![]() You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.ĬORNISH: It wasn't a great move for Fehrnstrom or Romney, but the comment did cause Ohio Art's stock price to spike, nearly doubling for a time. Back in March, presidential candidate Mitt Romney's senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom made this high-profile gaffe on CNN.ĮRIC FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Since then, more than 100 million have been sold.ĬORNISH: The Etch A Sketch even made a memorable cameo on the campaign trail last year. And one year later, the Etch A Sketch, as we know it today, was released on the market. His invention debuted at a toy fair in Germany in 1959. SIEGEL: Cassagnes was inspired by the television, even calling his prototype the magic screen. ![]() KILLGALLON: He thought for probably a year or so trying to think of how could he monetize this idea that he had. SIEGEL: That's Bill Killgallon, chairman of the Ohio Art Company, which manufactures the Etch A Sketch. In the 1950s, he was inspired to create the Etch A Sketch while working at a factory, playing around with a pencil and a sheet covered with aluminum powder.īILL KILLGALLON: So being an inventor, that sort of stimulated his creative thinking process. He was 86.ĬORNISH: By trade, Cassagnes was a French electrical technician. Andres Cassagnes died January 16 in a Paris suburb. Give the toy a few shakes, and the lines disappear. SIEGEL: As many of you will remember, the Etch A Sketch is basically a screen with two knobs that draw vertical and horizontal lines. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) Etch A Sketch, a magical drawing toy. He was the inventor behind a classic children's toy. We're going to take a moment now to remember Andre Cassagnes. Currently, there is an official Etch A Sketch IT! mobile app that lets you create images and transform your photos into the toy’s classic grayscale drawings.From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Over the years, the company also created other products, such as the Doodle Sketch, a Plug & Play Etch A Sketch that allows users to draw on their T.V. In 2003, the Toy Industry Association named Etch A Sketch one of the 100 most memorable toys of the 20th century. The toy got into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. It sold the rights to the Etch A Sketch name and the design to the Toronto-based Spin Master Corporation in February 2016. The Ohio Art Company was facing bankruptcy before securing financing to stay viable. In 2001, manufacturing was moved to a plant in Shenzhen, China, to cut production costs. The production line had to work overtime to meet the demand. In 1995, the Etch A Sketch toy featured in the 1995 Pixar animated film “Toy Story.” It had a 12-second feature that was enough to give a significant sales boost. The toy initially used a plate-glass screen but was replaced with plastic for safety reasons. Over 600,000 units of the toy were sold during this time. The Ohio Art Company launched the toy in the United States in time for the Christmas season in 1960, marked Etch A Sketch. In 1959, he took his drawing toy to the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany where The Ohio Art Company saw it and acquired it. The Etch A Sketch toy was invented in the late 1950s by André Cassagnes, an electrician who branded the toy L’Écran Magique (The Magic Screen).
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