March 28, 2019 • 39 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w. Chucky Bryant, and there's Jerry uh the
Delicious dish rolland and this is Stuff you should Know,
(00:24):
the vintage nostalgia addition that went off to China and
then got sold to a different company edition. So do
you want to have a rough list of classic toys
we've covered? You wanna hear it? Oh? Lay it on me.
I'm sure I've missed something, but it did help me
think of some more that we should do. It. Slinky,
(00:45):
we did slinky. Oh yeah, we did slink. Okay, yeah,
Lego Oh yeah, of course. Barbie sure, her boyfriend g
I Joe. Yeah, that was a good one. Sorry, wait
a minute, Wait a minute, I'm sorry. Did we just
specifically do a G I Joe winner in Action figures one?
I think both. We definitely did action figures, although probably not. Okay,
(01:07):
go ahead, I'll cross check that. Hot wheels, So so
this is a made up list, is what you're saying.
Hot wheels? Ye, I'm glad you didn't. You didn't call
it hot wheels. Easy bake oven m play dough, silly putty.
All right, do you count boomerangs? Yes, sure, do you
(01:28):
count Monopoly? Yeah, Yo yos. Of course, Hula Hoops. I
knew Hula Hoops was after Yo Yos. I just knew it.
Teddy Ruxpan, we we covered him in our Christmas show
this year. Oh yeah, that's a deep cut right there.
And then that's all I have. But um, I could
have sworn we did it on Frisbees, but I cannot
(01:50):
find it. Yeah. I feel like we did Frisbees too,
because I think we talked about like frall for something
at some point. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's out
there and I just didn't or maybe it's under a
flying disc or something. Oh that's possible. Yeah, we made
that joke about calling it a novelty flying disc because Frisbee,
(02:11):
like used to see everybody who called anything else to Frisbee.
Maybe I'll have to look, but that there's probably more
out there. But that's a solid you know, twelve or thirteen.
That's pretty good, which leads us to edge sketch. Yes,
one of the hundred top hundred toys of the century,
according to UM, I want to say not the toy
(02:33):
Hall of Fame. It's just in the Toy Hall of Fame.
Kid who makes lists online? All right, Uh, this is
the hundred best toys of the century. This is the
hundred best guitar solos of the seventies. Oh man, I'd
love to do a show on that. That would be
pretty cool. I can't remember who named that that who
(02:54):
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, it just catches the ubiquitous toy. Everybody
knows what an that just sketches unless you go to
France and then they'll say, oh, you mean like cro
magic and you you might say, like, well, why would
they have anything to say about the extra sketch in France?
Turns out, buddy, the a just sketch is actually French
(03:18):
in origin. Did you know that before this? I did not.
I didn't either, because it seems like super American, you know,
it looks like a TV and just feels like pure Americana.
So when I realized I had some French stank on it, uh,
my dreams were dashed. You like, it smells like champagne
(03:38):
and cheese. Which is kind of pleasant. No, I didn't
really care. I thought it was I thought it was great. Sketch,
erase and sketch again. The logline 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
(04:02):
amazing that today, in in the digital world and Bluetooth
and WiFi and video gaming as it is, that this
little um low 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, And I think
(04:24):
the reason why one of them is like you look
at it and you're still kind of like, how does
this thing work? Right, Well, we're going to ruin that
mystique for everybody because we're gonna explain how it works
actually in this episode. But hopefully it won't affect that
just sketch sales, because we love I just catch you know,
all right, should we go to France? We will go
(04:44):
to France sometime. It's apparently not clear whether it was
nineteen fifty five or nineteen fifty six, But in a
little town called Vitry Sir Sin, which means Victory on
the Sin River, there was a company called what was
the name of the company, chuck uh lynn crusta company name.
(05:08):
It is a terrible name. But the reason they called
themselves that is because Lynn Crusta is a type of
wall covering that was really popular in the nineteenth or
early twenty 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. M m no,
(05:30):
but keep going, Okay, So where if you you could
rub your hand over it's very much it's like heavily embossed.
Sometimes it's painted and it's just imagined. That is like
Wayne scouting in the house. That is Lynn Crusta. And
so that is one of the two things that this
company made in the fifties, Lynn crusta wall coverings and
(05:51):
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. They just basically be like if you
and I called our podcast podcast, because that's what we did,
was make podcasts, crust pod Crusta, just the name crust Anyway.
(06:13):
I think I know what you're talking about because I have,
uh 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, virtually the
same thing. Yeah, okay, so that's link Crusta and that's
where this guy worked. His name was Andre Cassagnas. Well,
(06:36):
if it's French, wouldn't it be uh Caissan is that pronounced? Yeah,
I think you just nailed it. Actually, Andre Cassong. Well
that's what we're gonna call him. And we have gone
back in time. You didn't know fifty five or fifty six,
I say we go to fifty four. Just play it safe,
setup shop in France and maybe get some emails done.
(06:58):
Alright for a couple of years. Why not we could
use a break um because you know, podcaster burnouts a
real thing. Really, we're dropping, We're dropping like flies, all right.
So he's working in this factory. It's north of Paris,
and they are making these uh wall coverings like you're
talking about. And he this is a little confusing how
(07:21):
this actually happens if you ask me, or at least
the way that the first article put it, it's confusing.
Oh you're leaving it to me. I noticed by your
by your pass after that, well, I mean no, let's
let's I'll start it. But I just still don't quite
get it. He marked up with pencil on a see
(07:42):
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.
It's to exactly what took place. So okay, remember this
(08:03):
is link Crusta and they make metal wall coverings, which
means there's metal dust in the air, metal shavings everywhere, right,
all of them are. Um that's what's crazy. This guy
made it to that ripole age of eighty six after
breathing that for years. But um, so there's there's metal
dust everywhere, including on this electrical switch plate that he's installing.
(08:26):
And I guess the decal against the plate. And I
think what happened was when he marked on the decal
and pulled the decale off, he'd seen that he had
disturbed the metal shavings that were stuck to the underside
of the decal. Do you see what I mean? Like
he he had disturbed the shape, so so there was
(08:47):
like the whole decal is coated in a metal dust.
