarter you did a different medium or whatever. And lithography was something we did one quarter.

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  Well, do you remember what you printed?

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm trying to remember what I printed. It's funny, I can remember that, because we also, one quarter was, uh, screen printing. And I remember the T-shirts, I did monkeys T-shirts.

• 23:20Josh Clark?

  With like the see no evil, hear no evil monkeys?

• 23:23Speaker 03

  No, the band, the monkeys, their, their, their logo with the guitar spelled out as monkeys.

• 23:30Josh Clark?

  Like, wow, did you draw it yourself?

• 23:33Speaker 03

  No, no, no, of course not.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  But we did metal sheet lithography, I don't remember all of the process, but what I do remember was, it essentially was like burning, chemically burning images onto metal plates, and then that metal plate was used to print.

• 23:53Josh Clark?

  Okay, so, so the metal and metal lithography does, it talks about the metal press that you're using to print with?

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Like, at the end of, uh, there may be different processes, but in my class, we would, um, do this thing and apply this like, uh, image with like this gel onto a metal sheet, and use this combination of chemicals that would burn that into, like, make it part of the metal. And then all of a sudden, you would have a metal sheet with a thing on it, like a negative image, and then you would use that in the printing process to print a positive image.

• 24:29Josh Clark?

  Right, and you could print, use that to print onto anything, including other metal, right?

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Well, hey, man, that's where my knowledge, and again, this was ninth grade me, so I've forgotten a lot of things over that time period.

• 24:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:42Speaker 03

  And I'm sure I just butchered that, but that's my one little dance with metal lithography.

• 24:46Josh Clark?

  Well, I'll tell you who would be able to tell us exactly how you could, um, how metal lithography works. It's anybody who works at Ohio Art, because not only was that their bread and butter before the Etch A Sketch, it still is today, actually. So, so Ohio Art, like, I guess, gets in touch with, um, Andre Casson, and, and either he got in touch with them again, or they got in touch with him, I think it was the latter of the two, and said, hey, we heard you're selling this for a hundred grand, it's way too rich for our blood, how about either fifteen thousand or twenty? Five thousand, depending on who you ask in the future. And Casson is like, what are you talking about? They're like, just take the money. And so they either got it for fifteen thousand or twenty five thousand, which is still substantial.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  I mean, it was like around a hundred K or um two hundred K, something like that, depending on which one it was. And Casson was quite a happy man. There was a story where um the guy who was running the show at Ohio Art and his wife went over to meet Andre Casson and just kind of have like an initial meeting and like shake his hand and all that and buy the license from him. And Casson was like, welcome, and had like this huge spread of baguettes and champagne and everything at his house, which is pretty cute. Cause he was just like this humble guy who came up with a really great idea for a toy and was finally like selling it for a wad of cash.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Interesting. A little on the nose.

• 26:10Josh Clark?

  What, the baguettes and champagne?

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know, what are you gonna do?

• 26:14Josh Clark?

  Wait, when in France, right?

• 26:16Speaker 03

  So he is, uh, once he's on board with Ohio Art, uh, he gets together with their uh chief engineer Jerry Berger. And says, and Berger's like, listen here, Frenchy, you need to drop the joystick. It's all knobs these days. And he said, what is a knob? And he was like, well, let me show you. And he, he introduced the idea of um the same system like you were talking about, but knobs instead of a joystick to move that little line horizontal or vertical, or as you pointed out, if you're really talented and you can master both at once, you can actually do um root it. Well, if you're really good, you can do very nice curved lines.

• 26:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, beyond rudimentary. No, neither am I. I can make a, a line go up and a line go to the left or right.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, we'll, we'll get to the

• 27:06Josh Clark?

  I can't even make it go down.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  We'll get to the art of it.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Maybe at the end, but, cause there are some serious uh artists out there doing some cool stuff. Uh, but at any rate, Etch A Sketch, it was rebranded as Etch A Sketch in the United States. Ohio Art's producing them for the nineteen sixty holiday season. And they sold about six hundred thousand of these um that year, which is a, that's a lot.

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and they sold it for a lot of money, too. They, they went for sale at $2.99 a piece, which is 25.64 in today's money. But I mean, if you go buy an Etch A Sketch today, it's between 10 and 15 bucks. So that was a lot of money, especially to sell 600,000 of these things. Especially if you were selling like creepy, you know, metal wastebaskets with an unsettling clown painted on it or printed on it, like right before this. This is a huge, it was a good move by the people at Ohio Art to buy the license to this thing, in other words. And they say, Chuck, that it coincided really perfectly with television, so much so that they believe like that is one of the reasons why Jerry Berger was like,

• 28:18Josh Clark?

