December 12, 2025 • 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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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, everyone, it's time for our episode on etcha sketch,
the little tablet that you could draw on using two
dials for some reason, and then when you made a masterpiece,
you'd 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
(00:23):
toy episodes were good ones, so it goes without saying,
but it is a good one.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w. Chucky Bryant, and there's Jerry the Delicious dish
Rolling And this is stuff you should know. The vintage
Nostalgia edition that went off to China and then got
so do a different company edition.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So do you want to have a rough list of
classic toys we've covered? You want to hear it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh? Lay it on me, Charles.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'm sure I've missed something, but it did help me
think of some more that we should do.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Slinky, We did slinky, Oh yeah, we did sleek okay.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, lego Oh yeah, of course Barbie sure, her boyfriend
g I Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
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 one or an Action Figures one?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I think both. We definitely did Action Figures.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Although not Okay, go ahead, I'll.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Cross check that. Hot wheels.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So so this is a made up list, is what
you're saying.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Hot wheels.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, I'm glad you didn't. You didn't call it hot wheels.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Easy bake oven mm hm, play dough, silly putty? All right?
Do you count boomerangs?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeh sure, do.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
You count Monopoly? Yeah, Yo yos?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Hula Hoops.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I knew Hula Hoops was after Yo Yos. I just
knew it.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Teddy Ruxxban we covered him in our Christmas show this year.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh yeah, that's a deep cut right there.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
And then that's all I have. But I could have
sworn we did it on Frisbees, but I cannot find it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah. I feel like we did Frisbees too, because I
think we talked about like frawl for something at some point.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's out there and I
just didn't or maybe it's under flying disc or something.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh, that's possible, because yeah, we made that joke about it,
calling it a novelty flying disc because Frisbee like used
to sue everybody who called anything else to Frisbee.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Maybe I'll have to look, but there's probably more out there.
But that's a solid you know, twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's pretty good, which leads us to Edges sketch. Yes,
one of the one hundred top hundred toys of the
century according to I want to say, not the Toy
Hall of Fame. It's just in the Toy Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I think according to some snot nose kid who makes
lists online.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
All right, this is the one hundred best toys of
the century. This is the one hundred best guitar solos
of the seventies.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Oh man, I'd love to do a show on that.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
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 etcher sketches a ubiquitous toy.
Everybody knows what an ecch of sketches unless you go
to France and then they'll say, oh, you mean La
cara megic right, and you might say, like, well, why
would they have anything to say about the extra sketch
(03:43):
in France? Turns out, buddy, the etcha sketch is actually
French in origin. Did you know that before this?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
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 it
had some French stank on it, my dreams were dashed.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You like, it smells like champagne and cheese, which is
kind of pleasant.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
No, I didn't really care. I thought I thought it
was great sketch, erase and sketch again the log line
that will forever be tied to this really interesting little toy.
And I can't remember who it is in this article,
but so they were interviewing different folks. I think it
was someone from the company commented, and I totally agree that, Like,
(04:32):
it's amazing that today in the digital world and Bluetooth
and Wi Fi and video gaming as it is, that
this little 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, and I think
(04:54):
the reason why one of them is like you look
at it and you're still kind of like, how does
this thing work?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, Well, we're going to ruin that mystique for everybody
because we're gonna explain how it works actually in this episode. Right,
But hopefully it won't affect that you just sketch sales
because we love that you sketch, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
All right, should we go to France?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
We will go 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 Sinn River, there was a company
called what was the name of the company.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Chuck uh linn crusta company, right, terrible name.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
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 and
early twentieth 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.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, but keep going.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay, so where if you you could rub your hand
over it's very much it's like heavily embossed. Okay, sometimes
it's painted and it's it just imagined that as like
Wayne Scotting in the house. That is Lin Crusta. And
so that is one of the two things that this
company made in the fifties, link crustal wall coverings and
artificial leather. That is really neither here nor there, but
(06:25):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Or call the company crust pod, Crusta, just the name
crust Anyway, I think I know what you're talking about
because I have we have a pie safe that has
that metal tin stuff. But it's, uh, I've never seen
it on a wall, but I bet it's about the.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Same thing, virtually the same thing. Yeah, yep, Okay, So
that's Link Crusta and that's where this guy worked. His
name was Andre Cassagnis. I bet that you hill.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well, if it's French, wouldn't it be Caissan? Is that
she pronounced?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, I think you just nailed it. Actually, Andre Cassol,
Well that's.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
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 to play
it safe, setup shop in France and maybe get some
emails done.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
All right for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Sure, why not? We could use a break because you know,
podcaster burnouts a real thing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He really is as we thought, we're dropping, we're dropping
like flies.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All right. So he's working in this factory. It's north
of Paris, and they are making these wall coverings like
you're talking about, and he this is a little confusing
how this actually happens if you asked me, or at
least the way the first article put it, it's confusing.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Oh you're leaving it to me by notice, by your
by your balls. After that?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, I mean, no, let let's I'll start it. But
I just still don't quite get it. He marked up
with pencil on a sea through decal, so like he
was putting on an electrical plate like a light switch
and on that plate, like many things, has like a
little sea through plastic that you peel off. So he
(08:24):
was riding on that he peeled it off. But then
that's where it loses me. It's to exactly what magic
took place.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So okay, remember this is link Krusta and they make
metal wall coverings, which means there's metal dust in the air,
metal shavings everywhere.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, and he's.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Right, all of them are. What's crazy. This guy made
it to the ripe old age of eighty six after
breathing that for years. But 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
think what happened was when he marked on the decal
(09:03):
and pulled the decal off, he'd seen that he had
disturbed the metal shavings that were stuck to the underside
of the decal. Oh do you see what I mean?