He marks on it with a pencil and the impression
that he makes like gouges out lines on the backside
the decal. But I know it's really tough. It was magic. Basically,
this man witnessed a feat of magic that still cannot
(09:09):
be explained to this day. And that's where he got
his idea for the etch just sketch amazing. So a big,
big moment he has that that literal lightbulb that goes
off of his or I'm 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. Why not? Uh? And he said, all right,
(09:32):
this is uh, this, 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, man named Paul uh Chase c j
z E or maybe Shaw's if he's French. And this
(09:53):
guy had some dough because he owned a plastic injection
molding company. This is like early on, I wonder if
we could count. That's a toy, the the little plastic
machines that spent out little plastic guitars in Chicago and
it zoos. Yes, Rama, that would definitely count. Yeah, that
goes on the list. Yeah, so he didn't. It wasn't
(10:14):
mold rama, but it was plastic injection molding that this
guy made his money from. Uh. And this where things
get a little confusing historically because, uh, the man who
his accountant, his name was Arthur Grangenny. You are nailing
the French today. Try to run French people, You can't.
Chuck is pronouncing your words just beautifully. So his accountant
(10:38):
is actually given credit a lot of times because he
filed the patent under his name, which I'm curious about
how that works legally. Uh. He so he was do
you remember the first time we did south By Southwest
and on the sign it had like somebody I can't
(10:59):
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. I think this is the same, basically the
same thing. Where as like the US government bureaucracy, the
Patent and UM Trademark office basically said, whoever his name
(11:20):
is on there, that is, who is the patent holder.
And since um Grand Gene, who was the accountant of Chaise,
who was the partner of qusayan Um, 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 person who patented the
(11:43):
just catch in the United States, even though grand made
no claim on it whatsoever, immediately transferred the title over
to Shase. He's for for decades, everybody thought Arthur grand
Jean was the guy who invented the A sketch. Interesting, alright,
so that was July nine fifty nine was when this
patent was granted. And um, I guess we should just
(12:05):
look at the little guy itself, the little TV, looking
that iconic red frame with the two dials which it
didn't have initially. Well we'll get to that. But um,
the underside of the screen here has what's known in
the patent as a pull virulent material such as aluminum powder.
Is that French as well? I don't know, uh? And
(12:28):
then to keep that from clumping up there a little
tiny plastic beads and then the two knobs control um
again from the patent, a movable tracing stylus, although initially
it was a joystick, isn't that right? Yeah, yeah, basically
like an atari um, but it served the same purpose
and it was it was um held together the same
(12:49):
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 the diagonals and circles and stuff like that. But
it's if you it's really tough to describe what's going
on and and and that's just sketch. But there's an
House Stuff Works article from years back called Inside and
(13:11):
that just sketch where the people the House of Verse
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 ants just sketch, but it's still kind
of wondrous, you know, like the engineer and you was like, wow,
that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's sort of like, Um, I mean,
it's not a negative image, I don't think. But what's
(13:32):
going on when you're moving those knobs, Uh, there's a
stylist that's actually removing like the screen is coated with
this powder. So it's actually removing powder, not adding something
to the screen. Yes, exactly. And of course if you
want to get that away and start a new picture,
you just shake that thing up and that recoads the
(13:54):
screen once again with that powder. Yeah. So like you
know how your TV screen always has tons of dust
on it, no matter how often you dust it. Sure,
So that's because like that dust is attracted electrostatically through
an electrical charge to the glass. That's they take advantage
of that same thing with the underside of the um
(14:16):
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 the next that just
sketch like at its at its core. And what's interesting,
Chuck is like, that is how a nuts just sketch
(14:37):
today works. That's how ants just sketch worked in nineteen
sixty two, like the two meaning like also but that
that that dude, Andre Cassaigne said, this is how this
is gonna work. And it's it's basically the same thing.
That's pretty awesome. Uh, let's take a break. Yes, we're
gonna come back and talk about coming stateside right after this. Alright, So, Chuck,
(15:18):
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. I think he said casserole.
All right, Andre Casserole. That seems it seems wrong. Yeah,
I'm I'm still gonna go with Cassan. Okay, there you go.
(15:39):
Andre Cassan. Um, he knew he was onto 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 um and Cruise,
I guess funded a trip to the Nuremberg Toy Fair
UM in ninety nine. And uh, it was there that
(16:02):
Cassan was walking around saying, check this thing out. It
is yours for a mere hundred thousand dollars, which at
the time was a lot of money. I think it
was eight hundred and seventy thou dollars today. And that's
what this guy wanted for the for the right to
produce this um. And every toymaker at the place said no,
(16:24):
including a little toymaker called ohio Art Um. Everybody turned
it down, and Cassan went home from the toy fair
empty handed. But he he didn't give up. He still persisted.
But that was a big strikeout for him right out
of the gate. Yes, so Ohio Art eventually settles on
a number of grand for the rights to make this
(16:45):
thing in the United States. Uh. It is still called
La Chrome Magique in France because they had a different
licensing deal over there. From the from the get go
Um and Ohio Art company is pretty interesting. It started,
did you see that thing? Should? Yeah? They started out
in nineteen o eight, founded by a man named a
(17:07):
dentist named Dr Henry S. WinCE Winsler in Archibald Ohio.
He gets out of dentistry because he's like, hey, man,
toys is the future. Toys is 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 his dentistry. Yeah,
(17:29):
so he uh all the way forward. He rented a
UM musical, hired fifteen women and they were making metal
picture frames at first, to great great success. M hmm yeah. Um.
So they they use something called the metal lithography, which
is a type of printing, and I think the metal
(17:52):
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 inc it and then you print on
whatever you want. But they were printing on to metal.
Like they had like these UM picture frames and pictures
that were like a huge seller of a Cupid. It
was a pair of like oval plates basically, but they
(18:13):
were metal printed printed pictures on them, 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 of old timey creepiness.
But in the first half of the twentieth century, there
were fifty million sets of those things sold in the
United States, which is an astounding amount. It's basically every
(18:36):
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 edge just sketch, but the edge sketch was definitely
(18:56):
different than anything that they'd ever kind of messed around
with for Did you know I've done metal lithography? No? 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 uh, lithography
was something we did one quarter. Do you remember what
(19:19):
you printed? I'm trying to remember what I printed. It's
funny I can remember that because we also at one
quarter was screen printing. Remember the T shirts? I did
monkeys T shirts like this, see no evil here, No
evil monkeys. No, the Band of Monkeys. They're there their
logo with the guitar spelled out as monkeys, Like, wow,
(19:43):
did you draw it yourself? No? No, no, of course
not um, but we did metal sheet lithography. I don't
remember all of the process, but what I do remember
was essentially was like burning chemically burning images onto metal
plates and then that metal plate was used to print. Okay,
(20:07):
So so the metal and metal lithography does it talks
about the metal press that you're using to print with
like at the end of 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
(20:28):
that would burn that into like make it part of
the metal. And then all of a sudden you would
have a metal sheet within thing on it like a
negative image, and then you would use that in the
printing process to print a positive image, right, and you
could print use that to print onto anything including other metal. Right.