  "You need knobs. This thing needs to look like a TV set because that's what's all the rage with the kids right now."

• 28:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he, it was one of the first toys to actually do a TV commercial. And so if it's 1960 and you're a child watching, first of all, your mind is blown because you're watching a television to begin with.

• 28:39Josh Clark?

  It's just like, "I can't believe this. I can't believe what's going on right now."

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Then a TV commercial comes on for a toy, and this toy has animation in it to where like they would Etch A Sketch a little rocket ship, and then that rocket ship would animate and take off. And this was like, these kids might have, I mean, keep in mind, kids in 1960 were idiots, but they might as well have been dosed with LSD, you know?

• 29:07Josh Clark?

  They just kept fainting over and over again throughout the commercial because they could not believe what they were seeing.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Mind's blown.

• 29:13Josh Clark?

  And it's just, it's just an Etch A Sketch, you know?

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's genius. I love it.

• 29:21Josh Clark?

  It is, but it really, I think the, the point was though that like, taking advantage of the novelty of TV, and also now having a way, like if you, we just tried to explain an Etch A Sketch over a podcast. Prior to TV, if that just gets you come out during like the Little Orphan Annie radio era, they would have had to have Done the same thing. It wouldn't have landed quite as well. The fact that a kid could see this happening on their TV screen was pretty awesome. And then also to say, and then you just shake it, turn it upside down and shake it and coat the glass screen again and your drawing is gone forever. Like to be able to see that TV made the Etch A Sketch what it was, like for sure.

• 30:05Josh Clark?

  It definitely ushered it into a position where it could become like a a cultural icon of nostalgia.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, they perfected it by the time they started rolling off in 1960. Prior to that, like any product like this, there was a lot of R and D. One of the people who worked there talked about the mountain of red frames behind the factory while they were trying to get it right. And it was such a huge smash hit out of the gate that as legend has it, they were manufacturing up until noon on Christmas Eve just to get them to the West Coast in time for Christmas morning.

• 30:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty cool. I mean, they really wanted those kids to have those Etch A Sketches. They really wanted that money.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Should we take another break?

• 30:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  All right, we'll talk about some, some ways Etch A Sketches ebbed and flowed in popularity in pop culture over the years. Right for this.

• 31:07Speaker 04

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• 31:53Josh Clark?

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• 33:03Josh Clark?

  Chuck, I don't know if we said it or not, but from what I've seen, more than 175 million Etch A Sketches have been sold since 1960.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  And we should point out, we're not just ticking off a list of pop culture references. Like every time this happened, Etch A Sketch sales would go up.

• 33:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like the Mitt Romney one increased sales like 30%. I guess everybody was like, oh, Etch A Sketch, I forgot about that. I think I'll go buy one right now.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Well, they actually branded after that Republican and Democrat Etch A Sketches, though, didn't they?

• 33:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so you could buy a red one or a blue one, but both of them came with a sticker, which I'm assuming that they printed on their metal lithography presses, of a donkey and an elephant like playing tug of war on the front of the White House lawn.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's just crazy.

• 33:53Josh Clark?

  It is, but it's also, that's smart, you know? That's how you, that's how you make the money.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  And then, of course, in the movie Toy Story from Pixar, that was, like, one of the character's name was Etch and had the fastest knobs in the West.

• 34:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  And that was, that was always a very fun character, I think, to see him drawing things out really fast to communicate.

• 34:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and you know, you said something earlier. You were, you were talking about how like, despite the fact that it doesn't even have batteries, it's had this staying power for, you know, 50 something years, almost 60 years it's been around. And it's a really simple thing that, that the design hasn't changed. And I think even- More of a testimony to, you know, the, um, the, the staying power of the Etch A Sketch is the fact that they have tried stuff with batteries and like, like things that connect to your computer over the years and nothing has managed to improve on the original Etch A Sketch. Like there was, do you remember the Etch A Sketch animator?

• 34:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 34:56Josh Clark?

  So I, I couldn't quite place it either, but I went and watched an old ad. It was big in the eighties. And it was basically like an Etch A Sketch, but there was nothing mechanical about it. It was digital. You're creating like a bitmap digital picture. And, um, then you'd press like, I guess play or something like that. And it would just kind of run it, like a flip book over and over again. So your Etch A Sketch drawing like came to life. But kids were like, nah, I'd rather have the original Etch A Sketch because that's sketch animator went away. And the Etch A Sketch is still available today.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, there have been, um, other variations. They had the doodle sketch. The, the plug and play, which this sounds like a bad idea. Plug and play allows you to draw on the TV screen. That's just asking for trouble as a parent.