So he had disturbed the shape, so there was like
the whole decal is coated in a metal dust. He
marks on it with a pencil and the impression that
(09:25):
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 etches sketch amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And he said, all right, this is uh, this, this
can be something. He however, did not have a lot
of money to sync into this weird idea, and so
he had to partner with somebody with money, man named
Paul Chase Cze or maybe Shaw's if he's French.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
And this guy had some dough because he owned a
plastic injection molding company.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This is like early on.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I wonder if we could count that as a toy,
the uh the little plastic machines that spit out little
plastic guitars in Chicago and at zoos.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh, yes, Lama, that would definitely count. Yeah, that goes
on the list.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, so he didn't it wasn't moldorama, but it was
plastic injection molding that this guy made his money from. Uh.
And this where things get a little confusing historically, because
the man who his accountant, his name was Arthur gra.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You were the French today. Try to run French people,
you can't. Chuck is pronouncing your words just beautifully.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So his accountant has actually given credit a lot of
times because he filed the patent under his name, which
I'm curious about how that works legally.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I think this is the same, basically the same thing.
Where as like the US government bureaucracy, the patent in
Trademark office basically said whoever's name is on there, that
is who is the patent holder. And since Grangene, who
was the accountant of Shay's, who was the partner of Kess,
(12:00):
and 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 etches sketch in the United States,
even though gran Gene made no claim on it whatsoever
immediately transferred the title over to Chase. He's for decades
(12:23):
everybody thought Arthur Graanjine was the guy who invented the
etches sketch.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Interesting, all right, So that was July twenty third, nineteen
fifty nine, was when this patent was granted. And I
guess we should just look at the little guy itself,
the little TV, looking that iconic red frame with the
two dials, which it didn't have initially. We'll get to that.
But the underside of this screen here has what's known
(12:49):
in the patent as a pole virulent material such as
aluminum powder.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Is that French as well?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I don't know. And then to keep that from clumping
up there a little tiny plastic beads and then the
two knobs control again from the patent, a movable tracing stylus,
although initially it was a joystick, isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
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 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
(13:33):
it's really tough to describe what's going on in a
Nutch just sketch. But there's a House Stuff Works article
from years back called inside a Nutches Sketch where the
people at 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 an Etches sketch.
But it's still kind of wondrous, you know, like the
(13:55):
engineer in you is like, wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it's sort of like 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.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And of course if you want to get that away
and start a new picture, you just shake that thing
up and that recoats the screen once again with that powder.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
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 etch a sketch and that aluminum dust
(14:48):
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
that's just sketch like at its at its core. And
what's interesting, Chuck, is like that is how I met
just sketched today works. That's how I not just sketch
(15:10):
worked in nineteen sixty two, like the two meaning like
also but that that dude Andre Cassolgne said, this is
how this is gonna work, and it's it's basically the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That's pretty awesome. Let's take a break. Yes, we're going
to come back and talk about coming state side right
after this.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
All right, so Chuck, So how do we agree on
his last name? I think I'm butchering it still, and
I even took years of French in high school.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I think you said Castle.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
All right, Andre cass Role, that seems that seems wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, I'm still gonna go with Caisson.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Okay, there you go. Andre Caisson. 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 and Cruz
I guess, funded a trip to the Nuremberg Toy Fair
(16:28):
in nineteen fifty nine, and it was there that Caisson
was walking around saying, check this thing out. It is
yours for a mere one hundred thousand dollars, which at
the time was a lot of money. One hundred I
think it was eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars today.
And that's what this guy wanted for the for the
(16:49):
right to produce this, 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 didn't give up. He
still persisted. But that was a big strikeout for him
right out of the gate.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah. So Ohio Art eventually settles on a number of
twenty five grand for the rights to make this thing
in the United States. It is still called La cron
Magique in France because they had a different licensing deal
over there from the get go, and Ohio Art Company
is pretty interesting. It started, did you see that thing did? Yeah?
(17:33):
They started out in nineteen oh eight, founded by a
man named a dentist named doctor Henry S. Winsler in Archibald, Ohio.
