how one small town and one big company — and a - Fisher

THE FISHER-PRICE PLAYLAB IN
EAST AURORA, NEW YORK
TheScienceof
Santa
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HOW ONE SMALL TOWN AND ONE BIG COMPANY —
AND A BUNCH OF KIDS — DECIDE WHAT GIFTS YOU’RE
GIVING THIS YEAR. BY BRYAN GREENBERG
ne kid stands about a foot taller
and a few inches wider than
the other kids. He takes a deep
breath and blows the super-secret blend
of blue sand. Not a malicious puff. Just an
alternative cleaning move. But cascading
blue sand nonetheless. And the kind of
cleanup creativity that raises parental
blood pressure. The other four kids (all
between 4 and 5 years old) keep their eyes
on their own sandy piles and attempt to
round up the stuff with chops of their
hands. The sand mates represent every
child on the personality continuum: the
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Martha-in-training who takes charge
and directs the hand-washing line, the
cheerful minion who enjoys following
her, the sensitive kid with the orange (the
color, not the fruit) obsession, and the kid
whose body sometimes gets in the way of
his intentions as he rumbles to the head
of the hand-washing line, accidentally
pushing a few of the lighter tykes in his
wake. Sand continues to trickle onto the
beige carpet, but no one minds. Not even
the one adult in the room, Carol Nagode.
In fact, it’s her job to coordinate messesin-the-making.
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COURTESY FISHER-PRICE PLAYLAB
TOYS
F I S H E R - P R I C E P L AY L A B
Welcome to the Fisher-Price PlayLab,
a 007 kind of secret testing room where
the company’s product developers testdrive what they hope will become the
next Tickle Me Elmo. Legal documents
prohibit me from describing the new
princess racing set sitting on the floor
that’s scheduled for toddler-testing after
beach art. But I can divulge that the sand
experiment failed: The colored granules
were meant to stick to artful cutouts of
dinosaurs and butterflies, but when the
kids finished, they resembled nothing
more than gritty blobs. That’s just the
kind of design flaw the PlayLab seeks to
uncover. It reviews thousands of concepts
a year, and it plays a key role in the toy
giant’s research and development.
Fisher-Price was founded in 1930
by Mr. Fisher, Mr. Price and Ms. Schelle
(yep, it was the old days; the female never
made it into the company name). While
the product line originally consisted of
16 wooden toys, the company now enjoys
revenues exceeding $1.3 billion. And
thanks to a 1993 merger, it’s part of an
even bigger toy empire, Mattel, the largest
toy company in the world (with nearly $5
billion in sales). The PlayLab itself began
in 1961, but toy-testing at the company
has a much longer, unofficial history; in
the early days Mr. Fisher sent prototypes
home with employees. Despite its size,
Fisher-Price resides in tiny East Aurora,
New York (population 6,673), a fiercely
independent oasis 20 miles southeast of
Buffalo that’s one of the country’s last
company towns, home to the Toy Town
Museum; the annual, world-famous Toy
Parade; and Vidler’s, one of the country’s
largest and last-remaining traditional
five-and-dimes. East Aurora, it could be
said, knows playthings, and it’s a place
with a lot of opinions. About sandy
dinosaurs, gender conditioning and kids,
and giants of commerce (they fought
hard to keep out Wal-Mart and even
squawked at the prospect of too many
Fisher-Price banners lining Main Street
in celebration of the company’s 75th
anniversary next year).
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For a kid growing up in the area, a
visit to the PlayLab is like a snow day
— partly unexpected and plenty exciting.
(And unlike real snow days, which they
know plenty about in these parts, it’s
also a relief to parents because someone
else takes the kids for a few hours.) The
lucky ones who enter the lab live out
every child’s dream. Piles of toys — dollhouses, cars and trucks of all shapes and
sizes and a large assortment of dress-up
clothes, including fluffy boas and hats,
line the walls. Children ages 3 to 4 chosen
to be part of the PlayLab spend two
hours a day twice a week for eight weeks
(the length depends on their age group)
living as real life guinea pigs, testing the
playability of all types of toys.
While it’s the kids who have all the
fun, it’s the moms who fight to get them
there. (And yes, it’s mostly moms. I only
saw one dad during the time I visited, and
he worked for the company and stopped by
to visit his wife and child.) Like tickets to
a U2 show, scoring a pass to the PlayLab
takes some patience and preparation.
Parents put their kids on a list as soon as
they’re born, then eagerly wait for the call
telling them they’re in the game. “When I
was pregnant, I was already counting down
and planning on putting her name in,” says
one mother, herself an alum of the PlayLab.
She’s not the only repeat customer. “There’s
lots of second generation and even some
third generation families we’ve seen in
here,” says Kathleen Alfano, Director of
Child Research. When asked why they
want their kids to get involved with
the PlayLab, the moms invariably give
two answers. First, it’s an honor. “Sort
of like a family ritual,” one mom says.
