The Toy That Became a Legend

 

QUESTION: When I was 8 years old, I got an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. It was the yellow, boxy Mini-Wave model that looked more like a microwave. I loved baking little hockey-puck sized cakes in it. My brother, who was 5 years old at the time, often played with me. One day he said we should try cooking one of the plastic steaks from Mattel Tuff Stuff Play Food set. He pushed dit into the oven’s slot but soon the plastic steak emitted a horrible odor as it melted inside the oven. And that was the end of my Easy-Bake Oven. It seems Easy-Bake Ovens were around for a long time in one form or another. What can you tell me about them, like who invented them and who produced them?

ANSWER: Easy-Bake Ovens were indeed on the market for a long time. In fact, the toy became a legend in its own time. It was one of the first toys that people went crazy over at Christmas.  

It all began back in November of 1963. That was when the Kenner Products debuted its new toy. By using light bulbs as the heat source, the firm was able to convince parents that the Easy-Bake Oven was safe.  

Working mini ovens have been around since the Victorian Era. From the late 19th century, manufacturers produced child-size ovens made of steel or cast iron which used wood pellets or solid fuel for heat. As electric ovens replaced wood-burning ovens in the 1920s, the toy world did the same. In the 1930s, toy-train maker Lionel produced a line of electric toy ovens. In the 1950s, kids coveted little fiberglass-insulated ovens with brand names like Little Lady, Little Chef, and Suzy Homemaker.

While the Easy-Bake Oven wasn’t the first working toy oven, it was the first to use a light bulb as the heat source. It was also first to become a wildly popular trend—every little girl had to have one.

By the early 1960s, Kenner had become a leading toy manufacturer, with salesmen all over the country. The executives at Kenner wanted to make toys that allowed kids to do the same things as adults. For boys, they produced construction sets and for girls, kitchen and baking sets. Although the firm thought of the Easy-Bake Oven came to be thought of as a girls’ toy, they always looked for ways to market it to boys.

Kenner also encouraged its employees to think outside the box. They believed that anyone could come up with a great idea for a toy. So they held brainstorming sessions where any employee pitch an idea. And that’s how the Easy-Bake Oven was born.

The employee with the bright idea for the oven was salesman Norman Shapiro, who demonstrated toys in the Macy’s store in New York City. He got his inspiration for the oven when he saw a pretzel vendor. But instead of cakes, he oven would bake pretzels. The executives loved his idea, but suggested that instead of a pretzel oven, it should be one that backed cakes and cookies.

But at that time electric toy ovens weren’t considered very safe. so Kenner’s creative team had to come up with a solution to overcome parents’ fears. And that solution was to use incandescent light bulbs as the heating source. By using conventional light bulbs, something kids were around every day, they were able to convince parents the toy was safe—even though it got up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, a standard baking temperature, inside the oven. At first the designers wanted to name it the Safety-Bake Oven to emphasize the safety aspect. But print and radio advertising regulatory agencies told them they couldn’t because it had not safety track record.

The Easy-Bake Oven debuted in November 1963, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. “The first Easy-Bake Oven didn’t look like much of an oven. It was this box that came in turquoise or pale yellow, and a handle on the top. It had a slot that you’d push the pan into, and then a window where you could watch the cake being baked. The cooling chamber on the side had this fake range built over it.”

But its strange appearance didn’t prevent it from becoming the must-have toy of the season. They only had time to manufacture half a million of them before November. The first Easy-Bake Ovens sold out immediately.

Kenner made the Easy-Bake Oven its top advertising priority, placing ads with taglines like just like Mom’s—bake your cake and eat it, too!” in women’s magazines and Archie comics. On television, Easy-Bake commercials appeared not only during Saturday morning cartoons, but also during prime-time programs like “I Love Lucy” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Just as quickly as it released the oven, Kenner put out 25 different mixes and mix sets that could be bought separately. Because they were packaged in aluminum foil laminated with polyethylene, the first cake mixes could last two years—a long time for a cake mix.

The Easy-Bake Oven came out in a time when America was in love with technology, particularly appliances and other innovations that made day-to-day chores faster and easier. Engineers at Kenner were constantly attempting to improve the light-bulb cooking technology.

Kenner tempted kids with a variety of cake mixes. Besides cakes and cookies, Easy-Bake mixes eventually offered ways to make your own candy bars, fudge, pecan brittle, pretzels, pizza—and even bubble gum. The company tried all sorts of things—they even came up with a way kids could pop popcorn in the Easy-Bake Oven. But they always went back to cookies and cakes.

In 1967, four years after the Easy-Bake debuted, General Mills acquired Kenner Products, and immediately saw the cross-branding opportunity. The company adapted its Betty Crocker cake mixes for the Easy-Bake Oven: Kids could then make 3.5-inch cakes in popular flavors like Angel Food, Devil’s Food, German Chocolate, Yellow, Butter Pecan, Strawberry, Rainbow Chip, and Lemon.

Twenty years later, Tonka Corporation bought Kenner Products, and then in 1991, Hasbro acquired Tonka. Hasbro also saw the Easy-Bake Oven as a marketing opportunity for other toys, characters, and brands they licensed or partnered with. Instead of making plain mini-cakes, in the early 1990s, kids could also decorate them.

