Now You See It, Now You Don't!
TellzAll's Subject for December is Colorforms
Throughout much of the second half of the twentieth century, Colorforms were a popular children’s toy. The first Colorforms were introduced in 1951. Colorforms are small, flexible vinyl shapes that can be placed on a piece of coated cardboard (as well as many other surfaces) to create scenes. The scenes can be changed and recreated as many times as the imagination will allow, because Colorforms do not stick permanently to the coated surface. Two art students, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz, came up with the idea for the first Colorforms. They were trying to come up with an inexpensive way to decorate their bathroom. The vinyl material stuck to the walls, and the couple’s guests would make elaborate scenes from the various colored pieces.
The original Colorforms toy that was sold to the public consisted of a set of brightly colored geometric shapes, which children could use to create many different scenes.
Colorforms were very popular, and soon they became one of the first toys to be advertised in television commercials. By the late 1950s, Colorforms also used licensed cartoon characters. The first Colorforms cartoon character was Popeye in 1957, but many other characters have also been created over the years, including such popular figures and stories as G.I. Joe, Wonder Woman, Star Wars and, most recently, Dora the Explorer. There were also Colorforms games and educational activity sets.
Colorforms provided children a wonderful, creative options for days when they could not play outside or were traveling long distances.
Over the years, Colorforms became so popular that millions and millions were sold, not only in the United States but also in other countries. The toy passed the one billion mark in 1991, but it still continues to be sold today. In recent years, a company named University Games has owned Colorforms. The company has re-released a number of old Colorform sets, such as the original 1951 set, but toy designers have also experimented with other Colorform ideas such as puzzles. Many toy stores still sell Colorforms, although children are not as familiar with the toy as previous generations were.
