Reuben Klamer, “Game of Life” inventor and major cultural mover gets his day
I have written in the past about the enormous impact that toy inventors have on society. Toy inventions have a steady and prolonged impact on children and they can therefore help shape the future of the world. Adults choose careers and even clothing styles based upon the toys they favored as children. (If you doubt this, take a minute to talk with an architect and ask them what they played with as children. I bet an Erector Set, Lego or some other construction toy will immediately and passionately be mentioned).
Reuben Klamer, this year’s Toy and Game Inventor Lifetime Achievement Award winner, has had such an impact on children and the world. Klamer certainly deserves the award if only for The Game of Life. Think about how many people you know who played this game and thereby learned important first lessons on how to make their way through a free market economy (and you thought it was just a game.)
They had to make decisions on everything from college, stocks, insurance and even retirement. These decisions in the game had quality of life consequences, just as they do in real life.
Klamer did far more than just The Game of Life. As the Toy Industry Hall of Fame puts it in the Klamer’s bio:
His other major toy credits are the Fisher-Price 1-2-3 Roller Skates, the classic trainer skates; the Art Linkletter Hoop; Gaylord the Walking Dog (Ideal); Moon Rocks (Hasbro); Dolly Darlings (Hasbro); Erector Constructor Sets (A.C. Gilbert); Busy Blocks and Zoo-It-Yourself (Tupperware) and no-glue "snap-together" hobby kits (Eldon Industries). Mr. Klamer also pioneered the worldwide use in toys of an unbreakable plastic called polyethylene. He founded Reuben Klamer & Associates in Beverly Hills in the 1960s, which he renamed Reuben Klamer Toylab® upon his relocation to La Jolla, California in 1983.
The award will be presented to Reuben at this year’s TAGIE Awards banquet to be held in Chicago on November 20, 2009. I will be in attendance and I hope you will as well. Here is a link to the TAGIE Awards website if you want to know more.
Congratulations Reuben and thank you.
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