He gets out of dentistry because he's like, hey, man,
toys is the future. Toys is the future.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
There's no future in teeth. In a decade, no one
in America is going to have teeth. It's just a
losing trade to be in his dentistry.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, so he saw the way forward. He rented a
music hall, hired fifteen women, and they were making metal
picture frames at first too great great success.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah. So 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 onto metal,
(18:34):
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 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 of old timey creepiness. But
(18:56):
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 mouth. 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
(19:17):
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 edges sketch, but the Edges sketch was definitely different
than anything that they'd ever kind of messed around with before.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Did you know I've done metal lithography.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah, it was one of our industrial arts. It was,
you know, in at least at my school, each quarter
you did a different medium or whatever, and lithography was
something we did one quarter.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Do you remember what you printed?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Uh? I'm trying to remember what I printed. It's funny
I can remember that because we also at one quarter
was screen printing, and I remember the T shirt I did
monkeys T shirts.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Like the see No Evil, Hear No Evil monkeys.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
No the band the Monkeys. They're they're their logo with
the guitar spelled out as monkeys.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like, Wow, did you draw it yourself?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
No? No, no, of course not. 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.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Okay, So so the metal in metal lithography does it
talks about the metal press that you're using to print with.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Like at the end of There may be different processes,
but in my class, we would do this thing and
apply this like image with like this gel onto a
metal sheet and use this combination of chemicals that would
burn that in to 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,
(21:06):
and then you would use that in the printing process
to print a positive image.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Right, and you could print use that to print onto
anything including other metal. Right.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
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, right, And I'm sure I
just butchered that. But that's my one little dance with
metal lithography.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, I'll tell you who would be able to tell
us exactly how you could how metal lithography works. It's
anybody who works at Ohio Art, because not only was
that their bread and butter before the etches sketch, it
still is today. Actually, so so Ohio Art, like I guess,
gets in touch with Andre Cassan and either he got
(21:49):
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
one 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 Kassan 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. I mean it
(22:11):
was like around one hundred k or two hundred k
something like that, depending on which one it was, and
Kissan was quite a happy man. There was a story
where the guy who was running the show at Ohio
Art and his wife went over to meet Andre Cassan
and just kind of have like an initial meeting and
like shake his hand and all that and buy the
(22:32):
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 it 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. Interesting lot of
those what the bagets and champagne.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, but you know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Wait went in France, right, so he.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Is Once he's on board with Ohio Art, he gets
together with their chief engineer, Jerry Berger and says, and
Burger's like, listen here, frenchie, you need to drop the joystick.
It's all knobs these days. And he said, what is
that knob? And he was like, well, let me show you,
and he introduced the idea of the same system like
(23:23):
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 root it. Well,
if you're really good, you can do very nice curve lines.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
But yeah, beyond no, neither am I I can make
a line go up, in a line go to the
left or right.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, well we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
You can't even make it go down.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
We'll get to the art of it maybe at the end,
but because there are some serious artists out there doing
some cool stuff, but at any rate, it just skeet.
It was rebranded as Etches Sketch in the United States,
Ohio Arts producing them for the nineteen sixty holiday season
and they sold about six hundred thousand of these that year,
(24:13):
which is a it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, and they sold it for a lot of money too.
They went for sale at two dollars and ninety nine
cents apiece, which is twenty five sixty four in today's money.
But I mean, if you go buy an that's just
sketch today, it's between ten and fifteen bucks. So that
was a lot of money, especially to sell six hundred
thousand of these things, especially if you were selling like
(24:36):
creepy you know, metal waste baskets 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, chok that
it coincided really perfectly with television, so much so that
(24:57):
they believe like that is one of the reasons why
Jerry Burger it 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.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, and he it was one of the first toys
to actually do a TV commercial. And so if it's
nineteen sixty and you're a child watching, first of all,
your mind is blown because you're watching in television to
begin with.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It's just like, you know, I can't believe this I
can't believe what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
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 rock that rocket ship would animate and take off.
And 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.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
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 an etch a sketch, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, but it's genius. I love it, it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Is, but it really I think the point was though,
the like taking advantage of the novelty of TV and
also now having away like if you we just tried
to explain an etch just sketch over a podcast prior
to TV, if that just sketched you come out during
like the Little Orphan air in the radio era, they
(26:24):
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
(26:45):
made the Etches sketch what it was like for sure.
It definitely ushered it into a position where it could
become like a cultural icon of a nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
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, so it 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
(27:17):
until noon on Christmas Eve just to get them to
the West Coast in time for Christmas morning.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty cool. I mean, they really
wanted those kids to have those thatch just ketches. They
really wanted that money.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Should we take another break, Yeah, all right, we'll talk
about some ways Etches Sketches ebbed and flowed in popularity
and pop culture over the years.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Right for this, Chuck, I don't know if we said
(28:00):
it or not. But from what I've seen, more than
one hundred and seventy five million Etches sketches have been
sold since nineteen sixty.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And we should point out we're not just like ticking
off a list of pop culture references. Right, Like, every
time this happened, etch A Sketch sales would go up.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, like the Mitt Romney one increased sales like thirty percent.
I guess everybody was like, Oh, I just sketch, I
forgot about that. I think I'll go buy one right now.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, they actually branded after that Republican and Democrat Etches Sketches, though,
didn't they.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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 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 make the money.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And then, of course, in the movie Toy Story from
Pixar was one of the character's name was Etch and
had the fastest knobs in the West. Yeah, and that
was that was always a very fun character, I think,
to see him drawing things out really fast to communicate.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, and you know, you said something earlier, 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, and
it's a really simple thing that the design hasn't changed.
And I think even more of a testimony to, you know,
(29:33):
the staying power of the Etches sketch is the fact
that they have tried stuff with batteries and like things
that connect to your computer over the years, and nothing
has managed to improve on the original Etches sketch. Like
there was you remember the Etches Sketch animator. No, so
I couldn't quite place it either. By went and watched
(29:55):
an old ad. It was big in the eighties and
it was basically like an etch of sketch, but there
was nothing mechanical about it. It was digital. You're creating
like a bitmap, digital picture, and 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 it just sketch drawing like
(30:17):
came to life. But kids were like, I'd rather have
the original Etches Sketch because the Sketch animator went away
and the Etches Sketch is still available today.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, I mean there have been other variations. They had
the Doodle Sketch, 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, sure, and then the mobile app, which
I've been playing with today.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Oh, how's it going well?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I mean, what do you think of this picture?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh, it's not bad. It looks kind of edges sketchy,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, So what you can do is it's kind of fun.