Well hey man, that's where my knowledge and again this
was ninth grade me, so I've I've forgotten a lot
(20:50):
of things over that time period, right, And I'm sure
I just butchered that. But that's my one little dance
with metal lithography. 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 atch just catch it still is today. Actually so
(21:12):
so Ohio Art, like I guess, gets in touch with
um Andre Cassan and and either he got in touch
with them again or they got in touch with him.
I think it was the ladder 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 Cassan is like, what are you
(21:34):
talking about there, Like, just take the money. And so
they either got it for fifteen thousand or twenty five thousand,
which is still substantial. I mean it was like around
a hundred k or um two k something like that,
depending on which one it was, and Cassan was quite
a happy man. There was a story where Um, the
guy who was running the show at Ohio Art and
(21:55):
his wife went over to meet Andre Cassan and just
kind of have like an initial eating and like shake
his hand and all that and buy the license from him,
and Cassan was like welcome and had like this huge
spread of baguettes and champagne and everything at his house,
which is pretty cute because there was just like this
humble guy who came up with a really great idea
for a toy and was finally like selling it for
(22:17):
a lot of cash. Interesting, what the baggetts in champagne? Yeah,
but you know what are you gonna do? Well? Went
in France, right, so he is. Once he's on board
with Ohio Art, he gets together with their chief engineer,
Jerry Burger and says, and Burger's like, listen here, frenchie,
(22:40):
you need to drop the joystick. It's all knobs these days.
And he said, what does that 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
(23:01):
you're really talented and you can master both at once,
you can actually do UM rooted. Well, if you're really good,
you can do very nice current lines. But beyond rudimentary.
No neither am I I can make a line go
up and a line go to the left or right. Yeah,
well we'll get you can't even make it go down.
We'll get to the art of it. Um maybe at
(23:23):
the end. But because there are some serious artists out
there doing some cool stuff, but at any rate, at
just sketch. It was rebranded as etch a sketch in
the United States, Ohio Arts producing them for the nineteen
six holiday season and they sold about six hundred thousand
of these um that year, which is a it's a lot, yeah,
(23:46):
and they sold it for a lot of money too.
They they went for sale at two dollars and nine
cents apiece, which is sixty four in today's money. Um.
But I mean if you go by and it's just
sketched today, it's between and in fifteen bucks. So that
was a lot of money, especially to sell six hundred
thousand of these things, especially if you were selling like
(24:06):
creepy you know, metal waste baskets with an unsettling clown
painted on it are printed on it like right before this.
This is a huge it was. It was a good
move by the people at Ohio Art to buy the
license of this thing, in other words, and they say,
chook that it coincided really perfectly with television, so much
(24:26):
so that that they believe like that is one of
the reasons why Jerry Burger was like, 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. Yeah,
and he um. It was one of the first toys
to actually do a TV commercial. And so if it's
NIX and you're a child watching, first of all, your
(24:48):
mind is blown because you're watching in television to begin with.
It's just like you, I can't believe this. I can't
believe what's going on right now. Then a TV commercial
comes on for a toy uh uh, and this toy
has animation in it to where like they would at
just sketch a little rocket ship and then that rocket
ship that rocket ship would animate and take off. And
(25:09):
this was like these kids might have I mean, keep
in mind, kids in nineteen sixty were idiots, but they
might as well have been dosed with lsd mm hmm.
You know, they just kept fainting over and over again
throughout the commercial because they could not believe what they
were seeing. And it's just it's just an etch, just sketch,
you know. Yeah, but it's genius. I love it. It is,
(25:34):
but it really I think the point was though that
like taking advantage of the novelty of TV and also
now having away like if you we just tried to
explain and that just sketch over a podcast prior to TV,
if that just sketch you come out during like the
Little Orphan, any radio era, they would have had to
(25:55):
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, it was pretty awesome. And
then also to say and then you just shake it,
turn it upside down and shake it and code the
glass screen again and you're you're drawing is gone forever.
Like to be able to see that TV made the
(26:15):
it just gets what it was like. For sure. It
definitely ushered into a position where it could become like
a cultural icon of a nostalgia. Yeah, I mean, you know,
they perfected it by the time they started rolling off
in nineteen sixty. Prior to that, like any product like this,
there was a lot of R and d um. One
of the people who worked there, talked about the mountain
(26:36):
of red frames behind the factory while they were trying
to get it right. Um, and it was such a
huge smash it out of the gate that uh 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. Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty cool.
I mean, they really wanted those kids to have those
(26:58):
Thats Just catches. They really wanted that money. Should we
take another break, Yeah, all right, we'll talk about some
some ways at Just Sketches ebbed and flowed and popularity
in pop culture over the years. Right for this, Chuck,
(27:29):
I don't know if we said it or not, but
from what I've seen, more than a hundred and seventy
five million ET Just sketches have been sold since nineteen six.
And we should point out we're not just like ticking
off a list of pop culture references. Like every time
this happened, uh ET Just Sketch sales would go up. Yeah,
(27:50):
like the Romney one increased sales like thirty percent. I
guess everybody was like, Oh, I just guess I forgot
about that. I think I'll go buy one right now. Well,
they actually branded after that, UM, Republican and Democrat sketches,
that didn't they Yeah, so you could buy a red
one or a blue one, but both of them came
with a sticker which I'm I'm assuming that they printed
(28:11):
on their metal lithography presses of a donkey and an elephant,
like playing Tugo war on the front of the White
House lawn. Yeah, that's just crazy, it is, but it's
also that's smart. You know, that's how you that's how
you make the money. UM. And then of course in
the movie Toy Story from Pixar, uh, that was UM
Like one of the character's name was and had the
(28:33):
fastest knobs in the West, and that was that was
always a very fun uh character. I think to see
them drawing things out really fast to communicate. 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 the staying power for you know,
fifty something years, almost sixty years it's been around, UM
(28:56):
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 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
(29:18):
you remember that at Just Sketch Animator? 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 et just sketch, but there
was nothing mechanical about it. It was digital. You're creating
like a bit map digital picture and um. Then you'd
(29:38):
press like I guess play or something like that, and
it would just kind of run it um like a
flipbook over and over again. So your it just skets
drawing like came to life. But kids were like, no,
I'd rather have the original ETU sketch because that Sketch
Animator went away and the I just sketches still available today. Yeah,
I mean there have been um other variations. They had
(29:59):
the doodle sketch, Um, the plug in play, which this
sounds like a bad IDEA plug in play allows you
to draw on the TV screen. That's just asking for
trouble as a parent. UM and then the mobile app,
which I've been playing with today. Oh, how's it going? Well?
