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national toy hall of fame
Every year the National Toy Hall of Fame nominates and votes on new inductees. This year the only toys voted in were Star Wars action figures and Dominoes. (Photo: The National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong)

Dori nominates low-tech toys to National Toy Hall of Fame

BY Jillian Raftery  on November 16, 2012 @ 2:50 pm (Updated: 11:26 am - 11/21/12 )

With the holidays approaching and parents vying for deals on the many hi-tech toys on the market, it came as a surprise when the National Toy Hall of Fame inducted Star Wars action figures and Dominoes into the Toy Hall of Fame. These low-tech toys joined classics such as jump rope, kite, and Legos. Dori thought he could add his own nominations to the list of classics.

Dori and producer Jake scanned the list and agreed with most of the past odd Hall of Fame selections, like 'stick,' 'blanket,' and 'cardboard box.'

"My kids, we would get them the big Fisher-Price kitchen set and it would sit unused in the rec-room," says Dori, "and the box where Dad would cut the door out was the fort that they used."

News anchor Maura Gallucci's favorite toy growing up was a life-size ballerina doll that would spin around at the touch of a button.

"It was, for me, at five, the coolest thing in the world and she had point shoes - toe shoes," says Maura.

Listener Alexis called in and said she'd pick Cabbage Patch dolls for the National Toy Hall of Fame.

"When cabbage patch dolls came out," said Alexis," they came with a birth certificate, a name. She had a birthday, every year I'd get a card from the Cabbage Patch company for her birthday."

Others nominated toys like the Hoppity Hop, the giant bouncy ball with the ring on top and bubbles. On Facebook, listeners nominated toys as varied as the Roy Rogers cap gun, pogo stick, Transformers, and paddle ball toys.

Dori agreed with listener Kent, who nominated the super ball as one of the best toys of all time.

"What happens every frickin time with the super ball is, you bounce it as high as you can - no matter how far away you are from a structure - and it goes onto the roof and you go running over hoping it's going to bounce off of the roof," says Dori. "And then you see it: bounce, bounce, bounce, and it trickles into the gutter. And then you hear the saddest sound in the world, when it goes down the down-spout into oblivion."

In the end, they concluded that super balls and bubbles were two best suggestions for their list.

"Anybody who doesn't like bubbles has a heart and a soul as dark as the blackest night," says Dori. "Everybody likes bubbles."

Jillian Raftery, Social Media Captain
Jillian Raftery is a social media captain for the Dori Monson Show. She loves the neighborly vibe of the Pacific Northwest and spends as much time as possible outdoors.
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Comments (7)


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  • hpygolkyone wrote...
    Not Sure If This Is Low Tech Enough..........
    November 16, 2012 4:09 pm
    My vote would go to roller skates. My siblings and I would roll around in my parents concrete basement floor around this "track" we had set up. Man........we rolled around and around every night for years. Friends would roller skate with us and we must have drove my parents NUTS!

    It made a hell of a racket.......

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  • cdbtx wrote...
    Two nominations
    November 17, 2012 6:57 am
    Rockum Sockum Robots, the game operation, and Stilts.... anyone ever try making these as a kid...

    Roller skates - only if they were the kind that attached to your shoes and you needed the key to tighten them...

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  • hpygolkyone wrote...
    @cdbtx............
    November 17, 2012 8:21 am
    Of course they had a key and you had to tighten those things down hard on your tennis shoes.

    Even that wasn't enough to keep them on your feet and many times we would be in a 2 person race going around a corner and someones skate would come off leaving that person standing one legged on one skate.........eventually slamming into the wall.

    Good times!

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  • Snout wrote...
    Or how about no-tech.
    November 17, 2012 1:01 pm
    The dirt clod. Those were awesome. You could toss them and they'd explode like a little bomb on impact. Perfect for tossing at forts full of plastic army guys.
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  • Pete in Seattle wrote...
    Another couple that might be raising the bar too much -
    November 19, 2012 9:50 am
    I know this is one of Dori's memorable toys - vibrating table football. Forget that it resembled the real game only in the field painted on the sheet metal, it still held attention for hours on end. And I had a "pitch-back" when I was a kid. No need for a partner to play catch. I was okay at it, but while it would reliably return the tossed baseball I, on the other hand, wound up chasing it too often. You could also set the angle so that it returned popups. With a little more coaching I might have become a respectable bench-warmer; instead my obligatory game participation was usually spent in right field and more often than not I did not bat - due to mercy rules which shortened the game.
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  • Pete in Seattle wrote...
    Another "no tech" "toy"
    November 19, 2012 9:55 am
    Actually this is a game but it needed one piece of equipment. Table-top paper football. Fold a piece of paper like a flag and tuck in the end. Then flick the triangular wad across the table. Hanging over the edge meant touchdown. Field goals and extra points meant putting index fingers together and raising thumbs to form the goalposts.
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  • Ye Olde Hagge wrote...
    I played paper football
    November 20, 2012 8:42 pm
    5th and 6th grade. The boys would give me paper and have me make all the footballs. For some reason they liked the ones I made. I totally forgot about that. I really hope the jump rope is already in the hall of fame. My first grader has been coming home singing "Cinderella dressed in yellow went upstairs to kiss a fellow..." Brought back so many memories and I love that her favorite recess game was once mine.
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