You can you can upload or take a photo on
your smartphone, plug it into the app, and then it
will instantly etchify it. And what I've learned is that
it's 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, right, Yeah, you know,
(31:18):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I was reading reviews of the app. I didn't try
it myself, like you, but it's it did say like,
if it's a basic picture, you'll look way more etches sketchy.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, so my official review is not bad.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
So three stars out of six.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sure. I mean for something that downloaded in thirty seconds
and was free, I'm gonna give it a half a
thumb up.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So one of the things that has kind of kept
etches sketch alive for like the younger kids. If I
read this article about etch a sketch, and it was
right before they sold, so a lot of people don't
know ohio Art doesn't make echa sketch anymore. They sold
it to a brand called spin Master, and I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, it's not it's not ohio Art. Ohio ar 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. I mean that just sketch,
a frozen braided that just sketches. It might as well
just be like a printing press for money, right. Yeah,
(32:22):
so it was probably a pretty good bye for spin
Master and ohio Art was like 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 well, for one, thing like that just sketch,
is it landing with the millennials, I get the impression
like it used to with the baby boomers. That was
(32:45):
one thing, and Ohio Art also almost went bankrupt because
of it back in like two thousand and one. They
managed to get some more money back into the business
and stay afloat. But part of that also was they
had to send the manufacturing of that just got off
to China, which they were really unhappy about because they
lost like thirty five jobs in tiny little Brian, Ohio.
(33:06):
But eventually, like fifteen years later, they said, you know
what we're getting out the etch of sketch business and
sold it off to spin Master.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Which is a weird name.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
But the but then, one of the things, it's a
little weird, Ohio Art's a little weird too. You don't
associate Ohio with art, you.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Know, Oh, oh, you just don't.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I'll say it again.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Tell that to Chrissy hind the Blacks.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
No, Christy, heind gets what I'm saying for sure. So
the thing, one of the things that is keeping Eucher
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 sketch, they say, oh, yeah,
I've heard of that. Because every once in a while
you'll see on the internets a photo or two of
(33:49):
somebody who is really really good at etcha sketch, and
it just kind of makes the rounds on social media.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah. I mean everything from like the Mona Lisa to
just like portraits of people to land escapes. What's really
fun is you can go on YouTube and look at
time laps 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 master with those knobs.
(34:18):
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 as closely to that original line as you can,
(34:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, And I mean, like that's a really good point
when you're making a good at just catch drawing is
all one single line, so frequently double back over and
that 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.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Pretty brilliant.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, there's a guy named George Vlasitch the third who's
known for some pretty amazing portraits of Muhammad Ali, Barack
Obama or Bron James. There's an artist named Jane Labowitch
or Labovich maybe she calls herself Princess etcha sketch. She's
done some amazing like architectural detail with it. And then
(35:26):
there's a guy named Ryan Burton who does erotic Simpson's art.
There you go with the eedches sketch and all three
of them are like really good at the ches sketch drawings.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, the fanfic of etches sketch or artists interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And then apparently if you when you're very satisfied with
your etches 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 etcha sketch masterpiece that you can hang in a museum.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh so that makes it permanent. Yeah, so when the
little uh so, when a kid comes to the museum
and rips it off the wall and shakes it, nothing happens.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
No, no, And I think by law you're allowed to
pick up that kid and shake it.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yes, I think so, as long as it's not a baby.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Don't check right, you know, never shake a baby. Come on, yeah,
I would never advocate shaking a baby. Everybody just want
to go on record as say that.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
There was you know, the comedian Nate Bargatzi. No, he
has a he's great. He's got a very funny bit
about shaking babies.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Oh yeah, believe.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
It takes a lot to turn that into something funny.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, he did it. Man, good for him.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Nate Nate Bergotzi, huh.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Nate Bergazzi, dude, you would love him. He's great.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
So Nate Pergotti just became a cultural icon because we
did not see him coming up in this episode.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Uh, well, if you want to know more about Nate Bergatzi,
you should go check him out on the internet like
I'm going to. And uh, since I said Nate Bergatzi,
it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Man. If someone tells Nate, we're plugging him, plugging away,
plugging Nate. All right here, I'm gonna mention this is
about Jerry and her eating, and this is from Kim Cooper.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Did you see this Jerry?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
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, how close she
is to your microphones. I'll go ahead and say that
from your side over there, she's about five feet Like.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
All I have to do is lean in my seat
a little bit and I can touch Jerry's miso soup.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
That's right. You could dip your thumb in her suit sometimes,
I threatened to I don't know how close she is
to your microphones, but I never hear her eating, which
is good for your fans with misoponia. But I'm curious
why she chooses this time to eat do you guys
spend all day podcasting and that's the only time she
can fit it in.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, No, silly.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Question that popped into my head listening to this Week
this week after Josh said, and there's Jerry eating god
knows what. 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, you guys are
pretty great too. That is from Kim Cooper.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Thanks Kim, that's funny. She went all the way around
just basically say I guess what I'm trying to say
is I've always wanted to try miso.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Well go try some meso, 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. Do you ever
eat just miso paste? No, it's good if you're craving
something salty and savory and dow Mommy, let's just say
(38:37):
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?