I mean, what do you think of this picture? Oh?
(30:20):
That's it's not bad. It looks kind of edges sketchy,
you know. 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 more basic,
like a picture of your face, works much better than
(30:42):
something with a lot of stuff in the background. But
it's fun, right, yeah, you know, yeah, I like it.
I was reading reviews of the app. I didn't try
it myself like you, but it's uh it did say
like if it's a basic picture, you'll look way more
etch just sketchy. Yeah. So my official review is not bad.
So three stars out of six. Sure. I mean for
(31:04):
something that downloaded in thirty seconds and was free, I'm
gonna give it a half of them up, you know.
So UM one of the things that that has kind
of kept at just sketch alive for like the younger kids.
If I read this article about UM that's just sketch,
and it was right before they sold, so a lot
(31:24):
of people don't know ohio Art doesn't make that just
sketch anymore. They sold it to a brand called spin Master,
and I didn't I didn't see that. Yeah it's not
it's not ohio Art. Ohio Are it said we're going
back to metal lithography, and that's what they did. So
they sold that just sketch off to spin Master. Spin
Masters like, that's fine with us, baby, thanks for all
these licenses. Um, I mean I just sketch a frozen
(31:46):
branded that just sketches it. You might as well just
be like a printing press for money, right, So it
was probably a pretty goodbye for spin Master in Ohio Ar.
It was like this thing is it was great. It
was a good run while it lasted, but they all
so I had to oversee it through some really dark
times because, um, well, for one thing, like I just sketched,
(32:08):
is it 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 back in like two thousand one.
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 manufacturing of that just
(32:29):
sketched off to China, which they were really unhappy about
because they lost like thirty five jobs in tiny little Brian, Ohio.
But eventually, like fifteen years later, they said, you know
what we're getting out that that's just sketch business and
sold it off to spin Master, which is a weird name.
But the but then one of the things, it's a
little weird, Ohio art's a little weird too. You don't
(32:50):
associate Ohio with art, you know, you just don't. I'll
say it again to Chrissy Hind. Chrissy Hind gets what
I'm saying for sure. Um So the thing that one
of the things that that is keeping it just sketch relevant.
The reason why, like if you walk up to like
a seventeen year old and say what do you think
about that? Just catch you say, oh, yeah, I've heard
(33:11):
of that. Because every once in a while you'll see
on the internets a photo or two of somebody who
is really really good at that just sketch and it
just kind of makes the rounds on social media. Yeah,
I mean everything from like the Mona Lisa to just
like portraits of people to landscapes. Uh. What's really fun
(33:32):
is you can go on YouTube and look at time
laps um renderings at just 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 a master with those knobs.
Like UM, what I found is the thing you really
need to master to do everything um that you want
(33:53):
to do is being able to retrace well because as
everyone knows, it's not like a pencil 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 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 gonna look like
something you're that I did, which looks like something at
(34:16):
Toddler did. Yeah, And I mean like that's a it's
a really good point. When you're making a good at
just sketch drawing, it is all one single line, so
frequently double back over and that's just 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. Pretty brilliant. Yeah, there's
a guy named m. George Vlosits the third who's known
(34:39):
for some pretty amazing portraits of Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama,
Lebron James. There's a an artist named Jane lab A
Witch or Labovich maybe she calls herself Princess at just sketch,
sent some amazing like architectural detail with it. And then
there's a guy named Ryan Burton who does erotic Simpsons art.
(35:00):
There you go with the etch just sketching. All three
of them are like really good at the drawings. Yeah,
the fan fick of just sketch our artists. And then
apparently if you when you're very satisfied with your et
just 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
(35:22):
keep them from being turned in. You have a net
just sketch masterpiece that you can hang in a museum.
Oh so that makes it permanent. So when the little
uh so, when a kid comes in the museum and
rips it off the wall and shakes that nothing happens. No, no,
And I think by law you're allowed to pick up
that kid and shake it. Yes, so as long as
it's not a baby, you never shake a baby. Come on,
(35:45):
I would never advocate shaking a baby. Everybody just want
to go on record to say that there was you know,
the comedian Nate Bargatzi. He has a he's great. He's
got a very funny bit about shaking babies. Believe it
or not, it takes a lot to turn that into
something funny. Yeah, he did it. Man, good for him.
Nate BURGOTSI huh Nate Burgotti, dude, you would love him.
(36:06):
He's great. So Nate Burgotti just became a cultural icon
because we did not see him coming up in this episode.
That's right. Uh, well, if you want to know more
about Nate Burgotti, you should go check him out on
the internet like I'm going to. And uh, since I
said na Purgatzi, it's time for listener mayo. Man, if
someone tells Nate, we're plugging him, plugging away, plugging Nate.
(36:30):
All right here, I'm gonna mention this is about Jerry
and her eating and this is from Kim Cooper. Did
you see this Jerry? She says, no, Hey, guys, I
notice that you often mentioned what Jerry is eating a
lot during the podcast. I don't know how close to
you she how close she is to your microphones. I'll
go ahead and say that from your side over there,
she's about five ft Like. All I have to do
(36:52):
is lean in my seat a little bit and I
can touch Jerry's miso soup. That's right. You could dip
your bumb in her soup sometimes, I threatened, I don't
know how she close she is to your microphones, but
I never hear her eating, which is good for your
fans with Misa Ponia. But I'm curious why she chooses
this time to eat. Do you guys spend all day
(37:14):
podcasting and that's the only time she can fit it in?
No silly question that popped into my head listening to
This Week this week after Josh said, and there's Jerry eating.
God knows what um Anyway, Guys, she's got me interested
in trying me. So I tell her she's doing a
great job because I don't know, because I know she
doesn't get too many shout outs and Josh and Chuck,
(37:36):
you guys are pretty great too. That is from Kim Cooper.
Thanks Kim, that's funny. She went all the way around.
Is it basically say? I guess what I'm trying to
say is I've always wanted to try me so yeah,
pretty much, we'll go try to me, so, 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. You can go from there.
(37:57):
I do you ever eat just miso paste? It's good
if you're craving something salty and savory and new. Mommy,
let's just say, um, it's good, but you can't. You
can't eat very much. But I'm just teasing him, like
a spoonful is a lot of me so paste, Okay,
what do you just add that to? Is it an ingredient? Yeah,
for like soup stuff like that. Yeah, but you can't
(38:20):
just seat the paste 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. Um, you can go to stuff you should
Know dot com find out all of our social links
and you can always send us an email attention to everybody.
We have a new email address. Wow wow, it is
(38:41):
Stuff Podcast. I heart podcast network dot com. How about that?
