The 2015 class of National Toy Hall of Fame includes a party game that frustrates adults and kids and the most famous water gun toy ever created.
The inductees are the puppet, the game Twister and the Super Soaker. The trio was chosen out of a group of 12 finalists that included the Whiffle Ball, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, American Girl dolls, the coloring book, Jenga, Battleship and PLAYMOBIL.
The puppet is the annual fundamental toy inducted into the hall. Puppets date back centuries and were used by nearly every ancient culture on the planet as a tool to tell stories. They are still popular to this day and even stars of their own TV series.
Invented in 1964 by Reyn Guyer, Twister started out as a promotional game may to sell shoe polish. Sears Roebuck and company actually refused to include it in the 1966 catalog because it was considered racy, but its appearance on The Tonight Show made it famous. Twister did almost die out, but came back in the 1980s and has been in stores ever since.
Lastly, there’s the Super Soaker, which was invented in the early 1980s by Dr. Lonnie Johnson, who was creating a heat-pump for NASA’s Galileo Mission to Jupiter. Johnson connected the pump to a bathroom faucet and noticed that it created a steady stream. This gave him the idea to create a water blaster. In 1990, he made a deal with Larami Corporation and their advertising helped sell 27 million Super soakers in its first three years. Super Soakers are still made today.
The National Toy Hall of Fame inductees are featured in an exhibit at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Last year’s class included Little Green Army Men and the Rubik’s Cube.