• 35:45Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  And then the mobile app, which I've been playing with today.

• 35:51Josh Clark?

  Oh, how's it going?

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, what do you think of this picture?

• 35:54Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's not bad. It looks kind of Etch A Sketchy, you know?

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. So what you can do is it's kind of fun. Um, you can, you can upload or take a photo, um, on your smartphone. Plug it into the app and then it will instantly etchify it. And what I've learned is that it's, um, the, the more basic, like a picture of your face, works much better than something with a lot of stuff in the background. But it's fun.

• 36:21Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  You know, I like it.

• 36:23Josh Clark?

  I was reading reviews of the app. I didn't try it myself like you, but it's, uh, it, it did say like, if it's a basic picture, it'll look way more Etch A Sketchy.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. So my official review is, eh, not bad.

• 36:35Josh Clark?

  So three stars out of six?

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Sure. I mean, for something that downloaded in 30 seconds and was free.

• 36:40Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  I'm going to give it a, a half a thumb up.

• 36:45Josh Clark?

  So, um, one of the things that, uh, that has kind of kept Etch A Sketch alive for like the younger kids, if I read this article about, um, Etch A Sketch and it was right before they sold. So a lot of people don't know, Ohio Art doesn't make Etch A Sketch anymore. They sold it to a brand called Spin Master in-

• 37:04Speaker 03

  I didn't, I didn't see that.

• 37:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's not, it's not Ohio Art. Ohio Art said, "We're going back to metal lithography." And that's what they did. So they sold Etch A Sketch off to Spin Master. Spin Master's like, "That's fine with us, baby. Thanks for all these licenses." Um, I mean, Etch A Sketch, a frozen branded Etch A Sketch is, it's, it might as well just be like a, a printing press for money, right?

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  So it was probably a pretty good buy for Spin Master. And Ohio Art was like, "Well, this thing is, it was great. It was a good run while it lasted." But they also had to oversee it through some really dark times because, um, well, for one thing, that like, Etch A Sketch isn't landing with the millennials. I get the impression like it used to, um, with the baby boomers. That was one thing. Um, and Ohio Art also almost went bankrupt because of it, uh, back in like 2001. They managed to get some more money back into the business and, and stay afloat. But part of that also was they had to send the, um, manufacturing of the Etch A Sketch off to China, which they were really unhappy about

• 38:06Josh Clark?

  because they lost like 35 jobs in tiny little Bryan, Ohio. But eventually like 15 years later, they said, "You know what? We're getting now the Etch A Sketch business and sold it off to Spin Master."

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Which is a weird name.

• 38:20Josh Clark?

  But the, but the, one of the things, it's a little weird. Ohio Art's a little weird too. You don't associate Ohio with art, you know?

• 38:26Speaker 03

  Oh, uh-oh.

• 38:28Josh Clark?

  You just don't. I'll say it again.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Tell that to Chrissy Hind in the Black Keys.

• 38:33Josh Clark?

  No, Chrissy Hind gets what I'm saying for sure. Um, so, uh, the thing, the, one of the things though, that is keeping Etch A Sketch relevant, the, the reason why, like, if you walk up to like a 17-year-old and say, "What do you think about Etch A Sketch?" They say, "Oh yeah, I've heard of that." Because every once in a while, you'll see on, um, the, the internets, a photo or two of somebody who is really, really good at Etch A Sketch. And it just kind of makes the rounds on social media.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, everything from like the Mona Lisa to just like portraits of people to landscapes. Uh, what's really fun is you can go on YouTube and look at time lapse. Renderings, Etch A Sketch renderings, which when you're seeing it done super fast like that, you kind of think like, I feel like I could do that. But you really have to be a master with those knobs. Like, what I found is the thing you really need to master to do everything that you want to do is being able to retrace well. Because, as everyone knows, it's not like a pencil. You can't pick it up off the paper and start somewhere else. You have to, if you want to go somewhere else, you have to retrace

• 39:41Speaker 03

  as closely to that original line as you can, all the way back to that point that you want to be at. Or else it's just going to look like something that I did, which looks like something a toddler did.

• 39:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I mean, like, that's a really good point. When you're making a good Etch A Sketch drawing, it is all one single line, frequently doubled back over. And Etch A Sketch artists will use like that frame. They'll create a line frame around the edges that they can travel back out to and move around the picture like that.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Pretty brilliant.

• 40:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a guy named George Vlosic III, who's known for some pretty amazing portraits of Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama, LeBron James. There's an artist named Jane Labavich, or Labavich, maybe? She calls herself Princess Etch A Sketch. She's done some amazing, like, architectural detail with it. And then there's a guy named Ryan Burton, who does erotic Simpsons art.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 40:35Josh Clark?

