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HISTORY VAULT

After the U.S. video game crash of 1983, a Japanese electronics company single-handedly resurrects the industry with a game featuring a jumping plumber.

The Toys That Built America

Plumber Bros vs. Hedgehog

From a first-century Roman emperor who created an early version of the whoopee cushion to modern materials that emulate human body fluids, gross equals big bucks for toymakers; examining innovative toys designed to shock.

Gross Out Icons

The Christmas crazes that helped transform holiday shopping into the frantic, no-holds-barred $1.1 trillion frenzy that it is today; each season's must-have toy sends desperate shoppers to unbelievable lengths just to buy it.

Christmas Crazes

History - fascinating and exclusive programs on subjects ranging from American and world history to explorations of major events in politics, entertainment and social history.

History

A former amusement park employee combines his animatronic knowledge with the cassette tape to create the world's first realistic talking toy; a NASA engineer invents an entirely new toy segment stemming from the boring old squirt gun.

80's Tech Toys

Martha Nelson creates a one-of-a-kind doll to sell at local Kentucky craft markets; a visionary young entrepreneur uses her artwork as inspiration for a mass-produced doll that sparks a multi-billion-dollar toy craze.

Cabbage Clash

Hungarian professor, Erno Rubik's 3-D puzzle takes the world by storm; Leslie Scott stops at nothing to bring an iconic building block board game to market; Alexey Pajitnov risks everything to launch a video game obsession based on a puzzle.

Order Out of Chaos

At the height of the industrial age, Alfred Carlton Gilbert goes all in on a revolutionary steel building toy that inspires generations of Americans to build bigger; decades later, a struggling Danish carpenter creates the world's biggest toy empire.

Brick by Brick

A visionary named Marvin Glass oversees the creation of many of the most iconic toys of the 20th century; from chattering teeth to a legendary game based on a mouse trap, Glass pushes the boundaries of what a toy can be and inspires generations.

The Idea Man

Defense contractor Ralph Baer invents the world's first home video game console, but it is soon eclipsed by a new table tennis game; when a third pioneer, Jerry Lawson, creates a console featuring swappable games, the video game industry explodes.

The Birth of Video Games

After passing on the biggest deal in toy industry history, Mattel President Ray Wagner finds himself a step behind former colleague-turned-rival Bernie Loomis.

Masters of the Toy Universe

Against the backdrop of major events in American history, like the Civil War and the Great Depression, a story that brings new products and nostalgic toys to the forefront as driving forces behind untold cultural and economic shifts.

History HD reveals the power and passion of history as an inviting place where people experience history personally and connect their own lives to the great lives and events of the past.

S2 E7 | 80's Tech Toys