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w. Chucky Bryant, and there's Jerry uh the
Delicious dish rolland and this is Stuff you should Know,
(00:24):
the vintage nostalgia addition that went off to China and
then got sold to a different company edition. So do
you want to have a rough list of classic toys
we've covered? You wanna hear it? Oh? Lay it on me.
I'm sure I've missed something, but it did help me
think of some more that we should do. It. Slinky,
(00:45):
we did slinky. Oh yeah, we did slink. Okay, yeah,
Lego Oh yeah, of course. Barbie sure, her boyfriend g
I Joe. Yeah, that was a good one. Sorry, wait
a minute, Wait a minute, I'm sorry. Did we just
specifically do a G I Joe winner in Action figures one?
I think both. We definitely did action figures, although probably not. Okay,
(01:07):
go ahead, I'll cross check that. Hot wheels, So so
this is a made up list, is what you're saying.
Hot wheels? Ye, I'm glad you didn't. You didn't call
it hot wheels. Easy bake oven m play dough, silly putty.
All right, do you count boomerangs? Yes, sure, do you
(01:28):
count Monopoly? Yeah, Yo yos. Of course, Hula Hoops. I
knew Hula Hoops was after Yo Yos. I just knew it.
Teddy Ruxpan, we we covered him in our Christmas show
this year. Oh yeah, that's a deep cut right there.
And then that's all I have. But um, I could
have sworn we did it on Frisbees, but I cannot
(01:50):
find it. Yeah. I feel like we did Frisbees too,
because I think we talked about like frall for something
at some point. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's out
there and I just didn't or maybe it's under a
flying disc or something. Oh that's possible. Yeah, we made
that joke about calling it a novelty flying disc because Frisbee,
(02:11):
like used to see everybody who called anything else to Frisbee.
Maybe I'll have to look, but that there's probably more
out there. But that's a solid you know, twelve or thirteen.
That's pretty good, which leads us to edge sketch. Yes,
one of the hundred top hundred toys of the century,
according to UM, I want to say not the toy
(02:33):
Hall of Fame. It's just in the Toy Hall of Fame.
Kid who makes lists online? All right, Uh, this is
the hundred best toys of the century. This is the
hundred best guitar solos of the seventies. Oh man, I'd
love to do a show on that. That would be
pretty cool. I can't remember who named that that who
(02:54):
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, it just catches the ubiquitous toy. Everybody
knows what an that just sketches unless you go to
France and then they'll say, oh, you mean like cro
magic and you you might say, like, well, why would
they have anything to say about the extra sketch in France?
Turns out, buddy, the a just sketch is actually French
(03:18):
in origin. Did you know that before this? I did not.
I didn't either, because it seems like super American, you know,
it looks like a TV and just feels like pure Americana.
So when I realized I had some French stank on it, uh,
my dreams were dashed. You like, it smells like champagne
(03:38):
and cheese. Which is kind of pleasant. No, I didn't
really care. I thought it was I thought it was great. Sketch,
erase and sketch again. The logline 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
(04:02):
amazing that today, in in the digital world and Bluetooth
and WiFi and video gaming as it is, that this
little um low 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, And I think
(04:24):
the reason why one of them is like you look
at it and you're still kind of like, how does
this thing work? Right, Well, we're going to ruin that
mystique for everybody because we're gonna explain how it works
actually in this episode. But hopefully it won't affect that
just sketch sales, because we love I just catch you know,
all right, should we go to France? We will go
(04:44):
to France sometime. It's apparently not clear whether it was
nineteen fifty five or nineteen fifty six, But in a
little town called Vitry Sir Sin, which means Victory on
the Sin River, there was a company called what was
the name of the company, chuck uh lynn crusta company name.
(05:08):
It is a terrible name. But the reason they called
themselves that is because Lynn Crusta is a type of
wall covering that was really popular in the nineteenth or
early twenty 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. M m no,
(05:30):
but keep going, Okay, So where if you you could
rub your hand over it's very much it's like heavily embossed.
Sometimes it's painted and it's just imagined. That is like
Wayne scouting in the house. That is Lynn Crusta. And
so that is one of the two things that this
company made in the fifties, Lynn crusta wall coverings and
(05:51):
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. They just basically be like if you
and I called our podcast podcast, because that's what we did,
was make podcasts, crust pod Crusta, just the name crust Anyway.
(06:13):
I think I know what you're talking about because I have,
uh 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, virtually the
same thing. Yeah, okay, so that's link Crusta and that's
where this guy worked. His name was Andre Cassagnas. Well,
(06:36):
if it's French, wouldn't it be uh Caissan is that pronounced? Yeah,
I think you just nailed it. Actually, Andre Cassong. Well
that's what we're gonna call him. And we have gone
back in time. You didn't know fifty five or fifty six,
I say we go to fifty four. Just play it safe,
setup shop in France and maybe get some emails done.
(06:58):
Alright for a couple of years. Why not we could
use a break um because you know, podcaster burnouts a
real thing. Really, we're dropping, We're dropping like flies, all right.
So he's working in this factory. It's north of Paris,
and they are making these uh wall coverings like you're
talking about. And he this is a little confusing how
(07:21):
this actually happens if you ask me, or at least
the way that the first article put it, it's confusing.
Oh you're leaving it to me. I noticed by your
by your pass after that, well, I mean no, let's
let's I'll start it. But I just still don't quite
get it. He marked up with pencil on a see
(07:42):
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.
It's to exactly what took place. So okay, remember this
(08:03):
is link Crusta and they make metal wall coverings, which
means there's metal dust in the air, metal shavings everywhere, right,
all of them are. Um that's what's crazy. This guy
made it to that ripole age of eighty six after
breathing that for years. But um, so there's there's metal
dust everywhere, including on this electrical switch plate that he's installing.
(08:26):
And I guess the decal against the plate. And I
think what happened was when he marked on the decal
and pulled the decale off, he'd seen that he had
disturbed the metal shavings that were stuck to the underside
of the decal. Do you see what I mean? Like
he he had disturbed the shape, so so there was
(08:47):
like the whole decal is coated in a metal dust.