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Okay, what do you just add that to? Is it
an ingredient? Yeah, for like soups, sou.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Stuff like that. Yeah, but you can just eat the paste,
okay and live to tell about it. 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 Stuff you Should Know dot com, find out
all of our social links, and you can always send
us an email. Attention everybody. We have a new email
address is wowie Wow wow Wow. It is Stuff Podcast
(39:13):
at iheartpodcast Network dot com.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
How about that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Hey, everyone, it's time for our episode on etcha sketch,
the little tablet that you could draw on using two
dials for some reason, and then when you made a masterpiece,
you'd 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
(00:23):
toy episodes were good ones, so it goes without saying,
but it is a good one.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w. Chucky Bryant, and there's Jerry the Delicious dish
Rolling And this is stuff you should know. The vintage
Nostalgia edition that went off to China and then got
so do a different company edition.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So do you want to have a rough list of
classic toys we've covered? You want to hear it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh? Lay it on me, Charles.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'm sure I've missed something, but it did help me
think of some more that we should do.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Slinky, We did slinky, Oh yeah, we did sleek okay.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, lego Oh yeah, of course Barbie sure, her boyfriend
g I Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
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 one or an Action Figures one?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I think both. We definitely did Action Figures.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Although not Okay, go ahead, I'll.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Cross check that. Hot wheels.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So so this is a made up list, is what
you're saying.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Hot wheels.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, I'm glad you didn't. You didn't call it hot wheels.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Easy bake oven mm hm, play dough, silly putty? All right?
Do you count boomerangs?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeh sure, do.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
You count Monopoly? Yeah, Yo yos?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Hula Hoops.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I knew Hula Hoops was after Yo Yos. I just
knew it.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Teddy Ruxxban we covered him in our Christmas show this year.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh yeah, that's a deep cut right there.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
And then that's all I have. But I could have
sworn we did it on Frisbees, but I cannot find it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah. I feel like we did Frisbees too, because I
think we talked about like frawl for something at some point.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's out there and I
just didn't or maybe it's under flying disc or something.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Oh, that's possible, because yeah, we made that joke about it,
calling it a novelty flying disc because Frisbee like used
to sue everybody who called anything else to Frisbee.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Maybe I'll have to look, but there's probably more out there.
But that's a solid you know, twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's pretty good, which leads us to Edges sketch. Yes,
one of the one hundred top hundred toys of the
century according to I want to say, not the Toy
Hall of Fame. It's just in the Toy Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I think according to some snot nose kid who makes
lists online.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
All right, this is the one hundred best toys of
the century. This is the one hundred best guitar solos
of the seventies.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Oh man, I'd love to do a show on that.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
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 etcher sketches a ubiquitous toy.
Everybody knows what an ecch of sketches unless you go
to France and then they'll say, oh, you mean La
cara megic right, and you might say, like, well, why
would they have anything to say about the extra sketch
(03:43):
in France? Turns out, buddy, the etcha sketch is actually
French in origin. Did you know that before this?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
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 it
had some French stank on it, my dreams were dashed.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You like, it smells like champagne and cheese, which is
kind of pleasant.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
No, I didn't really care. I thought I thought it
was great sketch, erase and sketch again the log line
that will forever be tied to this really interesting little toy.
And I can't remember who it is in this article,
but so they were interviewing different folks. I think it
was someone from the company commented, and I totally agree that, Like,
(04:32):
it's amazing that today in the digital world and Bluetooth
and Wi Fi and video gaming as it is, that
this little 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, and I think
(04:54):
the reason why one of them is like you look
at it and you're still kind of like, how does
this thing work?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, Well, we're going to ruin that mystique for everybody
because we're gonna explain how it works actually in this episode. Right,
But hopefully it won't affect that you just sketch sales
because we love that you sketch, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
All right, should we go to France?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
We will go 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 Sinn River, there was a company
called what was the name of the company.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Chuck uh linn crusta company, right, terrible name.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
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 and
early twentieth 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.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, but keep going.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay, so where if you you could rub your hand
over it's very much it's like heavily embossed. Okay, sometimes
it's painted and it's it just imagined that as like
Wayne Scotting in the house. That is Lin Crusta. And
so that is one of the two things that this
company made in the fifties, link crustal wall coverings and
artificial leather. That is really neither here nor there, but
(06:25):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Or call the company crust pod, Crusta, just the name
crust Anyway, I think I know what you're talking about
because I have we have a pie safe that has
that metal tin stuff. But it's, uh, I've never seen
it on a wall, but I bet it's about the.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Same thing, virtually the same thing. Yeah, yep, Okay, So
that's Link Crusta and that's where this guy worked. His
name was Andre Cassagnis. I bet that you hill.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well, if it's French, wouldn't it be Caissan? Is that
she pronounced?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, I think you just nailed it. Actually, Andre Cassol,
Well that's.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
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 to play
it safe, setup shop in France and maybe get some
emails done.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
All right for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Sure, why not? We could use a break because you know,
podcaster burnouts a real thing.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He really is as we thought, we're dropping, we're dropping
like flies.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All right. So he's working in this factory. It's north
of Paris, and they are making these wall coverings like
you're talking about, and he this is a little confusing
how this actually happens if you asked me, or at
least the way the first article put it, it's confusing.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Oh you're leaving it to me by notice, by your
by your balls. After that?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, I mean, no, let let's I'll start it. But
I just still don't quite get it. He marked up
with pencil on a sea through decal, so like he
was putting on an electrical plate like a light switch
and on that plate, like many things, has like a
little sea through plastic that you peel off. So he
(08:24):
was riding on that he peeled it off. But then
that's where it loses me. It's to exactly what magic
took place.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So okay, remember this is link Krusta and they make
metal wall coverings, which means there's metal dust in the air,
metal shavings everywhere.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, and he's.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Right, all of them are. What's crazy. This guy made
it to the ripe old age of eighty six after
breathing that for years. But 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
think what happened was when he marked on the decal
(09:03):
and pulled the decal off, he'd seen that he had
disturbed the metal shavings that were stuck to the underside
of the decal. Oh do you see what I mean?
