Slinky facts for kids
Slinky (also known as Spring) is a toy metal spring that tumbles end over end down stairs and even "walks". It was invented by Richard James in 1943, and quickly became a bestseller. Other Slinky toys were developed such as the Slinky Dog and the Slinky Train. Company president Betty James has always kept the toy's price low so children could buy it. It originally sold for $1. Slinky has received many toy industry awards and honors over the years. Its television jingle is the longest running jingle in advertising history.
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Origin
Slinky was the invention of Richard James, a mechanical engineer in the United States Navy. In 1943 he was looking for a way to lessen the vibrations that sensitive equipment endured shipboard in rough waters. An accident during his experiments led to the creation of a "walking", tumbling metal spring. Neighborhood children loved it. James's wife Betty named the toy Slinky after finding the word in a dictionary. The Jameses had 400 Slinkys made by a local machine shop. The Jameses put Slinky on display at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia in November 1945. All 400 units were sold.
Other Slinky products
The Jameses went into the Slinky business. They invented a machine that could produce a Slinky from 80 feet of steel wire within 10 seconds. A huge advertising campaign was launched in America. James showed television viewers how Slinky worked. Other Slinky toys manufactured during the 1950s were the Slinky Dog, Suzie the Slinky Worm, and a pair of eyeglasses with eyeballs dangling at the end of two Slinkys. Other companies were granted licenses to produce Slinky toys.
The Jameses divorced. Richard became a missionary in Bolivia. Betty James moved the company to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania in 1964. She was president of the company from 1960 to 1998. She kept the price of Slinky low so all children could afford one. The original Slinky was $1. In 2008 Slinky cost about $4. She explained the toy's appeal by saying, "It's the simplicity of it."
Slinky Dog
Very early in the production history of Slinky, Helen Malsed of Washington developed ideas for Slinky pull toys. The company liked her ideas and added Slinky Dog and Slinky Train to their line in 1952. The Slinky Dog was a small plastic dog whose front and rear ends were joined by a Slinky. Malsed received annual sums of $60,000 to $70,000 per year for 17 years for her idea.
Slinky Dog was reworked in 1995 for Pixar's Toy Story. James Industries had dropped their Slinky Dog from production, but Betty James liked the new Slinky Dog. She said, "[The earlier Slinky Dog] wasn't nearly as cute as this one." The dog's front and rear ends were made in China, and the Dog put together and packaged in America. The entire run of 825,000 new Slinky Dogs sold out well before Christmas 1995.
Plastic Slinky
Plastic Slinkys are also available. They can be made in different colors. Many of them are made with the colors of the rainbow in rainbow order. They were marketed in the 1970s as a safer alternative to metal slinkys as they did not present a hazard when inserted into electrical sockets. The plastic spring toy, known as the Plastic Slinky was invented by Donald James Reum Sr. of Master Mark Plastics in Albany, Minnesota. Reum came up with the idea as he was playing with different techniques to produce a spiral hose for watering plants. However, as it came off the assembly line, according to his children, it looked more like a "Slinky." He worked at it until it came out perfectly and then went to Betty James with his prototype. Reum manufactured the Plastic Slinky for Betty James for several years. Eventually Betty James decided to manufacture the product exclusively through James manufacturing, effectively ending the production of the toy by the small Minnesota company. Reum's patent number, 4120929 was filed on Dec 28, 1976 and issued by the US Patent Office on Oct 17, 1978.
Jingle
The first Slinky television commercial was shown on Miss Patty's Romper Room in 1946. Homer Fesperman and Charles Weagley wrote the Slinky television jingle in 1962. In Timeless Toys, Tim Walsh writes that this jingle is the longest running jingle in advertising history. In 1990 USA Today reported that 90 percent of all adults surveyed knew the Slinky jingle.
- What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound?
- A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it's Slinky.
- It's Slinky, it's Slinky. For fun it's a wonderful toy.
- It's Slinky, it's Slinky. It's fun for a girl or a boy.
- It's fun for a girl or boy!
Awards and honors
Slinky is a part of the Smithsonian Institution's permanent Americana exhibition. In 1999 the United States Postal Service issued a Slinky postage stamp. Slinky joined the Toy Hall of Fame in 2000. A bill to nominate the Slinky as the state toy of Pennsylvania was introduced in 2001, but not enacted. The same year, Betty James was inducted into the Toy Industry Association's Hall of Fame. In 2003, Slinky was named to the Toy Industry Association's "Century of Toys List", a roll call of the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the twentieth century. Orange Coast Magazine writes, "[T]he original machines designed and engineered by [James] turn 80 feet of steel wire into a coil in only 10 seconds. Since its introduction, more than 250 million Slinkys have been sold, enough for every person in the United States to have one. Stretched out, the wire would encircle the planet more than 126 times."
Other uses
High school teachers and college professors have used Slinkys to simulate the properties of waves, United States troops in the Vietnam War used them as mobile radio antennas (as have amateur radio operators), and NASA has used them in zero-gravity physics experiments in the Space Shuttle.
Slinkys and similar springs can be used to create a 'laser gun' like sound effect. This is done by holding up a slinky in the air and striking one end, resulting in a metallic tone which sharply lowers in pitch. The effect can be amplified by attaching a plastic cup to one end of the Slinky.
In 1959, John Cage composed an avant garde work called Sounds of Venice scored for (among other things) a piano, a slab of marble and Venetian broom, a birdcage of canaries, and an amplified Slinky.
Metal Slinky can be used as an antenna - it resonates between 7 and 8 MHz. During Vietnam war it was used as a portable antenna for local HF communication. This setup had many advantages over a long wire shot from M79 grenade launcher: small dimensions, fast and quiet installation, reusability, good takeoff angle for local communication and good enough performance. It was also used to extend range of a handheld radio.
In 1985, in conjunction with the Johnson Space Center and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Space Shuttle Discovery astronauts created a video demonstrating how familiar toys behave in space. "It won't slink at all," Dr. M. Rhea Seddon said of Slinky, "It sort of droops." The video was prepared to stimulate interest in school children about the basic principles of physics and the phenomenon of weightlessness.
In 1992, the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, hosted an interactive traveling exhibit developed by the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, called "What Makes Music?" Among other things, visitors could examine what makes musical sound by creating waves on an eight-foot-long version of a Slinky toy.
Several online videos have shown the Slinky acting as an excellent squirrel deterrent for bird feeders when mounted on the pole of the bird feeder to prevent squirrels from climbing up the pole to reach the bird feeders.
See also
In Spanish: Slinky para niños
