With the excitement of Talk Like a Pirate Day and National Punctuation Day last month, I totally overlooked another important holiday that I may put on my calendar from now on – Play-Doh day. How could I have missed such a retro, kitschy holiday? We’re belatedly celebrating here on the Q10 by offering up a few fun facts about the toy that started out as a household cleaner.
1. Play-Doh was first sold as a wallpaper cleaner. People could remove soot and dirt from their wall coverings by simply rolling the wad of goop across the surface.
2. We might not have Play-Doh if it wasn’t for Captain Kangaroo. When it was just a fledgling company with no advertising budget, inventor Joe McVicker talked his way in to visit Bob Keeshan, A.K.A. Captain K. Although the company couldn’t pay the show outright, McVicker offered them two percent of Play-Doh sales for featuring the product once a week. Keeshan loved the compound and began featuring it three times weekly. After that, it caught on like wildfire and was featured on DingDongSchool and Romper Room.
2. We might not have Play-Doh if it wasn’t for Captain Kangaroo. When it was just a fledgling company with no advertising budget, inventor Joe McVicker talked his way in to visit Bob Keeshan, A.K.A. Captain K. Although the company couldn’t pay the show outright, McVicker offered them two percent of Play-Doh sales for featuring the product once a week. Keeshan loved the compound and began featuring it three times weekly. After that, it caught on like wildfire and was featured on DingDongSchool and Romper Room.
3. Since its inception, two billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold. Not bad for wallpaper cleaner, huh? If you took all of that Play-Doh ever made and wadded it into a giant ball, it would weigh as much as 2,000 Statues of Liberty.
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