He marks on it with a pencil and the impression
that he makes like gouges out lines on the backside
the decal. But I know it's really tough. It was magic. Basically,
this man witnessed a feat of magic that still cannot
(09:09):
be explained to this day. And that's where he got
his idea for the etch just sketch amazing. So a big,
big moment he has that that literal lightbulb that goes
off of his or I'm 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. Why not? Uh? And he said, all right,
(09:32):
this is uh, this, 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, man named Paul uh Chase c j
z E or maybe Shaw's if he's French. And this
(09:53):
guy had some dough because he owned a plastic injection
molding company. This is like early on, I wonder if
we could count. That's a toy, the the little plastic
machines that spent out little plastic guitars in Chicago and
it zoos. Yes, Rama, that would definitely count. Yeah, that
goes on the list. Yeah, so he didn't. It wasn't
(10:14):
mold rama, but it was plastic injection molding that this
guy made his money from. Uh. And this where things
get a little confusing historically because, uh, the man who
his accountant, his name was Arthur Grangenny. You are nailing
the French today. Try to run French people, You can't.
Chuck is pronouncing your words just beautifully. So his accountant
(10:38):
is actually given credit a lot of times because he
filed the patent under his name, which I'm curious about
how that works legally. Uh. He so he was do
you remember the first time we did south By Southwest
and on the sign it had like somebody I can't
(10:59):
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. I think this is the same, basically the
same thing. Where as like the US government bureaucracy, the
Patent and UM Trademark office basically said, whoever his name
(11:20):
is on there, that is, who is the patent holder.
And since um Grand Gene, who was the accountant of Chaise,
who was the partner of qusayan Um, 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 person who patented the
(11:43):
just catch in the United States, even though grand made
no claim on it whatsoever, immediately transferred the title over
to Shase. He's for for decades, everybody thought Arthur grand
Jean was the guy who invented the A sketch. Interesting, alright,
so that was July nine fifty nine was when this
patent was granted. And um, I guess we should just
(12:05):
look at the little guy itself, the little TV, looking
that iconic red frame with the two dials which it
didn't have initially. Well we'll get to that. But um,
the underside of the screen here has what's known in
the patent as a pull virulent material such as aluminum powder.
Is that French as well? I don't know, uh? And
(12:28):
then to keep that from clumping up there a little
tiny plastic beads and then the two knobs control um
again from the patent, a movable tracing stylus, although initially
it was a joystick, isn't that right? Yeah, yeah, basically
like an atari um, but it served the same purpose
and it was it was um held together the same
(12:49):
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 the diagonals and circles and stuff like that. But
it's if you it's really tough to describe what's going
on and and and that's just sketch. But there's an
House Stuff Works article from years back called Inside and
(13:11):
that just sketch where the people the House of Verse
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 ants just sketch, but it's still kind
of wondrous, you know, like the engineer and you was like, wow,
that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's sort of like, Um, I mean,
it's not a negative image, I don't think. But what's
(13:32):
going on when you're moving those knobs, Uh, there's a
stylist that's actually removing like the screen is coated with
this powder. So it's actually removing powder, not adding something
to the screen. Yes, exactly. And of course if you
want to get that away and start a new picture,
you just shake that thing up and that recoads the
(13:54):
screen once again with that powder. Yeah. So like you
know how your TV screen always has tons of dust
on it, no matter how often you dust it. Sure,
So that's because like that dust is attracted electrostatically through
an electrical charge to the glass. That's they take advantage
of that same thing with the underside of the um
(14:16):
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 the next that just
sketch like at its at its core. And what's interesting,
Chuck is like, that is how a nuts just sketch
(14:37):
today works. That's how ants just sketch worked in nineteen
sixty two, like the two meaning like also but that
that that dude, Andre Cassaigne said, this is how this
is gonna work. And it's it's basically the same thing.
That's pretty awesome. Uh, let's take a break. Yes, we're
gonna come back and talk about coming stateside right after this. Alright, So, Chuck,
(15:18):
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. I think he said casserole.
All right, Andre Casserole. That seems it seems wrong. Yeah,
I'm I'm still gonna go with Cassan. Okay, there you go.
(15:39):
Andre Cassan. Um, he knew he was onto 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 um and Cruise,
I guess funded a trip to the Nuremberg Toy Fair
UM in ninety nine. And uh, it was there that
(16:02):
Cassan was walking around saying, check this thing out. It
is yours for a mere hundred thousand dollars, which at
the time was a lot of money. I think it
was eight hundred and seventy thou dollars today. And that's
what this guy wanted for the for the right to
produce this um. And every toymaker at the place said no,
(16:24):
including a little toymaker called ohio Art Um. Everybody turned
it down, and Cassan went home from the toy fair
empty handed. But he he didn't give up. He still persisted.
But that was a big strikeout for him right out
of the gate. Yes, so Ohio Art eventually settles on
a number of grand for the rights to make this
(16:45):
thing in the United States. Uh. It is still called
La Chrome Magique in France because they had a different
licensing deal over there. From the from the get go
Um and Ohio Art company is pretty interesting. It started,
did you see that thing? Should? Yeah? They started out
in nineteen o eight, founded by a man named a
(17:07):
dentist named Dr Henry S. WinCE Winsler in Archibald Ohio.
He gets out of dentistry because he's like, hey, man,
toys is the future. Toys is 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 his dentistry. Yeah,
(17:29):
so he uh all the way forward. He rented a
UM musical, hired fifteen women and they were making metal
picture frames at first, to great great success. M hmm yeah. Um.
So they they use something called the metal lithography, which
is a type of printing, and I think the metal
(17:52):
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 inc it and then you print on
whatever you want. But they were printing on to metal.
Like they had like these UM picture frames and pictures
that were like a huge seller of a Cupid. It
was a pair of like oval plates basically, but they
(18:13):
were metal printed printed pictures on them, 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 of old timey creepiness.
But in the first half of the twentieth century, there
were fifty million sets of those things sold in the
United States, which is an astounding amount. It's basically every
(18:36):
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 edge just sketch, but the edge sketch was definitely
(18:56):
different than anything that they'd ever kind of messed around
with for Did you know I've done metal lithography? No? 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 uh, lithography
was something we did one quarter. Do you remember what
(19:19):
you printed? I'm trying to remember what I printed. It's
funny I can remember that because we also at one
quarter was screen printing. Remember the T shirts? I did
monkeys T shirts like this, see no evil here, No
evil monkeys. No, the Band of Monkeys. They're there their
logo with the guitar spelled out as monkeys, Like, wow,
(19:43):
did you draw it yourself? No? No, no, of course
not um, but we did metal sheet lithography. I don't
remember all of the process, but what I do remember
was essentially was like burning chemically burning images onto metal
plates and then that metal plate was used to print. Okay,
(20:07):
So so the metal and metal lithography does it talks
about the metal press that you're using to print with
like at the end of 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
(20:28):
that would burn that into like make it part of
the metal. And then all of a sudden you would
have a metal sheet within thing on it like a
negative image, and then you would use that in the
printing process to print a positive image, right, and you
could print use that to print onto anything including other metal. Right.
