ShareThisIt was spring, 1960, and 21-year-old Bill Killgallon was mesmerized by a toy that his dad, Ohio Art Co. executive William Casley Killgallon, got at a toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany.
"My father had brought this toy home to show my younger siblings, but I sat down with it," Killgallon, now 71, recalled. "I was just fascinated. I thought, 'How the heck is this working?' I was turning the knobs and just couldn't figure it out."
A few months later, Ohio Art paid $25,000 for the rights to that magical drawing toy -- which it called the Etch A Sketch -- and began production at its Bryan, Ohio, factory.
On July 12, the Etch A Sketch, which has had hundreds of model variations over the decades and has sold a total of 150 million units, turns 50 years old.
"The Etch A Sketch brand is still our largest and most important product that we have," Killgallon said. It still accounts, he added, for more than three-quarters of the company's toy revenues. The company no longer discloses its annual revenues, but estimates by Dun & Bradstreet Inc. show the toy and metal-printing business had $29.5 million in sales in 2009.
But beyond being a revenue backbone for Ohio Art for half a century, the Etch A Sketch has achieved something that Killgallon, Ohio Art's chairman since 1989, never foresaw during his first encounter with it.
It has become an icon, one of a handful of play items whose popularity spans generations and has claimed a revered spot in American pop culture.
Killgallon said that Etch A Sketch's unique TV-like design has led to its being used frequently as a cultural "billboard" of sorts, keeping its image in the public eye.
In the last two decades, Etch A Sketch has been featured in three films: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and Elf.
While newer toys run on microchips and batteries, Killgallon said part of Etch A Sketch's appeal is that it's a quiet toy fueled by imagination -- 2-year-olds can doodle, and adults can create art -- and it is universal. "You can speak any language ... and the child can still play with it," Killgallon said.
Even adults get enjoyment from it, although not all become proficient or skilled artists -- including Killgallon, despite being associated with Etch A Sketch for five decades.
"I can still write my name really well and pretty quickly, but if you ask me to draw anything with it, well ..." he said.
Cassagnes, an electrician in France and now a famous designer of kites, got the idea in 1955 after noticing how an electrostatic charge held aluminum powder (which gives the Etch A Sketch its drawing surface) onto glass. He based the design on a television screen and sought a patent.
But lacking funds for a patent, he borrowed from an investor who sent his treasurer, Arthur Granjean, to pay the fee. Granjean's name ended up on the patent, and over the years he has been wrongly credited with inventing the Etch A Sketch, which he called L'Ecran Magique, or Magic Screen.
The investor, Paul Chaze, took the toy to European toy fairs, but it drew no interest. Finally, Ohio Art executives saw it and bought it.
Killgallon said Cassagnes was very interested in geometrical patterns, which he later used to design complex kites. "Mentally, he was into designs involving the X and Y axis. That's one of the reasons he was able to invent the Etch A Sketch," the Ohio Art executive said.
"His wife was still upset that her husband didn't get all the credit he deserved - and all the royalties for its invention," he added.
In December, 1960, the Etch A Sketch was the top-selling toy of that holiday season, fetching $6 at retail.
Ohio Art now sells more Etch A Sketches, priced at $10, annually than it did in 1960. But that is in part because of the many models it has, including the Pocket Etch A Sketch, which sells for $8.
Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst with Needham and Co. in New York, said that although Etch A Sketch still sells at a steady pace, its sales are dwarfed by newer, snazzier toys and video games.
"It's gotten some lifts over the years, from a technical standpoint when they added some electronics to it, and then when the Toy Story movies came out," he said.
"But it's emblematic of the kind of toys these days that a lot of kids don't seem to want. There's no instant gratification with it like a video game."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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