Secondly, it’s the stuff, which includes
some sample toys, but mostly comes
in the form of Fisher-Price “fun bucks”
to spend as they wish at the company store.
It’s the honor bit that comes through
as I stand with the moms and the
researchers behind a wall of one-way
mirrors and watch the kids interact and
play. As for me, I feel a little awkward.
There’s something weird about watching
kids play innocently while they’re
blissfully ignorant of the group of
onlookers just beyond the mirror. My first
introduction to the PlayLab occurred
during dress-up time, when I sat next to
Kathleen and one of the toy developers
and watched six kids take turns modeling
the newest fashions. The three boys put
on miniature ball gowns, and the three
girls acted as mini-stylists, adding long,
feathery boas and hats to each ensemble.
I don’t know what I expected when I
finagled a hard-to-come-by backstage
pass to the famous PlayLab. Perhaps a
big white room and researchers donning
white lab coats with big glasses and
pencils stuck behind their ears as they
watched kids zoom a cart of race cars to
destruction. Or a less technicolor version
of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
But this wasn’t part of the vision.
Later, when I’m in the room with
another group of kids, this time a gaggle
of crawling babies whose main focus
seems to be my tape recorder and not the
toy at hand, I miss the objectivity and
distance of the hidden room. I also grow
to appreciate Carol’s job as Manager of the
PlayLab. She keeps the little tykes focused
(bless her heart). She’s part teacher, part
researcher, part superhero. I tell her I
admire her ability to work with screaming
kids while keeping an eye on the task at
hand (especially considering she has a full
day of work left after the rugrats exit). She
smiles and says it’s nothing compared to
looking after her husband. She’s married
to one of Fisher-Price’s toy developers,
whose most famous creation was the
ultra-cool bubble mower. When I ask Carol
what it’s like to be married to toy royalty,
she smiles, puts her hand in her pocket
and pulls out five Tylenol.
I understand. Toys, rooms of kids, and
creative-genius spouses can get to you.
I need a break from the diaper crowd.
Instead of Tylenol, I opt to strike out
and find that other adult pain reliever
— beer. As I walk along Main Street, I pass
fire hydrants painted and adorned to
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resemble a variety of animals, including
a patriotic pig replete with Uncle Sam
outfit and ruby-red shoes. I head over
to Wallenweins, soon to be celebrating
(they think) their 125th birthday as a
bar, restaurant and sometimes hotel. A
few of the suited locals sit at the tables,
and a few of the regulars sidle up to the
bar, which dates back to the last century
and where they still eschew seats for the
Preferred Drinking Position — standing
(easier to catch them as they fell).
Wallenweins has faced some challenges
over the years as service and tourism
replaced manufacturing; Fisher-Price
closed its own East Aurora factory in 1990.
“We used to have this great afternoon
business around 4 after the plant let out
and everyone was looking for a drink and
to relax before heading home,” says Walter
“Stubby” Holmes, whose dad bought the
place in the early 1970s.
The next morning it’s more babies.
I sit in with the infants, ranging from
5 to 11 months. One item on the agenda
is a competitor toy, a floorless fort with
connectible arches that can be made into
walls. The toddlers crawl and scramble, and
then one thrusts himself onto the wall and
dangles, head first, over the side. Whew.
Safety issues, I think. In another corner of
the room stands a Fisher-Price product that
looks like the front of a house — complete
with squeaking door, mailbox and a shape
sorter. It looks gender-neutral, but a few
moms inside the observation room wonder
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if it seems too girly; they know it’s not, but
wonder just the same. The toy developers in
the observation room take notes on what
the kids go for, how they play with what’s
there and the melon-bashing potential
of the competitor toy. That’s why they do
this. To find out what works, what doesn’t,
what’s safe, what’s not.
I leave the observation room and
pass by the company store. All the moms
from the previous session push their
carts from aisle to aisle and load up as if
Christmas and a birthday loomed next
week. I watch as one mother picks up a
Cookie Monster Giggle Gaggle, which
resembles a flashlight but sports a Cookie
Monster head. When you shake it, the
head bounces and the monster says “Me
love cookie” and laughs. The quicker you
shake it, the more garbled his laughs and
words. The mom shakes it a bit, smiles
and puts it in her cart. I dawdle until she
checks out. Then I pick up a Giggle Gaggle
and give it a few good shakes. I examine
Cookie’s head and see how a little button
works to punctuate the laughs and words
when a shake presses it against the roof of
the mouth. Poor genius, I think. And great
desk-boredom relief material. I wait till
the moms clear out, purchase my giggle
device and test-drive it all the way home to
New York City. 
BRYAN GREENBERG IS A JOURNALISM PROFESSOR AND FREELANCE WRITER WHO LIVES IN NEW YORK CITY. HE IS CURRENTLY
WORKING ON A BOOK ABOUT HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS.
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