Thinking about a different kind of toy A STORY WORTH TELLING
“The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.”
— Malcolm S. Forbes
That quote from Malcolm Forbes crossed my mind last week as I watched classic cars and their owners wrap up another successful auto show in Center.
Admiring the polished, powerful machines as toys made me think about a different kind of plaything— not the automotive classics in my garage, but the fragile relics in my living-room curio cabinet: Survivors from the Great Depression, specifically a swivel-jointed wooden toy snake and a Fisher-Price “Pop-Up Kritter” Pluto.
My father played with both in the 1930s.
In the mid-1950s, my grandmother pulled them from the bottom drawer of her chifforobe to entertain me. Looking at them today, these playthings stand in stark contrast to the brightly lit, big-box store toy aisle offerings—a transition representing more than a shift in materials. They completely rewrite why we play.
If you had money during the Great Depression, you found that “why” in the first Sears Christmas catalog, published in 1933. It tempted families with “Miss Pigtails” dolls, cast-metal toy cars, Mickey Mouse watches, Lionel electric trains and live singing canaries.
But my father’s wooden toy snake never appeared in a catalog or on a store shelf.
It bears no maker marks, suggesting it’s a product of the so-called “Pocket Snake” folk art era — likely carved by a rural whittler to sell at a county fair or a roadside stand.
The other toy is a 1936 Fisher-Price No.
440 Pluto. Built on a bone-shaped wooden paddle, it was one of the very first licensed Disney toys manufactured. Pulling metal rings attached to strings makes the cartoon dog dance, bow or sit. This one still has its original oilcloth ears and beaded tail.
By the time my own children were toddlers in the 1980s, the toy box looked vastly different.
Wood had given way to injection-molded plastic, and simple mechanics gave way to Saturday morning cartoons. You didn’t just buy a plastic action figure like son Lee’s G.I. Joe or daughter Robin’s Cabbage Patch dolls; you purchased a 30-minute commercial disguised as entertainment.
Today’s toys are even further engineered, designed to exploit psychological triggers. Toy aisles are now dominated by blind-box “unboxing” toys and heavily marketed collectibles, using YouTube influencers bypassing parents entirely to target kids.
And the goal is no longer simply to play— it’s to trigger the body’s dopamine hit on the reveal, prompting kids to “collect them all.”
The buyer’s intent has shifted, too. A century ago, a parent gave a child a toy to foster calm concentration, tell stories or simply provide a brief bit of delight during lean economic times. Today, parents more often buy toys under the heavy pressure of “educational development” or, can we be honest, to secure 20 minutes of silence.
Overall, one could argue toys have evolved from hand-whittled folk art to engineered corporate entertainment systems. But wiggling that wooden snake last week reminded me of a time before a toy’s digital magic was dreamed up in a boardroom.
My grandchildren have grown past the toy stage, and the great grands aren’t here yet.
But I can already hear the conversation should I pass this 100-year-old heirloom to one of them to play with.
“What does it do?” they’d probably ask, looking for a power button.
“It wiggles,” I might say.
“And then what?”
“Then? Well, that’s when you’d learn to use your imagination.”
Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com.
