Slashdot Mirror
The 50 Year History of Play-Doh
tanagra writes "50 years ago U.S. Patent No. 3,167,440 was granted to Noah McVicker and Joseph McVicker for a "plastic modeling composition", (which was originally intended to be a wallpaper cleaner) now called Play-Doh. Little did they know that they had created the substance of childhood memories as well as many a childhood meal, unfortunately. Play-Doh persists as one of the most well known and popular children's "toys". As you attempt to clean your children's Play-Doh out of the carpet, the car, and the bathtub; take a look back with us at how it all got started."
D'OH!
...home-made imitation playdoh?
Mom did.
It tasted salty.
You know, if that stuff has really been around that long, the least they could do now is make it taste better.
I'll stick with paste anyday.
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
or you have SO that does.
t ed_colo.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/03/playdoh_scen
cologne that smells like playdoh.
I remember quickly getting bored with the default shapes thingee you made by mashing the dough through this big plastic doohickey.
I remember eschewing this tool in favor of jury-rigging my own shapes.
Twenty-five years later, I do the same thing with photoshop.
Progress?
1. Create Wallpaper Cleaner 2. ??? 3. Profit!
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
Put the GOD DAMN CAP BACK ON.
In one of my college physics labs we used Play Doh for fine tuning our experiments with small mass additions. COLLEGE level physics class and without fail every student cant put the cap back on, and we all know how that dries out.
So I guess what Im saying is some of us have forgotten basic 5 year old common curtesy, But Play Doh is awesome.
Class Dismissed.
There is truth in humor.
Sure, they may not have changed it much in 50 years, but just you wait. For the 50th anniversary they'll probably have new flavors: "Original", Barbeque, Zesty. Mmmmm.... Play'doh. :)
(I have never eaten Play'doh. Play'doh is a registered trademark of Hasbro, the same large corporation that rules over D&D. This speculation written to excite the imaginations of Slashdot users as well as give me some Karma points for being funny.)
I had a friend in college once pay me back with 10 cans of playdough. The only problem is that everyone wanted to play with my playdough. Damn roomates.
Home Made 'Play - Doh'
m
Ingredients
* 2 cups plain flour
* 1 cup salt
* 2 cups water
* 4 teaspoons cream of tartar
* 2 tablespoons cooking oil
* food colouring
Method
* Mix ingredients in a pan and stir while heating gently
* When dough is formed tip out and cool on grease proof paper
* When cool kneed until smooth
* Store in airtight container in a cool place
Another recipe. Including Silly Putty recipe. Hmmm
http://k2.kirtland.cc.mi.us/~balbachl/kidrecip.ht
I've always wondered what goes into making that distinctive smell.
Better even than "that New Car Smell". And a lot cheaper.
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
Shouldn't the original formula be in the patent somewhere? It's not like this is a bogus software patent we're talking about here. Especially when you consider that the stated purpose of patents is to give inventors a temporary monopoly in exchange for publishing how to make the invention (in the patent filing itself).
If not, then the whole system sounds like it (the patent system) was always a scam and society is no worse off by not granting patents since no new knowledge is gained.
When I was a kid, I used to watch ZOOM and in their ZOOM DO segment, they showed us how to make play-doh. I made it and colored it green.
Played with it for a few days, not as pliable as the original stuff but good enough and it got more playtime because we made it.
Put it in its tupperware container in the dark pantry and forgot about it. A couple of days later, it grew out of it's container and made a mess in the pantry.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Let's pretend this patent just appeared on the Slasdot front page. Is it valid?
Depends on whether you consider substituting Penzoil for schmaltz in your matzo balls a nonobvious idea.
All I can say is, it never would have occured to me.
KFG
I'm sick and tired of all those slashdot articles that extol the virtues of Legos in a child's intellectual development, and how it trained generations of engineers, architects and programmers to think logically, discretely, and modularly.
Finally, we give praise to the medium that created all of us Liberal Arts majors: Play-Doh. Folks, it doesn't get any fuzzier than this stuff. There is no formula, design, or strategy. Anything you make can be anything you want; a bird is a blob is a bunny. Anything goes -- nobody can say you are wrong. Take your masterpiece and pinch it here and there and its totally different. What an exercise in hermeneutical phenomology! It's everything yet nothing at once! Take all the colors, mix them together, and you get a wonderful, muddied brown. Who can argue with that?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
"Some sort of petroleum distillate," apparently.