  With the Etch A Sketch. And all three of them are like, really good at the Etch A Sketch drawings.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, the fanfic of Etch A Sketch artists. Interesting.

• 40:45Josh Clark?

  And then apparently, if you, when you're very satisfied with your Etch A Sketch and you don't want anything to happen to it, you drill a hole in the back and get the aluminum powder out. And then you lock the knobs to keep them from being turned. Then you have an Etch A Sketch masterpiece that you can hang in a museum.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Oh, so that makes it permanent?

• 41:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  So when the little, uh, so when a kid comes in the museum and rips it off the wall and shakes it, nothing happens?

• 41:09Josh Clark?

  No, no. And I think by law, you're allowed to pick up that kid and shake it.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  Yes, I think so. As long as it's not a baby, don't shake a baby.

• 41:17Josh Clark?

  No, never shake a baby. Come on.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:19Josh Clark?

  I would never advocate shaking a baby, everybody. I just want to go on record as saying that.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  There was, uh, you know, the comedian Nate Bargatze?

• 41:26Josh Clark?

  No.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  He has a, he's great. He's got a very funny bit about shaking babies.

• 41:30Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Believe it or not.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  It takes a lot to turn that into something funny.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, he, he did it, man.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  Good for him. Nate, Nate Bargatze, huh?

• 41:39Speaker 03

  Nate Bargatze, dude, you would love him. He's great.

• 41:41Josh Clark?

  So Nate Bargatze just became a cultural icon, cause we did not see him coming up in this episode.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 41:47Josh Clark?

  Uh, well, if you want to know more about Nate Bargatze, you should go check him out on the internet, like I'm going to. And, uh, since I said Nate Bargatze, it's time for listener mail.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Man, I hope someone tells Nate we're plugging him.

• 42:01Josh Clark?

  Plugging away.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Plugging Nate. Uh, all right, here, I'm gonna mention, uh, this is about Jerry and her eating. And this is from Kim Cooper. Did you see this, Jerry? She says no. Uh, hey, guys, I noticed that you often mention what Jerry is eating a lot during the podcast.

• 42:16Josh Clark?

  A lot.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I don't know how close to you she, uh, how close she is to your microphones. Well, I'll go ahead and say that from your side over there, she's about five feet.

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  I, like, all I have to do is lean in my seat a little bit and I can touch Jerry's miso soup.

• 42:30Speaker 03

  That's right. You could dip your thumb in her soup.

• 42:33Josh Clark?

  And sometimes I threaten to.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't know how close she is to your microphones, but I never hear her eating, uh, which is good for your fans with misophonia. But I'm curious why she chooses this time to eat.

• 42:46Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Uh, do you guys spend all day podcasting and that's the only time she can fit it in?

• 42:51Josh Clark?

  No. No.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Uh, silly question that popped into my head, listening to this week, uh, this week after Josh said, "And there's Jerry eating god knows what." Um, anyway, guys, she's got me interested in trying miso. Tell her she's doing a great job, cause I don't know, uh, because I know she doesn't get too many shoutouts. And, uh, Josh and Chuck, you guys are pretty great, too.

• 43:11Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  That is from Kim Cooper.

• 43:13Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Kim. That's funny. She went all the way around to just basically say, I guess what I'm trying to say is I've always wanted to try miso.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 43:21Josh Clark?

  Well, go try some miso, Kim. I mean, you can buy it at, like, any grocery store. Just go get a tub of it. Get a big old spoon, try your first spoonful, and go from there.

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Do you ever eat just miso paste?

• 43:34Speaker 03

  No.

• 43:35Josh Clark?

  It's good. If you're craving something salty and savory and umami, let's just say, it's good. But you can't, you can't eat very much of it. I'm just teasing Kim. Like, a spoonful is a lot of miso paste.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Okay. What, would you just add that to, is it an ingredient?

• 43:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for like soups.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  In miso soup?

• 43:52Josh Clark?

  Stuff like that. Yeah. But you can just eat the paste.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:56Josh Clark?

  And live to tell about it. I'm, I'm proof. Well, if you want to get in touch with us to talk about Jerry, we're always fine with that. You can go to stuffyoushouldknow.com, find out all of our social links, and you can always send us an email. Attention, everybody, we have a new email address.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Wowee, wow.

• 44:14Josh Clark?

  Wowoo. It is [email protected].

• 44:20Speaker 03

  How about that?

• 44:26Speaker 00

  For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com.

• 44:40Josh Clark?

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