Etch A Sketch®

What can you say about the Etch A Sketch® that hasn't already been said? There are Etch A Sketch® websites, Etch A Sketch® drawing contests and Etch A Sketch® clubs. There's Etch A Sketch® pop art, Etch A Sketch® reminiscing, Etch A Sketch® history and Etch A Sketch® reviews. There's Etch A Sketch® classic and Etch A Sketch® modern and even an Etch A Sketch® comic strip. There are giant Etch A Sketches and mini Etch A Sketches and Etch A Sketches on YouTube.

I owned more than one Etch A Sketch® in my lifetime. It was, and still is, a great toy. Now that that's been said, Here's from en.wikipedia.org:

Etch A Sketch® is a registered trademark for a mechanical drawing toy manufactured by the Ohio Art Company.

An Etch A Sketch® is a thick, flat gray screen in a plastic frame. There are two knobs on the front of the frame in the lower corners. Twisting the knobs moves a stylus that displaces aluminum powder on the back of the screen, leaving a solid line. The knobs create lineographic images. The left control moves the stylus horizontally, and the right one moves it vertically.

The Etch A Sketch® was introduced near the peak of the Baby Boom, and is one of the best known toys of that generation. In 2003, the Toy Industry Association named Etch A Sketch® to its Century of Toys List, a roll call commemorating the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the 20th century. It remains popular to this day.

Mechanics

The toy can be considered a simplified version of a plotter. The inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminum powder which is then scraped off by a movable stylus, leaving a dark line on the light gray screen. The stylus is controlled by the two large knobs, one of which moves it vertically and the other horizontally. To erase the picture, the artist turns the toy upside down and shakes it. Doing this causes styrene beads to smooth out and re-coat the inside surface of the screen with aluminum powder. The "black" line merely exposes the darkness inside the toy. Filling in large "black" areas will allow enough light through to expose parts of the interior.

History

The Etch A Sketch® toy was invented in the late 1950s by a man by the name of Arthur Granjean invented something he called "L'Ecran Magique", the magic screen, in his garage. In 1959, he took his drawing toy to the International Toy Fair in Nuremburg, Germany. The Ohio Art Company saw it but had no interest in the toy. When Ohio Art saw the toy a second time, they decided to take a chance on the product. The L'Ecran Magique was soon renamed the Etch A Sketch® and became the most popular drawing toy in the business. In the 1960, Ohio Art used television to advertise the Etch A Sketch®.

After a complex series of negotiations, The Ohio Art Company launched the toy in the United States in time for the 1960 holiday season with the name "Etch A Sketch". Ohio Art supported the toy with a televised advertising campaign. Etch A Sketch® was manufactured in Bryan, Ohio until the company moved the manufacturing plant to Shenzhen, China in 2001.