So he had disturbed the shape, so there was like
the whole decal is coated in a metal dust. He
marks on it with a pencil and the impression that
(09:25):
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 etches sketch amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And he said, all right, this is uh, this, this
can be something. He however, did not have a lot
of money to sync into this weird idea, and so
he had to partner with somebody with money, man named
Paul Chase Cze or maybe Shaw's if he's French.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
And this guy had some dough because he owned a
plastic injection molding company.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
This is like early on.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I wonder if we could count that as a toy,
the uh the little plastic machines that spit out little
plastic guitars in Chicago and at zoos.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh, yes, Lama, that would definitely count. Yeah, that goes
on the list.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, so he didn't it wasn't moldorama, but it was
plastic injection molding that this guy made his money from. Uh.
And this where things get a little confusing historically, because
the man who his accountant, his name was Arthur gra.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You were the French today. Try to run French people,
you can't. Chuck is pronouncing your words just beautifully.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So his accountant has actually given credit a lot of
times because he filed the patent under his name, which
I'm curious about how that works legally.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I think this is the same, basically the same thing.
Where as like the US government bureaucracy, the patent in
Trademark office basically said whoever's name is on there, that
is who is the patent holder. And since Grangene, who
was the accountant of Shay's, who was the partner of Kess,
(12:00):
and 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 etches sketch in the United States,
even though gran Gene made no claim on it whatsoever
immediately transferred the title over to Chase. He's for decades
(12:23):
everybody thought Arthur Graanjine was the guy who invented the
etches sketch.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Interesting, all right, So that was July twenty third, nineteen
fifty nine, was when this patent was granted. And I
guess we should just look at the little guy itself,
the little TV, looking that iconic red frame with the
two dials, which it didn't have initially. We'll get to that.
But the underside of this screen here has what's known
(12:49):
in the patent as a pole virulent material such as
aluminum powder.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Is that French as well?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I don't know. And then to keep that from clumping
up there a little tiny plastic beads and then the
two knobs control again from the patent, a movable tracing stylus,
although initially it was a joystick, isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
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 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
(13:33):
it's really tough to describe what's going on in a
Nutch just sketch. But there's a House Stuff Works article
from years back called inside a Nutches Sketch where the
people at 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 an Etches sketch.
But it's still kind of wondrous, you know, like the
(13:55):
engineer in you is like, wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it's sort of like 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.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And of course if you want to get that away
and start a new picture, you just shake that thing
up and that recoats the screen once again with that powder.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
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 etch a sketch and that aluminum dust
(14:48):
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
that's just sketch like at its at its core. And
what's interesting, Chuck, is like that is how I met
just sketched today works. That's how I not just sketch
(15:10):
worked in nineteen sixty two, like the two meaning like
also but that that dude Andre Cassolgne said, this is
how this is gonna work, and it's it's basically the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That's pretty awesome. Let's take a break. Yes, we're going
to come back and talk about coming state side right
after this.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
All right, so Chuck, So how do we agree on
his last name? I think I'm butchering it still, and
I even took years of French in high school.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I think you said Castle.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
All right, Andre cass Role, that seems that seems wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah, I'm still gonna go with Caisson.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Okay, there you go. Andre Caisson. 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 and Cruz
I guess, funded a trip to the Nuremberg Toy Fair
(16:28):
in nineteen fifty nine, and it was there that Caisson
was walking around saying, check this thing out. It is
yours for a mere one hundred thousand dollars, which at
the time was a lot of money. One hundred I
think it was eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars today.
And that's what this guy wanted for the for the
(16:49):
right to produce this, 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 didn't give up. He
still persisted. But that was a big strikeout for him
right out of the gate.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah. So Ohio Art eventually settles on a number of
twenty five grand for the rights to make this thing
in the United States. It is still called La cron
Magique in France because they had a different licensing deal
over there from the get go, and Ohio Art Company
is pretty interesting. It started, did you see that thing did? Yeah?
(17:33):
They started out in nineteen oh eight, founded by a
man named a dentist named doctor Henry S. Winsler in Archibald, Ohio.
