Toys and games in the 1970s

Definition Action figures, playsets, dolls, videos, and role-playing games

Toys and games of the early 1970’s reflected social attitudes of the later Vietnam War era as well as new developments in video and computer technology.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the established trends in post-World War II era toys underwent a gradual but significant shift in themes and character. The antimilitary sentiment that prevailed during the final years of the Vietnam War had a significant impact on the development and marketing of children’s toys, especially those targeted at pre-teenage boys. Several already established toy lines, notably Mattel’s Barbie doll and Hasbro’s popular G.I. Joe action figures, were significantly redefined during this period.

Older and more conservative toy manufacturers were less successful; among them, the Marx Toy Company, whose output had consisted mainly of Western-themed and military toys sold through the Sears company stores. Marx classic playsets such as “Fort Apache” and “Battleground,” which consisted of small plastic figures, vehicles, and lithographed tin buildings, had dominated the toy market throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s but slowly faded into oblivion following Louis Marx’s retirement and subsequent sale of the company to Quaker Oats in 1972.

Dolls and Action Figures

Mattel’s eleven-inch Barbie doll, developed between 1956 and 1959 by Ruth Handler (wife of Mattel’s cofounder Elliot Handler), continued to enjoy immense popularity among pre-teenage girls throughout the 1970’s. It has been argued that the doll’s phenomenal success stems from the fact that Barbie has a dual nature—a plaything and a miniature mannequin designed to display “grown-up” fashions. Clothing and accessories for Barbie paralleled fashion trends of the 1970’s, with perhaps the most notable development being the introduction of the tanned Malibu Barbie. Whereas the clothing and accessory sets the 1960’s Barbie had represented her as a nascent career girl (the airline stewardess and nurse sets were especially popular), the Barbie of the 1970’s became a perpetual teenager and “fun-loving, light, and breezy.” Consequently, the Barbie doll designs and accessories of the 1970’s did not yet address the issues raised later by feminists concerning the sexism implicit in the doll’s appearance or play scripts. Her unnaturally exaggerated anatomy, as well as her manufacturer’s penchant for playing to unflattering gender stereotypes, did not surface as serious criticisms until the emergence of the women’s movement.

In contrast, Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, the toy credited with introducing the concept of an articulated “action figure” and essentially a 12-inch doll for boys, offers a clear example of shifting social attitudes during the 1970’s. Following its introduction in 1964, G.I. Joe had remained a military character toy with uniforms, vehicles, weapons, and equipment representative of those in use during the Korean War. Later, as the marketing success of the toy became more realized, Hasbro elaborated upon the basic G.I. Joe figure by producing a multinational series of World War II soldiers (all without the trademark cheek scar) as well as an African American figure. A wide variety of military period sets followed. Then, beginning in 1970, as sales of military toys began to falter because of the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, Hasbro shifted the focus of their G.I. Joe line from “fighting men” to that of an “adventure team.” The new nonmilitary focus is evident in figure sets such as “Hunt for the Pygmy Gorilla” (G.I. Joe as a hunter) and “Eight Ropes of Danger” (G.I. Joe as deep sea diver). In fact, some of these later sets were simply repackaged versions of earlier military releases. The blurring of focus occasioned by this shift away from his original military identity, as well as escalating production costs, eventually resulted in the expiration of the G.I. Joe line in 1978.

Similarly, in a final effort to boost its flagging sales, the Marx Toy Company created a series of eleven-inch articulated Western figures, hoping to capitalize upon the enduring popularity of television series such as Bonanza and Gunsmoke. While the resulting “Best of the West” figure line, aimed at both boys and girls, did its best to emulate Mattel and Hasbro’s products, by the mid-1970’s even the once popular Western theme had been played out.

Toy guns, which had been among the most popular of all postwar-era toys, declined notably in popularity throughout the 1970’s. Historically, toy guns fall into three main categories: the ubiquitous cowboy pistol, which for several decades was the best-seller, and military and police weapons of various types. Interest in nearly all of these evaporated as a result of the Vietnam War abroad and escalating rates of violent urban crime at home.

Film and Television Tie-ins

Probably the most powerful influence in the toy industry during the late 1970’s was the release of George Lucas’s film Star Wars (1977). As toy manufacturers scrambled to develop film merchandizing tie-ins in order to exploit its popularity, it soon became apparent that any licensed product associated with the Star Wars concept became an immediate best-seller. Sales of the Kenner Toy company’s Star Wars product line alone were sufficient to make it the fifth largest toy company in the world.

The success of Star Wars also generated a positive halo effect for other space fantasy toys. Even the original Star Trek television series, which had been canceled in 1966 and had not yet gone into syndicated reruns, had its principal characters brought back to marketing life as eight-inch action figures by the Mego Toy Company. Mego had declined the license to produce the Star Wars toys, a decision that contributed directly to the company’s eventual demise only a few years later.

Among the most important television tie-ins from this period were a line of puppets developed by Topper in 1971 based upon the principal characters from Sesame Street, the award-winning public television program directed at preschool children.

