The Twister History

Who invented Twister?
The United States Patent that was originally issued for the game Twister shows two names inventors of the game. They are

Charles F. (Chuck) Foley Neil Rabens

The U. S. Patent 3,454,279 was filed on 1966-04-14 and excepted 1969-07-08.

But there is an other name which you will find if you look into the books. It is Reyn Guyer. He gets the money. He kicked Chuck Foley and Neil Rabens out as they were the employees of Reyn's father. Unluckily for him he did not invented Twister, but he would have liked so. Although he always says he did, the United States Patent office says there is no Twister patent or anything related on his name.

"Twister"

  Yeah!
  Well, Milton Bradley's got a def one.
  It's a Twister!  (Twister!  Twister!  Twister!)
  Yeah, all the girls and homeboys
  Playin' Twister!  (Twister!  Twister!  Twister!)
  Spin the spinner and call the shot.
  Twister ties you up in a knot.
  That's Twister.
  Yeah, Twister!
  
  Check it!
  Right foot blue!  (Right foot blue!)
  Left hand red!  (Left hand red!)
  Left!  Right!  Yellow!  Blue!  Green!
  Yeah, Twister!
  
  Now, everybody's chillin'
  With the Twister.  (Twister!)
  Wherever things are illin',
  You'll find Twister!  (Twister!  Twister!)
  That's Twister.
  Yeah, Twister!
  
  Yeah buddy!
  You gotta get it.
  Yeah Twister!
  From M.B.!

All Thumbs
Milton Bradley's competitors accused them of selling "sex in a box" when they released the phenomenally successful action game Twister in 1966. Twister was the first game in history to use the human body as a full-fledged playing piece, and, admittedly, the Milton Bradley Company released the game with a fair amount of hesitation.
The company's fear of public criticism and its own skepticism about its potential for success were obliterated when Johnny Carson demonstrated the game on the "Tonight Show". And it didn't hurt matters that Eva Gabor, wearing a low-cut gown, was one of Johnny's guests that night.
With Eva splayed out on all fours on the polkadot vinyl mat, Johnny twirled the spinner and took his turn. When he climbed on top of Eva, the studio audience went into hysterics, screaming and laughing. Milton Bradley executives knew immediatly they had a huge hit on their hands. More than three million copies of Twisters were sold during its first year of release.
Skill-and-action games were popular because they intrigued both adults and children. They satisfied a kid's natural tendency to by hyperactive, and made a unique addition to adult parties - after all, grown-ups need to have fun, too.
```
  Rick Polizzi and Fred Schaefer,
  Spin Again, Board Games from the Fifties and Sixties,
  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA 94103, 1991
  ISBN 0-87701-830-8, p 116-117
```
The king of the sixties
The king of the sixties game fads, though, didn't have playing pieces at all: The players themselves were the pices, and Twister brought a new meaning to the phrase "contact sports." The game, not surprisingly, was a huge hit on college campuses. In fact, it still is. In 1987, a recordbreaking 4,160 contestants tied themselves up in knots playing a Twister marathon at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Twister was the subject of a huge publicity campaign when it was introduced in 1966. After Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor hooked themselves together in front of millions of viewers on the "Tonight" show in May of that year, the rush was on to buy the game. Considering the simplicity of its design (the vinyl sheet was the greatest expense of the package), Twister has been a profit-making dream for Milton Bradley.
The goal of Twister was to outlast opponents by stretching and entwining your body like a human pretzel around a large vinyl sheet emblazoned with multicolored circles, without falling down. With more than two players, the vinyl sheet got so crowded that the results were often hilarious, and sometimes downright lewd.
Other companies studied Milton Bradley's success with the teen-oriented Twister, and came up with goofier variations on the theme. Parker Brothers created Funny Bones, a "social interaction" game that had cards with nursery rhyme commands like "head bone connected to the elbow bow," or "back bone connected to the hand bone." Players did what the cards said, often resulting in comical poses.
```
  Gil Asakawa and Leland Rucker,
  The Toy Book,
  Alfred A. Knopf, 1992, New York,
  ISBN 0-394-58076-1, p 178-179
  http://gillers.com/toybook.htm
```
Introduction to The Toy Book.
Twister was Pretzel
Back in 1965, Reyn Guyer was running a sales promotion firm he had founded with his father. Known for creating eye-catching in-store displays and innovative package design (clients included Pillsbury, Brach's Candies, 3M, and Kraft Foods), they were commissioned by a Wisconsin shoe polish company to develop a premium for use in a "send a buck and a box top" mail-in campaign. Guyer was toying with a notion that included color patches that went on kids' feet (along with a correspondingly colored walkaround grid), when it occurred to him that what he had come up with might work better as a game. He called on one of the company's artists, who sketched out a giant board, then tested it out with a group of office workers divided into two teams. Seeing the fun in eight people-as-playing peices crammed on a 4*6 mat, a number of concepts emerged, eventually evolving into a game they called "Pretzel".
Pretzel was picked up by the Milton Bradley company, who, against Guyer's wishes, changed the name to Twister. But even with the name change, the game still had trouble once it got to market. Major retailers balked, not sure where it fit in or if customers would understand it. Company fears that they might have a huge flop on their hands vanished, however, on May 3, 1966, when Twister was featured on 'The Tonight Show'. Helping matters was the fact that one of Carson's guests that night was Eva Gabor. All it took was one shot of Eva on her hands and knees, with Johnny climbing over her, and no longer was there any doubt what this game was all about. Further proof: during that first year alone, more than three million copies were sold.
```
  David Hoffman,
  Kid stuff, great toys from our childhood,
  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA 94103, 1996
  ISBN 0-8118-1162-X, $ 15.95, p 39
```
Toy History
LET'S DO THE TWIST. TWISTER, the first game ever invented that required people to use their bodies as playing pieces, has been played by an estimated 65 million people around the world. TWISTER actually grew out of a project that inventor Reyn Guyer was working on for his father's design company. While trying to develop a promotion for Johnson's shoe polish, it occurred to Guyer that a polka dot paper mat he'd just created might better serve as a game...and TWISTER was born. (Milton Bradley Company)
Dr. Toy at www.drtoy.com Toy History
LET'S DO THE TWIST
TWISTER, the first game ever invented that required people to use their bodies as playing pieces, has been played by an estimated 65 million people around the world. TWISTER actually grew out of a project that inventor Reyn Guyer was working on for his father's design company. While trying to develop a promotion for Johnson's shoe polish, it occurred to Guyer that a polka dot paper mat he'd just created might better serve as a game...and TWISTER was born. (Milton Bradley)
toytips.com, www.toy-tma.org

Torsten Sillke
Twister | FSP Mathematisierung | Fakultät für Mathematik | Universität Bielefeld
Last Update: 2000-12-22

Who invented Twister?

"Twister"

All Thumbs

The king of the sixties

Twister was Pretzel

Toy History

LET'S DO THE TWIST