Mmm... petroleum distillate. How comforting, and assuredly non-carcinogenic.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
No, actually he was eating flour, water, and salt.
You've obviously never been to a Jewish NASCAR tailgating party.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
It seems like such an odd idea...... I'm curious if it actually works...
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
The patent describes several alternatives, and is vague about additives, so I think it is fair to say that the formula isn't published. We know in general what it contains, but the specific formula used for the product aren't necessarily public. It's a long way from knowing the ingredients to knowing the "formula" -- which includes the actual ratios and specifications of ingredients and the process used to combine them.
The ingredients noted in the patent (simplified for readability)
- wheat flour
- water
- salt
- deodorized kerosene
- borax
- an alum, such as aluminum sulfate
Yum!
Yes, the details should've been made public. In order for that patent to have issued, they couldn't have kept secret the ingredients or even what proportions of combinations they're in, otherwise it'd fail the "best mode" requirement of implementation. A patented item must allow the reasonably skilled person in that field of art to follow the instructions and recreate it. That doesn't stop them from burying the "actual" best mode amongst other feasible modes, however. A very cursory look at the patent shows 22 slightly varying, different composition of matters that would qualify as the invention...
He got that way after suffering (as a young child) a very specific brain injury as a result of a disease. No mention of any radioactive poisonous spiders, however.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
...snakes and twigs'n'berries.
The patent, like all patents, is published online. Go to: http://patft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm And search for patent 3,167,440. It's four pages long. The ingredients are listed, though the exact proportions are not (several examples are given). Warning: Firefox made me install QuickTime to view the scanned images of the patent.
The McVickers invented it in 1956. Patent 3,167,440 was granted on January 26, 1965.
Or perhaps 'The PIMP' (Plastic Immersive Modeling Product)
Or "PDNC" (Play Doh's Not Clay)
Clearly they needed someone like RMS back in the 50s to help them out.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm a USian, but my Dad grew up in the UK. He got me plasticine insted of Play-doh growing up, and when I'd go to a friend's house and try to work with Play-doh, I just found it frustrating! Aside from drying out, you can't make sufficient detail because it's too crumbly.
Admittedly you can't dry plasticine at all, so if you want something permanent you're out of luck. But just for pure creativity, I got to give props to plasticine. And it's also cool because it led me into animation, and film.
Cheers.
Mmmmmmm.... fingernail crud bread... delicious.
In my college physics lab we used play-doh as a resistor - figuring out how resistance changed with varying surface areas and the like. Also measured whether there were differences in resistance among different colors of play-doh. Needless to say the play-doh got pretty fried at the points where you connected it to the rest of the circuit. Of course the play-doh was used more for constructing artistic masterpieces than using it as a resistor!
:x :x :x
I had my final earlier tonight too - that was rough - and no mention of play-doh resistors - in fact very little problems dealing with dc circuits at all, the only stuff I was really good at!
Now, why am I paying 40,000 bucks a year for this
You can also use it to take Mary Worth's smug sense of self-satisfaction down a peg ;)
Which points out yet another flaw with the current patent system - the whole intent of patents was to encourage people to make their inventions known, so that once they expire the knowledge becomes public domain. Here, with humble little play-doh, we have an example of that intent not working, being evaded - the patent was granted, and has expired, yet nobody knows the formula... perfect Playdoh making has NOT become something anyone can do, and the stuff has not become a generic commodity as patent law intended. Playdoh got a patent without really truly revealing their invention, and now still gets to maintain its secret.
Play-doh got a 20 year free ride, essentially having ripped off the public.
This space available.
A number of nitro compounds have an almond like smell. It's a long time since I did organic chemistry but if I recall right, nitrotoluene has just such a smell. Someone better informed please confirm/deny.
Pining for the fjords
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned one of the best uses for Play-Doh, the game Claydonia from Dragon magazine. Details:m l
h tml
http://www.lclark.edu/~gamesoc/games/claydonia.ht
In a recent episode of "How It's Made" on the Science channel they showed how they make a Play-Doh like product called Tutti-Frutti. This clay has various scents added to so it can smell like candy or fruit. It is made by:
http://www.bojeux.com/ANG/Products/section/tutti.
They don't say what it tastes like though.