Mr. Potato Head

Sure Mr. Potato head is one of those classic toys that almost everyone remembers fondly. The amazing thing is that it is such a simple toy, when you think about it. It consists mainly of a handful of plastic eyes, noses, ears and other body parts. That's it. And yet if you've played with it you know that there is a lot of fun to be had in sticking these simple plastic parts into a potato and letting your imagination run wild.

Created in 1952 by George Lerner, Mr. Potato head was originally meant to be included in cereal boxes as the toy. The potential for this new, strange toy was quickly seen, and the breakfast cereal version was soon scraped. The rest if pretty much history.

As if that wasn't enough, the Mr. Potato Head toy was further imortalized when it was included as a character in the Toy Story movies.

In the mid 1970s the size of the potato portion of the toy was doubled, and the size of the individual parts was also enlarged, to make the toy safer. The thinking was that larger parts would make it harder to be a choking hazard. The increased size also opened the toy up to a new market of smaller children because they could more easily manipulate the larger parts.