Well hey man, that's where my knowledge and again this
was ninth grade me, so I've I've forgotten a lot
(20:50):
of things over that time period, right, And I'm sure
I just butchered that. But that's my one little dance
with metal lithography. 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 atch just catch it still is today. Actually so
(21:12):
so Ohio Art, like I guess, gets in touch with
um Andre Cassan and and either he got in touch
with them again or they got in touch with him.
I think it was the ladder 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 Cassan is like, what are you
(21:34):
talking about there, Like, just take the money. And so
they either got it for fifteen thousand or twenty five thousand,
which is still substantial. I mean it was like around
a hundred k or um two k something like that,
depending on which one it was, and Cassan was quite
a happy man. There was a story where Um, the
guy who was running the show at Ohio Art and
(21:55):
his wife went over to meet Andre Cassan and just
kind of have like an initial eating and like shake
his hand and all that and buy the license from him,
and Cassan was like welcome and had like this huge
spread of baguettes and champagne and everything at his house,
which is pretty cute because there was just like this
humble guy who came up with a really great idea
for a toy and was finally like selling it for
(22:17):
a lot of cash. Interesting, what the baggetts in champagne? Yeah,
but you know what are you gonna do? Well? Went
in France, right, so he is. Once he's on board
with Ohio Art, he gets together with their chief engineer,
Jerry Burger and says, and Burger's like, listen here, frenchie,
(22:40):
you need to drop the joystick. It's all knobs these days.
And he said, what does that 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
(23:01):
you're really talented and you can master both at once,
you can actually do UM rooted. Well, if you're really good,
you can do very nice current lines. But beyond rudimentary.
No neither am I I can make a line go
up and a line go to the left or right. Yeah,
well we'll get you can't even make it go down.
We'll get to the art of it. Um maybe at
(23:23):
the end. But because there are some serious artists out
there doing some cool stuff, but at any rate, at
just sketch. It was rebranded as etch a sketch in
the United States, Ohio Arts producing them for the nineteen
six holiday season and they sold about six hundred thousand
of these um that year, which is a it's a lot, yeah,
(23:46):
and they sold it for a lot of money too.
They they went for sale at two dollars and nine
cents apiece, which is sixty four in today's money. Um.
But I mean if you go by and it's just
sketched today, it's between and in fifteen bucks. So that
was a lot of money, especially to sell six hundred
thousand of these things, especially if you were selling like
(24:06):
creepy you know, metal waste baskets with an unsettling clown
painted on it are printed on it like right before this.
This is a huge it was. It was a good
move by the people at Ohio Art to buy the
license of this thing, in other words, and they say,
chook that it coincided really perfectly with television, so much
(24:26):
so that that they believe like that is one of
the reasons why Jerry Burger was like, 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. Yeah,
and he um. It was one of the first toys
to actually do a TV commercial. And so if it's
NIX and you're a child watching, first of all, your
(24:48):
mind is blown because you're watching in television to begin with.
It's just like you, I can't believe this. I can't
believe what's going on right now. Then a TV commercial
comes on for a toy uh uh, and this toy
has animation in it to where like they would at
just sketch a little rocket ship and then that rocket
ship that rocket ship would animate and take off. And
(25:09):
this was like these kids might have I mean, keep
in mind, kids in nineteen sixty were idiots, but they
might as well have been dosed with lsd mm hmm.
You know, they just kept fainting over and over again
throughout the commercial because they could not believe what they
were seeing. And it's just it's just an etch, just sketch,
you know. Yeah, but it's genius. I love it. It is,
(25:34):
but it really I think the point was though that
like taking advantage of the novelty of TV and also
now having away like if you we just tried to
explain and that just sketch over a podcast prior to TV,
if that just sketch you come out during like the
Little Orphan, any radio era, they would have had to
(25:55):
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, it was pretty awesome. And
then also to say and then you just shake it,
turn it upside down and shake it and code the
glass screen again and you're you're drawing is gone forever.
Like to be able to see that TV made the
(26:15):
it just gets what it was like. For sure. It
definitely ushered into a position where it could become like
a cultural icon of a nostalgia. Yeah, I mean, you know,
they perfected it by the time they started rolling off
in nineteen sixty. Prior to that, like any product like this,
there was a lot of R and d um. One
of the people who worked there, talked about the mountain
(26:36):
of red frames behind the factory while they were trying
to get it right. Um, and it was such a
huge smash it out of the gate that uh 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. Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty cool.
I mean, they really wanted those kids to have those
(26:58):
Thats Just catches. They really wanted that money. Should we
take another break, Yeah, all right, we'll talk about some
some ways at Just Sketches ebbed and flowed and popularity
in pop culture over the years. Right for this, Chuck,
(27:29):
I don't know if we said it or not, but
from what I've seen, more than a hundred and seventy
five million ET Just sketches have been sold since nineteen six.
And we should point out we're not just like ticking
off a list of pop culture references. Like every time
this happened, uh ET Just Sketch sales would go up. Yeah,
(27:50):
like the Romney one increased sales like thirty percent. I
guess everybody was like, Oh, I just guess I forgot
about that. I think I'll go buy one right now. Well,
they actually branded after that, UM, Republican and Democrat sketches,
that didn't they Yeah, so you could buy a red
one or a blue one, but both of them came
with a sticker which I'm I'm assuming that they printed
(28:11):
on their metal lithography presses of a donkey and an elephant,
like playing Tugo war on the front of the White
House lawn. Yeah, that's just crazy, it is, but it's
also that's smart. You know, that's how you that's how
you make the money. UM. And then of course in
the movie Toy Story from Pixar, uh, that was UM
Like one of the character's name was and had the
(28:33):
fastest knobs in the West, and that was that was
always a very fun uh character. I think to see
them drawing things out really fast to communicate. 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 the staying power for you know,
fifty something years, almost sixty years it's been around, UM
(28:56):
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 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
(29:18):
you remember that at Just Sketch Animator? 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 et just sketch, but there
was nothing mechanical about it. It was digital. You're creating
like a bit map digital picture and um. Then you'd
(29:38):
press like I guess play or something like that, and
it would just kind of run it um like a
flipbook over and over again. So your it just skets
drawing like came to life. But kids were like, no,
I'd rather have the original ETU sketch because that Sketch
Animator went away and the I just sketches still available today. Yeah,
I mean there have been um other variations. They had
(29:59):
the doodle sketch, Um, the plug in play, which this
sounds like a bad IDEA plug in play allows you
to draw on the TV screen. That's just asking for
trouble as a parent. UM and then the mobile app,
which I've been playing with today. Oh, how's it going? Well?
