Twister (game)
A physical skill game using human bodies as playing pieces.
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Twister is a game of physical skill produced by Milton Bradley Company and Winning Moves Games USA. It is played on a large plastic mat with rows of colored circles, and a spinner directs players where to place their hands or feet. The game originated from a concept by Reyn Guyer and was developed with Charles Foley and Neil Rabens, becoming a notable toy fad of the mid-20th century.
Background
owned Reynolds Guyer Inc. Agency of Design, where his son Reyn Guyer created a mat game called King's Footsie for a Johnson Wax promotion. The game involved players stepping on colored squares on a large floor mat. The Guyers took the concept to 3M, which passed, but they hired designer Charles Foley and artist Neil Rabens to develop it further.
Foley suggested lining up colored dots in rows and adding a spinner, while Rabens renamed the game Pretzel. The game was renamed Twister after discovering Transogram held the trademark for a toy dog named Pretzel. It was controversial, with competitors accusing Milton Bradley of selling 'sex in a box,' speculated to be because it was the first popular American game to use human bodies as playing pieces.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Twister (game) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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