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MEMORIES:
PsycadelicShack remembers...I recieved this Magna Doodle board for Christmas in 1992. I had heaps of fun with it when I discovered ... More »
Posted on 06/27/08
PHOTOS:
Manufacturer:
"Draw like magic, erase like magic!"
While the magic of the Etch-A-Sketch was well documented by the mid 1970’s, its prevalence as the dominant magnetic means of making art was brought in to question by small group of Japanese engineers. At that time, the search for a form of dustless chalk had taken on an Atlantean mythos. As the erstwhile developers tinkered with designs, they eventually stumbled upon the means to create the Magna Doodle. Not unlike the aforementioned Etch-A-Sketch, Magna Doodle replaced knobs with an actual plastic pen that made for much more accurate drawing.
While marketed as a toy for children, the Magna Doodle enjoyed much more diversified success. Athletic coaches drew up plays on the fly while pacing the sidelines. Hospital patients suffering from any number of speech impeding ailments used the Magna Doodle to communicate with staff, friends, and family. Of course, the ultimate use of the Magna Doodle perhaps lies in its ability to mollify children confined in the dreaded “road trip automobile.”
Magna Doodle’s screen was a respectable eight by eleven with the drawing pen clipped to the side. For ease, several magnetic stamps came with the Magna Doodle, allowing a kid to create a variety of symmetrical shapes by simple pressing the stamp down on the screen. When the time came to clean the slate for the next great masterpiece, on simple slid the eraser bar across the screen.
Over the years, Magna Doodle has known about as many incarnations as a Greek god. The Handy Dandy Blue's Clues Notebook features the kid-favorite cartoon dog in its design, with Blue himself as the eraser and a striped green pen. The Magna Doodle Learning Bus made more educational inroads, incorporating ten Magic Learning Cards that one could trace in order to reveal all kinds of numbers, letters, and words. A talking version chirped eight different phrases in the bubbly Fisher-Price Talking Magna Doodle. And the coup de gras, the Deluxe Magna Doodle, went a step beyond simple sketches and used face-shaped stencils to put the power of personification in the palm of kids’ hands.
Giving credence to the claim that it’s “