Role-Playing Games

The idea of role-playing games—in which each player assumes the persona of an imaginary (sometimes nonhuman) character as defined by certain traits, abilities, and character flaws—became one of the iconic developments in gaming during the 1970’s. The first of these games, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a fantasy-adventure epic set in a medieval sword-and-sorcery world, premiered in 1974. The game’s coinventors, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, derived their basic general model from tabletop games of military strategy. The new role-playing games, however, placed relatively greater emphasis upon individual character development over time, as well as players’ interactions; thus, while solitary versions of these games existed, most games were manifestly intended as being social in nature at every level. Role-playing games emphasized the imaginative adventure of the quest, rather than winning in the traditional sense. Furthermore, although benefits accrued from surviving skirmishes and completing a quest, the experience of the game could be quite satisfying, even for a character who was “killed” along the way.

The particulars of the role-playing game’s story line, along with its plot complications, settings, and props, were set forth in detailed games scenarios, often many pages in length, which also contained rules governing players’ movements and behaviors, such as hand-to-hand combat or the gathering and use of mundane or magical objects. Character’s behaviors are mediated by rolls of dice, the results of which are indexed in interpretive statistical tables; for example, Player 1 attacks Player 2 with a sword and rolls a “3,” miss, blade glances off helmet. Each boxed basic game included several basic adventure scenarios. In complex adventures, sometimes spanning several gaming sessions, the game’s flow of events was managed by a designated “Dungeon Master,” who directed nonplayer characters, initiated encounters, and acted as a referee.

In the first few years following its introduction, the popularity of D&D increased at nearly an exponential rate—at one time during the late 1970’s, every U.S. nuclear submarine on active duty was running a D&D game. This amazing success surprised no one more than the game’s inventors, who had anticipated a much more modest response. D&D was so effective at defining the new role-playing games genre that it became the basic template for scores of new games by other designers who explored nearly every conceivable historical period and fantasy world. Ironically, D&D’s explosive success also hastened its demise. Over time, the competition from other games, in all the richness of their many variations, sliced away at D&D’s target audience and, eventually, undercut the mass market profitability of role-playing games as a commercial enterprise.

Games and Technology

Computer games predate the development of video games. As late as 1966, a large mainframe computer of the type usually found only on major university campuses was required to play a relatively simple joystick-controlled, plain-view computer game, such as Space Wars, which pitted two tiny “wire-model” spacecraft against each other in electronic space combat. Electronic engineer-inventor Ralph Baer is credited with the development of the first video game, created from hard-wired circuitry during the period from 1966 to 1969. Baer’s creation, Pong, a minimalist electronic version of table tennis, enabled players to maneuver an electronic sliding “paddle” to strike a tiny electronic ball that rebounded back and forth across the television screen.

The first commercial video game, developed by the Magnavox Corporation, was Odyssey, which premiered in May, 1972. Like Baer’s Pong, the Odyssey video game system had no microprocessors and no memory. In order to create the backgrounds for its various games, it was necessary for the players to attach colored acetate transparencies directly to the glass surface of the television screen, since the system was incapable of generating complex videographic imagery. By inserting one of the six game cartridges (and attaching the associated transparency), one of twelve different games could be played, including basketball, hockey, roulette, pass-kick football, a submarine invasion maze, and a shooting gallery.

Impact

During the early 1970’s, it was widely believed that continued economic affluence, combined with a parallel reduction in the number of hours in the workweek, would result in an increase in the amount of discretionary leisure time available to the average person. Consequently, hobby markets expanded to meet this need. In actuality, however, exactly the opposite occurred. Hardest hit were time-intensive hobbies, such as plastic model kit making, which had enjoyed popularity among teenage boys since the 1940’s. Simultaneously, object-oriented playthings began to be replaced, first by games that allowed players to vicariously experience character roles, and later, by computer-video simulations that offered participants an increased sense of immediacy and excitement.

Bibliography

Dunnigan, James F. The Complete Wargames Handbook. New York: William Morrow, 1992. A comprehensive examination of military war games, with additional material on fantasy role-playing and computer games. Many useful appendices detailing related publications, an annotated game bibliography, and game publishers.

Heaton, Tom. The Encyclopedia of Marx Action Figures. Iola, Wis.: Krause, 1999. A comprehensive catalog of all major examples of the Marx Toy Company’s articulated figure product line. Well illustrated in color.

Huxford, Sharon, and Bob Huxford. Schroeder’s Collectible Toys, Antique to Modern Price Guide. Paducah, Ky.: Collector Books/Schroeder, 2004. Well-researched guidebook listing a wide variety of collectible toys. Contains background information on principal toy manufacturers and appendices listing dealers, Web sites, and collectors’ newsletters, among other features.

Kent, Steven L. The Ultimate History of Video Games. Roseville, Calif.: Prima, 2001. An encyclopedic, sociohistorical study of the development of interactive gaming from its earliest forerunner, the pinball game, through the contemporary era.

Kline, Stephen. Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of Marketing. London: Verso, 1993. Examines in detail the concept of “character advertising,” in which television programs become virtual commercials for the toys they represent and the broader sociocultural impact.

McDonough, Yona Zeldis. The Barbie Chronicles. New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1999. A collection of essays and other writings that examine the sociological impact of Barbie from a variety of intellectual perspectives.