I mean, what do you think of this picture? Oh?
(30:20):
That's it's not bad. It looks kind of edges sketchy,
you know. 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 more basic,
like a picture of your face, works much better than
(30:42):
something with a lot of stuff in the background. But
it's fun, right, yeah, you know, yeah, I like it.
I was reading reviews of the app. I didn't try
it myself like you, but it's uh it did say
like if it's a basic picture, you'll look way more
etch just sketchy. Yeah. So my official review is not bad.
So three stars out of six. Sure. I mean for
(31:04):
something that downloaded in thirty seconds and was free, I'm
gonna give it a half of them up, you know.
So UM one of the things that that has kind
of kept at just sketch alive for like the younger kids.
If I read this article about UM that's just sketch,
and it was right before they sold, so a lot
(31:24):
of people don't know ohio Art doesn't make that just
sketch anymore. They sold it to a brand called spin Master,
and I didn't I didn't see that. Yeah it's not
it's not ohio Art. Ohio Are it said we're going
back to metal lithography, and that's what they did. So
they sold that just sketch off to spin Master. Spin
Masters like, that's fine with us, baby, thanks for all
these licenses. Um, I mean I just sketch a frozen
(31:46):
branded that just sketches it. You might as well just
be like a printing press for money, right, So it
was probably a pretty goodbye for spin Master in Ohio Ar.
It was like this thing is it was great. It
was a good run while it lasted, but they all
so I had to oversee it through some really dark
times because, um, well, for one thing, like I just sketched,
(32:08):
is it 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 back in like two thousand one.
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 manufacturing of that just
(32:29):
sketched off to China, which they were really unhappy about
because they lost like thirty five jobs in tiny little Brian, Ohio.
But eventually, like fifteen years later, they said, you know
what we're getting out that that's just sketch business and
sold it off to spin Master, which is a weird name.
But the but then one of the things, it's a
little weird, Ohio art's a little weird too. You don't
(32:50):
associate Ohio with art, you know, you just don't. I'll
say it again to Chrissy Hind. Chrissy Hind gets what
I'm saying for sure. Um So the thing that one
of the things that that is keeping it just sketch relevant.
The reason why, like if you walk up to like
a seventeen year old and say what do you think
about that? Just catch you say, oh, yeah, I've heard
(33:11):
of that. Because every once in a while you'll see
on the internets a photo or two of somebody who
is really really good at that just sketch and it
just kind of makes the rounds on social media. Yeah,
I mean everything from like the Mona Lisa to just
like portraits of people to landscapes. Uh. What's really fun
(33:32):
is you can go on YouTube and look at time
laps um renderings at just 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 a master with those knobs.
Like UM, what I found is the thing you really
need to master to do everything um that you want
(33:53):
to do is being able to retrace well because as
everyone knows, it's not like a pencil 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 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 gonna look like
something you're that I did, which looks like something at
(34:16):
Toddler did. Yeah, And I mean like that's a it's
a really good point. When you're making a good at
just sketch drawing, it is all one single line, so
frequently double back over and that's just 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. Pretty brilliant. Yeah, there's
a guy named m. George Vlosits the third who's known
(34:39):
for some pretty amazing portraits of Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama,
Lebron James. There's a an artist named Jane lab A
Witch or Labovich maybe she calls herself Princess at just sketch,
sent some amazing like architectural detail with it. And then
there's a guy named Ryan Burton who does erotic Simpsons art.
(35:00):
There you go with the etch just sketching. All three
of them are like really good at the drawings. Yeah,
the fan fick of just sketch our artists. And then
apparently if you when you're very satisfied with your et
just 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
(35:22):
keep them from being turned in. You have a net
just sketch masterpiece that you can hang in a museum.
Oh so that makes it permanent. So when the little
uh so, when a kid comes in the museum and
rips it off the wall and shakes that nothing happens. No, no,
And I think by law you're allowed to pick up
that kid and shake it. Yes, so as long as
it's not a baby, you never shake a baby. Come on,
(35:45):
I would never advocate shaking a baby. Everybody just want
to go on record to say that there was you know,
the comedian Nate Bargatzi. He has a he's great. He's
got a very funny bit about shaking babies. Believe it
or not, it takes a lot to turn that into
something funny. Yeah, he did it. Man, good for him.
Nate BURGOTSI huh Nate Burgotti, dude, you would love him.
(36:06):
He's great. So Nate Burgotti just became a cultural icon
because we did not see him coming up in this episode.
That's right. Uh, well, if you want to know more
about Nate Burgotti, you should go check him out on
the internet like I'm going to. And uh, since I
said na Purgatzi, it's time for listener mayo. Man, if
someone tells Nate, we're plugging him, plugging away, plugging Nate.
(36:30):
All right here, I'm gonna mention this is about Jerry
and her eating and this is from Kim Cooper. Did
you see this Jerry? She says, no, Hey, guys, I
notice that you often mentioned what Jerry is eating a
lot during the podcast. I don't know how close to
you she how close she is to your microphones. I'll
go ahead and say that from your side over there,
she's about five ft Like. All I have to do
(36:52):
is lean in my seat a little bit and I
can touch Jerry's miso soup. That's right. You could dip
your bumb in her soup sometimes, I threatened, I don't
know how she close she is to your microphones, but
I never hear her eating, which is good for your
fans with Misa Ponia. But I'm curious why she chooses
this time to eat. Do you guys spend all day
(37:14):
podcasting and that's the only time she can fit it in?
No silly question that popped into my head listening to
This Week this week after Josh said, and there's Jerry eating.
God knows what um Anyway, Guys, she's got me interested
in trying me. So I tell her she's doing a
great job because I don't know, because I know she
doesn't get too many shout outs and Josh and Chuck,
(37:36):
you guys are pretty great too. That is from Kim Cooper.
Thanks Kim, that's funny. She went all the way around.
Is it basically say? I guess what I'm trying to
say is I've always wanted to try me so yeah,
pretty much, we'll go try to me, so, 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. You can go from there.
(37:57):
I do you ever eat just miso paste? It's good
if you're craving something salty and savory and new. Mommy,
let's just say, um, it's good, but you can't. You
can't eat very much. But I'm just teasing him, like
a spoonful is a lot of me so paste, Okay,
what do you just add that to? Is it an ingredient? Yeah,
for like soup stuff like that. Yeah, but you can't
(38:20):
just seat the paste 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. Um, you can go to stuff you should
Know dot com find out all of our social links
and you can always send us an email attention to everybody.
We have a new email address. Wow wow, it is
(38:41):
Stuff Podcast. I heart podcast network dot com. How about that?
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