Toy giant MATTEL's been around for 63 years. Headquartered in El Segundo, CA, you may know some of their minor product lines...Barbie. Scrabble. Matchbox cars. And let's not forget the never-wrong Magic 8 Ball. Fortune Magazine and the Los Angeles Business Journal named Mattel a "Best Place To Work" in 2008.
Since its inception, Mattel has been in acquisition mode, scooping up smaller companies like Fisher-Price. And General Aniline and Film, known more commonly by its acronym, GAF. As in View-Master. I owned one in the early 70s...the closest thing I had to Internet search. I recall one disk in particular, the 7 Wonders Of The World...it had a miniature vinyl audio disk attached to it, providing appropriate narration for each slide. Here's a commercial from 1971, starring Jodie Foster and Henry Fonda:
And I STILL have my Mattel Electronics hand-held two-player video football game, fully operational. One 9-volt battery and I'm good to go. Who needs PlayStation. Millions of units sold. I use those same thumb reflexes for texting now.
Hot item this holiday season: Disney's High School Musical action figures!
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