We know the routine. After weeks of breathless anticipation, the fabled morning arrives and the children scamper to the Christmas tree with all the enthusiasm of tween girls at a Robert Pattinson sighting. They open up the toy of their dreams—the toy they’ve been pleading for since June—and then spend the rest of the morning playing with ... the carton it came in.
Since 1998, the National Toy Hall of Fame has honored our most sacred hallmarks of childhood—toys we treasured as children, fondly remember as adults, and perhaps even taught us something about life along the way. We can’t go through all forty-four that have been honored there, of course. But here’s a sampling of seven of the most fun and most sneakily inspirational presents to ever grace a holiday celebration. Box not included.
1. Mr. Potato Head: It’s Okay to Be Silly
You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to, and Hasbro’s been saying jackpot since 1952. Back then, Mr. Potato Head didn’t actually come with a potato head: Rather, it was just a collection of eyes, noses, ears, and hats that kids could stick into real potatoes in whatever outlandish manner they wished. It wasn’t until 1964 that a plastic potato head was included with the accoutrements.
For a while, Hasbro made its potatoes with slots that made it impossible for children to stick, say, the mouth where the eyes should go. But after a few years, they realized that part of the toy’s charm was the ability to do silly things with Mr. Potato Head’s face, and went back to the traditional round holes. And indeed, Mr. Potato Head—along with his lovely wife and various movie-themed incarnations (Darth Tater, anyone?)—is a silly symbol of diversity. Through Mr. Potato Head, children learned that a toy’s value was determined by malleability, not its beauty: Kids learned that toys could be just as fun—maybe even more so—if there was an ear where a nose should be.
2. Barbie: Yes, You Can Do It All
She’s not quite ready for a senior discount at Denny’s yet, but she’s not too far off. And at fifty, Barbie looks remarkably good for her age. Sure, there are rumors that she’s had more procedures done on her wares than Joan Rivers (we hear that she went in recently to have her waistline enlarged), but really, who would begrudge her a little plastic surgery when her whole body’s plastic?
Not everyone takes kindly to Barbie’s eternal good looks. Some say her chest is too big and her waist is too small, and that she obsesses too much over fashion and not enough over third-year calculus. But here’s the thing: In an age in which the typical woman still makes 76 percent of what a typical man makes for the same job, here’s a woman who can be a doctor, a rock star, a cheerleader, and an astronaut—sometimes all in one afternoon. She can do it all—and drive a cool pink Corvette to boot. Glass ceiling? Barbie smashed through that during playtime a long ago.