He gets out of dentistry because he's like, hey, man,
toys is the future. Toys is the future.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
There's no future in teeth. In a decade, no one
in America is going to have teeth. It's just a
losing trade to be in his dentistry.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, so he saw the way forward. He rented a
music hall, hired fifteen women, and they were making metal
picture frames at first too great great success.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah. So 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 onto metal,
(18:34):
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 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 of old timey creepiness. But
(18:56):
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 mouth. 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
(19:17):
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 edges sketch, but the Edges sketch was definitely different
than anything that they'd ever kind of messed around with before.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Did you know I've done metal lithography.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah, it was one of our industrial arts. It was,
you know, in at least at my school, each quarter
you did a different medium or whatever, and lithography was
something we did one quarter.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Do you remember what you printed?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Uh? I'm trying to remember what I printed. It's funny
I can remember that because we also at one quarter
was screen printing, and I remember the T shirt I did
monkeys T shirts.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Like the see No Evil, Hear No Evil monkeys.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
No the band the Monkeys. They're they're their logo with
the guitar spelled out as monkeys.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Like, Wow, did you draw it yourself?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
No? No, no, of course not. 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.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Okay, So so the metal in metal lithography does it
talks about the metal press that you're using to print with.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Like at the end of There may be different processes,
but in my class, we would do this thing and
apply this like image with like this gel onto a
metal sheet and use this combination of chemicals that would
burn that in to 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,
(21:06):
and then you would use that in the printing process
to print a positive image.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Right, and you could print use that to print onto
anything including other metal. Right.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
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, right, And I'm sure I
just butchered that. But that's my one little dance with
metal lithography.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, I'll tell you who would be able to tell
us exactly how you could how metal lithography works. It's
anybody who works at Ohio Art, because not only was
that their bread and butter before the etches sketch, it
still is today. Actually, so so Ohio Art, like I guess,
gets in touch with Andre Cassan and either he got
(21:49):
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
one 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 Kassan 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. I mean it
(22:11):
was like around one hundred k or two hundred k
something like that, depending on which one it was, and
Kissan was quite a happy man. There was a story
where the guy who was running the show at Ohio
Art and his wife went over to meet Andre Cassan
and just kind of have like an initial meeting and
like shake his hand and all that and buy the
(22:32):
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 it 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. Interesting lot of
those what the bagets and champagne.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, but you know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Wait went in France, right, so he.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Is Once he's on board with Ohio Art, he gets
together with their chief engineer, Jerry Berger and says, and
Burger's like, listen here, frenchie, you need to drop the joystick.
It's all knobs these days. And he said, what is
that knob? And he was like, well, let me show you,
and he introduced the idea of the same system like
(23:23):
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 root it. Well,
if you're really good, you can do very nice curve lines.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
But yeah, beyond no, neither am I I can make
a line go up, in a line go to the
left or right.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, well we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
You can't even make it go down.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
We'll get to the art of it maybe at the end,
but because there are some serious artists out there doing
some cool stuff, but at any rate, it just skeet.
It was rebranded as Etches Sketch in the United States,
Ohio Arts producing them for the nineteen sixty holiday season
and they sold about six hundred thousand of these that year,
(24:13):
which is a it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, and they sold it for a lot of money too.
They went for sale at two dollars and ninety nine
cents apiece, which is twenty five sixty four in today's money.
But I mean, if you go buy an that's just
sketch today, it's between ten and fifteen bucks. So that
was a lot of money, especially to sell six hundred
thousand of these things, especially if you were selling like
(24:36):
creepy you know, metal waste baskets 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, chok that
it coincided really perfectly with television, so much so that
(24:57):
they believe like that is one of the reasons why
Jerry Burger it 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.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, and he it was one of the first toys
to actually do a TV commercial. And so if it's
nineteen sixty and you're a child watching, first of all,
your mind is blown because you're watching in television to
begin with.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It's just like, you know, I can't believe this I
can't believe what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
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 rock that rocket ship would animate and take off.
And 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.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
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 an etch a sketch, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, but it's genius. I love it, it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Is, but it really I think the point was though,
the like taking advantage of the novelty of TV and
also now having away like if you we just tried
to explain an etch just sketch over a podcast prior
to TV, if that just sketched you come out during
like the Little Orphan air in the radio era, they
(26:24):
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
(26:45):
made the Etches sketch what it was like for sure.
It definitely ushered it into a position where it could
become like a cultural icon of a nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
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, so it 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
(27:17):
until noon on Christmas Eve just to get them to
the West Coast in time for Christmas morning.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty cool. I mean, they really
wanted those kids to have those thatch just ketches. They
really wanted that money.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Should we take another break, Yeah, all right, we'll talk
about some ways Etches Sketches ebbed and flowed in popularity
and pop culture over the years.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Right for this, Chuck, I don't know if we said
(28:00):
it or not. But from what I've seen, more than
one hundred and seventy five million Etches sketches have been
sold since nineteen sixty.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And we should point out we're not just like ticking
off a list of pop culture references. Right, Like, every
time this happened, etch A Sketch sales would go up.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, like the Mitt Romney one increased sales like thirty percent.
I guess everybody was like, Oh, I just sketch, I
forgot about that. I think I'll go buy one right now.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, they actually branded after that Republican and Democrat Etches Sketches, though,
didn't they.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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 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 make the money.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And then, of course, in the movie Toy Story from
Pixar was one of the character's name was Etch and
had the fastest knobs in the West. Yeah, and that
was that was always a very fun character, I think,
to see him drawing things out really fast to communicate.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, and you know, you said something earlier, 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, and
it's a really simple thing that the design hasn't changed.
And I think even more of a testimony to, you know,
(29:33):
the staying power of the Etches sketch is the fact
that they have tried stuff with batteries and like things
that connect to your computer over the years, and nothing
has managed to improve on the original Etches sketch. Like
there was you remember the Etches Sketch animator. No, so
I couldn't quite place it either. By went and watched
(29:55):
an old ad. It was big in the eighties and
it was basically like an etch of sketch, but there
was nothing mechanical about it. It was digital. You're creating
like a bitmap, digital picture, and 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 it just sketch drawing like
(30:17):
came to life. But kids were like, I'd rather have
the original Etches Sketch because the Sketch animator went away
and the Etches Sketch is still available today.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, I mean there have been other variations. They had
the Doodle Sketch, 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, sure, and then the mobile app, which
I've been playing with today.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Oh, how's it going well?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I mean, what do you think of this picture?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh, it's not bad. It looks kind of edges sketchy,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, So what you can do is it's kind of fun.