Kids could make a Scooby-Doo-themed cake or a pizza from Pizza Hut. They could make a cake like an Oreo cookie or a McDonald’s apple pie. They even had a My Little Pony mix—basically a chocolate cake, onto which a little baker could place a Little Pony figure on top.

The look of the Easy-Bake oven changed drastically over the years. In the beginning, it was all about the colors that were trendy in the kitchen. In the 1970s, the ovens came in burnt orange, avocado green, and harvest gold. In the late 1970s and 1980s, microwaves became popular, so the Easy-Bake Oven looked more like a microwave. More recent Easy-Bake Ovens have had less to do with the kitchen decor and more to do with what colors and designs kids like, such as pink and purple.

Engineers at Kenner constantly attempted to improve the light-bulb cooking technology. Originally, the Easy-Bake Oven used two 100-Watt incandescent light bulbs, one on top and one on bottom, so it would heat the cake evenly on both sides.. Engineer Charles Cummings figured out how to design the inside of the Easy-Bake Oven so it worked like a convection oven, using only one light bulb. This made the Easy-Bake Oven smaller and easier to produce and ship. In the late 1970s, Kenner introduced the Super Easy-Bake Oven, a larger version that came with two pans, a regular-size Easy-Bake cake pan and a larger one.

Because the Easy-Bake Oven was rated as safe for children 8 and older, Kenner hoped to find a way to market it to kids as young as 4. Also in the 1970s, they produced the Warm-Bake Oven, which used hot water. There was a tray parents could fill with hot water. The young baker then put the cake batter in a sealed container and slid it in the oven, dipping it into the water. The hot water would then cause the dough to rise. The firm even tried  another version—the 3 Minute Cake Baker—that vibrated to help the dough rise. And so the legend continued.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about art glass in the 2022 Summer Edition, with the theme "Splendor in the Glass," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

A True Premium Collectible

QUESTION: My mother died recently and left me, among other things, her set of Autumn Leaf china. When I was a kid, I remember her setting our dining room table with this colorful china on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but especially Thanksgiving because the pattern seemed to complement the occasion. The set is still in pretty good condition since she only used it on special occasions. Do you know if this has any value today? While I like it and it does bring back memories, it seems a bit old-fashioned for today’s use.

ANSWER: Your Autumn Leaf china definitely has value today. In fact, it’s held its value over the last 20 years. However, it all depends which types of pieces you have and on their condition.

The Hall China Co. began producing this decal pattern and offering it exclusively through the Jewel Tea Co. of Barrington, Illinois, in 1936, during the Great Depression. This door-to-door sales firm offered Autumn Leaf pieces as premiums for the purchase of other items, such as teas, coffee, grocery items, and laundry products.

During that time, this china was popular with housewives, who literally had to watch every penny. And the only way for them to obtain pieces were as premiums from Jewel Tea. Since the china was of good quality and had a somewhat elegant and colorful design, many housewives considered Hall’s Autumn Leaf Dinnerware as their good dishes, to be used primarily for company. Most pieces stayed in excellent condition because they washed them and put them away immediately after each use.

Determining the value of this dinnerware can be tricky. Prices vary from coast to coast and in different parts of the country. Since most pieces of this pattern would have been used, even as good dishes, they’re usually not sold in mint condition. This means that your mother’s dishes would only sell for half of the mint price. Also, Hall produced many of the more common pieces from 1936 all the way to 1976, a span of 40 years.

Generally, it seems the more odd a piece of Autumn Leaf is, the more it’s worth. Age doesn’t seem to enter into the equation. So this china is a pure collectible.

For instance, a dozen cups and saucers, labeled as “Breakfast cups and saucers” in Jewel Tea advertisements, brings about $120, or $10 each. An Irish coffee mug, on the other hand, sells for around $40. Four berry bowls also sell for $10 apiece while an oval meat platter brings only about $10.

The big money is in some of the more unusual pieces. Since Autumn Leaf sold as a premium, housewives bought a piece or two at a time—a cup and saucer, a dinner plate, a water pitcher, etc. They bought what they needed in quantities they needed. Jewel Tea never sold this china in complete sets. So the number of the more unique pieces sold—coffee and teapots, mixing bowls, salad bowls, cake plates, and such—was smaller in comparison to ordinary place settings.

One of the hottest items is the cookie jar. Introduced in 1957, the "modern-style" cookie jar has two big handles which Jewel liked to call "easy grip." The original selling price of the cookie jar was only $3.That price has since soared to nearly $200. An earlier cookie jar, introduced for Christmas 1936, sold for $1.50 and Jewel Tea offered it for only three years. Ironically, it sells for about the same price as the other jar.

Another item that’s at the top of most Autumn Leaf collectors’ wish lists is the butter dish. These came in several styles, sized to fit either a quarter pound or a whole pound of butter. The first one to be offered by Jewel Tea was a one-pound model with a long handle on the top. Introduced in 1959, it sold for $3.25. But its style proved to be inconvenient, so the company discontinued it after only one season. As with any item offered by Jewel Tea, those which housewives disapproved of were quickly discontinued. Hall produced improved versions of its butter dish with easier-to-grip bud or "bud ray" knobs. Today, collectors can’t buy a butter dish for less than $150. Those with special “wings” handles sell for over $2,000.

The Autumn Leaf pattern includes many types of accessories, including several clocks. One style, made from a regular Autumn Leaf cake plate, produced from 1956-1959, now sells for $400 to $550.