When I was young, I received at least one Slinky toy each year at Christmas. Usually, it was in my pile of presents left by Santa. It was one of my most memorable presents.
Over the years, I probably played with this more than any other toy, except for maybe my Easy Bake Oven, another popular toy of that genre. One of my favorite things to do was to put the Slinky on top of the stairs and watch it “walk” down.
Disney Slinky Dog Toy
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You also might be old enough to remember playing with the Slinky Dog toy, in which you pull the leash and the plastic dachshund with the coils in the middle waddled behind you. This toy provided endless hours of entertainment for children of a certain era, born in the middle of the 20th-century.
Now, this classic toy has been revived, helped by the fact that the Slinky Dog character has appeared in the Disney box-office hit Toy Story.
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The Original Slinky Dog is sold under the trademark Slinky brand. This is a line of coiled spring toys first introduced in the 1940’s. The first “Slinky” was an accident. Inventor Richard James was trying to develop an instrument to aid in ship instrument stabilization. However, one of the coils was knocked over and began to “walk.” James soon noticed its possibility as a toy. The rest is history.
According to Wikipedia, more than 300 million Slinky toys have been sold in the years between 1945 and 2005, and I’m sure this figure is even higher today.
The original Slinky Dog first appeared in 1952. The new model, which is sold today, made its debut in 1995, along with Toy Story.