You can you can upload or take a photo on
your smartphone, plug it into the app, and then it
will instantly etchify it. And what I've learned is that
it's 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, right, Yeah, you know,
(31:18):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I was reading reviews of the app. I didn't try
it myself, like you, but it's it did say like,
if it's a basic picture, you'll look way more etches sketchy.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, so my official review is not bad.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
So three stars out of six.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sure. I mean for something that downloaded in thirty seconds
and was free, I'm gonna give it a half a
thumb up.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So one of the things that has kind of kept
etches sketch alive for like the younger kids. If I
read this article about etch a sketch, and it was
right before they sold, so a lot of people don't
know ohio Art doesn't make echa sketch anymore. They sold
it to a brand called spin Master, and I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, it's not it's not ohio Art. Ohio ar 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. I mean that just sketch,
a frozen braided that just sketches. It might as well
just be like a printing press for money, right. Yeah,
(32:22):
so it was probably a pretty good bye for spin
Master and ohio Art was like 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 well, for one, thing like that just sketch,
is it landing with the millennials, I get the impression
like it used to with the baby boomers. That was
(32:45):
one thing, and Ohio Art also almost went bankrupt because
of it back in like two thousand and one. They
managed to get some more money back into the business
and stay afloat. But part of that also was they
had to send the manufacturing of that just got off
to China, which they were really unhappy about because they
lost like thirty five jobs in tiny little Brian, Ohio.
(33:06):
But eventually, like fifteen years later, they said, you know
what we're getting out the etch of sketch business and
sold it off to spin Master.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Which is a weird name.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
But the but then, one of the things, it's a
little weird, Ohio Art's a little weird too. You don't
associate Ohio with art, you.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Know, Oh, oh, you just don't.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I'll say it again.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Tell that to Chrissy hind the Blacks.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
No, Christy, heind gets what I'm saying for sure. So
the thing, one of the things that is keeping Eucher
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 sketch, they say, oh, yeah,
I've heard of that. Because every once in a while
you'll see on the internets a photo or two of
(33:49):
somebody who is really really good at etcha sketch, and
it just kind of makes the rounds on social media.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah. I mean everything from like the Mona Lisa to
just like portraits of people to land escapes. What's really
fun is you can go on YouTube and look at
time laps 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 master with those knobs.
(34:18):
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 as closely to that original line as you can,
(34:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, And I mean, like that's a really good point
when you're making a good at just catch drawing is
all one single line, so frequently double back over and
that 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.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Pretty brilliant.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, there's a guy named George Vlasitch the third who's
known for some pretty amazing portraits of Muhammad Ali, Barack
Obama or Bron James. There's an artist named Jane Labowitch
or Labovich maybe she calls herself Princess etcha sketch. She's
done some amazing like architectural detail with it. And then
(35:26):
there's a guy named Ryan Burton who does erotic Simpson's art.
There you go with the eedches sketch and all three
of them are like really good at the ches sketch drawings.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, the fanfic of etches sketch or artists interesting.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And then apparently if you when you're very satisfied with
your etches 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 etcha sketch masterpiece that you can hang in a museum.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh so that makes it permanent. Yeah, so when the
little uh so, when a kid comes to the museum
and rips it off the wall and shakes it, nothing happens.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
No, no, And I think by law you're allowed to
pick up that kid and shake it.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yes, I think so, as long as it's not a baby.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Don't check right, you know, never shake a baby. Come on, yeah,
I would never advocate shaking a baby. Everybody just want
to go on record as say that.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
There was you know, the comedian Nate Bargatzi. No, he
has a he's great. He's got a very funny bit
about shaking babies.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Oh yeah, believe.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
It takes a lot to turn that into something funny.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, he did it. Man, good for him.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Nate Nate Bergotzi, huh.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Nate Bergazzi, dude, you would love him. He's great.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
So Nate Pergotti just became a cultural icon because we
did not see him coming up in this episode.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Uh, well, if you want to know more about Nate Bergatzi,
you should go check him out on the internet like
I'm going to. And uh, since I said Nate Bergatzi,
it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Man. If someone tells Nate, we're plugging him, plugging away,
plugging Nate. All right here, I'm gonna mention this is
about Jerry and her eating, and this is from Kim Cooper.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Did you see this Jerry?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
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, how close she
is to your microphones. I'll go ahead and say that
from your side over there, she's about five feet Like.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
All I have to do is lean in my seat
a little bit and I can touch Jerry's miso soup.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
That's right. You could dip your thumb in her suit sometimes,
I threatened to I don't know how close she is
to your microphones, but I never hear her eating, which
is good for your fans with misoponia. But I'm curious
why she chooses this time to eat do you guys
spend all day podcasting and that's the only time she
can fit it in.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, No, silly.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Question that popped into my head listening to this Week
this week after Josh said, and there's Jerry eating god
knows what. 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, you guys are
pretty great too. That is from Kim Cooper.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Thanks Kim, that's funny. She went all the way around
just basically say I guess what I'm trying to say
is I've always wanted to try miso.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Well go try some meso, 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. Do you ever
eat just miso paste? No, it's good if you're craving
something salty and savory and dow Mommy, let's just say
(38:37):
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?
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Okay, what do you just add that to? Is it
an ingredient? Yeah, for like soups, sou.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Stuff like that. Yeah, but you can just eat the paste,
okay and live to tell about it. 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 Stuff you Should Know dot com, find out
all of our social links, and you can always send
us an email. Attention everybody. We have a new email
address is wowie Wow wow Wow. It is Stuff Podcast
(39:13):
at iheartpodcast Network dot com.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
How about that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
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