Play-Doh

Pop open a can and start creating! Roll it, squish it, shape it - but try not to mix every color into brown.

Open a can of Play-Doh and the first thing that hits you is the distinctive smell - you know exactly what it is before you even see what's inside. Then dump it out, roll it around, and start making something.

Squish it. Roll it. Flatten it. Cut it into shapes. Make a snake, a snowman, a plate of pretend spaghetti - or just squeeze a bunch of different colors together until you've created that familiar shade of Play-Doh brown.

Play-Doh didn't start out as a toy - the soft, doughy material was originally developed as a wallpaper cleaner. Back in the day when many homes were heated with coal, soot would quickly build up on the room’s wallpaper, and the doughy compound was rolled across the paper to pick up the soot without damaging the wallpaper. However, as coal furnaces disappeared, so did much of the need for wallpaper cleaner.

Fortunately, somebody figured out that the soft, reusable, doughy compound was a lot more fun in the hands of kids. It was repackaged as Play-Doh in the 1950s, manufactured in several colors, and before long those familiar cans of modeling compound were being sold as a children's toy.

I still remember those Play-Doh cans - the bright yellow cardboard cans with the snap on lids matching the color of the dough inside. I would pop one open and pull out that little cylinder of colored dough - and enjoy that distinctive smell! The original sets of Play-Doh I remember had four cans, one each of white, red, blue, and yellow dough. If you didn’t get the can sealed properly, or if you left your creation out too long, it would dry to a crumbly texture and eventually became unusable. And if you tried to store your creation in the can to keep for the next day, it would inevitably get squished into that familiar brown dough that results from mixing white, red, blue, and yellow.

Of course, eventually there were plenty of accessories and playsets to help you build even more variations. One of the classics was the Play-Doh Fun Factory, which let you push Play-Doh through different shaped openings (like a mini extrusion machine, for kids!) and squeeze out long strips, stars, pretend spaghetti, and all sorts of other shapes. There were dentist sets where you could make Play-Doh teeth and drill pretend cavities, and today there are all kinds of Play-Doh kitchen sets for making pretend cakes, ice cream, and pizza (but don’t actually eat it, the smell is way better than the taste!)