What walks down the stairs, alone or in pairs and makes a slinkety sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing,
Everyone knows it's slinky..
It's slinky, it's slinky, for fun it's a wonderful toy.
It's slinky, it's slinky, it's fun for a girl and boy.
I bet you can sing that tune! You had one, right? Every kid did.
A slinky is a coiled shaped spring invented in 1943 by Richard James. He was a navel engineer trying to develop a meter to monitor horsepower in navel battleships. The thing fell off the table and walked across the floor. A toy was born.
With a 500 dollar loan, he and his wife, Betty, made it into a toy. She named it slinky because in the dictionary, it means smooth and graceful.
In 1945, they set up a demonstration in Gimbles Department store and almost sold out in the first 90 minutes.
A factory was built and the James Spring and Wire Company was born.
Believe it or not, Richard James had an epiphany around 1960 and left his wife and 6 kids to join a Bolivian religious cult. Dude! What were you thinking?! So, Betty took over and became CEO and saved the company from debts left by her husband. You go girl!
She replaced the blue black steel with silver and colored metal and added other toys to their line. Do you remember the glasses with the fake dangling eyeballs? Too cool!
To all you boomers, did you know that during the Vietnam war, Slinkys were used for mobile radio antennas?
Betty was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall Of Fame in 2001.
Wow! What a toy! If life could be that sweet and simple!
Original Metal Slinky
