1964 must have been a bad year for insurance companies. Mattel released the Thingmaker & Kenner released the Easy Bake oven. Both if left unattended could cook a house as easy as it could make an ugly bug or a cake. I used to drop water on my Thingmaker stove to watch the water dance like it was on a griddle.
Ol' easy was a little less dangerous because you were cooking with a light bulb. It also meant baking a cake took a lonnnnnnnng time. You could read War & Peace before a cake was done, so it was pretty easy to lose interest, leave it for just a little while to watch TV and an hour or so later wonder why that funny smell was coming from your room. On the lucky days it was just a burned cake.
In spite of the potential hazard, the easy bake is still made today. The last oven had a recall. Kids were catching their hand inside the oven and getting burned. I'm sure there are thousands of boomers who could share old war wounds with the new kids.
Like all appliances, Kenner's oven has been through a few changes. In the 60's the colors were yellow, aqua & green and In the 70's Kenner teamed with Betty Crocker. Kids got a redesigned oven in avocado & orange. Now the ovens are a single purple & pink combo making sure no self respecting young man gets any chef time. For boys there's still ants and a magnifying glass but that's more searing than actual cooking.
Kenner also made a few more 'easy' products. There was the Easy Bake popcorn popper, and The Easy Bake Potato Chip Maker. Extending the domesticity of the 'Easy' brand, Kenner also introduced the Easy Wash Dishwasher and the Easy Curl hair setting kit. I'm probably missing a few other easy sets, but since I'm in kind of a hurry as i write this, I'll leave the easy humor to you
How will the Easy Kake Oven do in the next decade ? What will Kenner use for a heating element when standard light bulbs become a thing of the past? I don't know but I'm going to go make a batch of square pancakes with my old Thingmaker while I think about it.
This is an early Easy Bake Oven commercial. You just have to watch a Jiffy Pop ad first.
I don't know what scares me more about this commercial. The vacant little Stepford kid or the announcer on Qualudes. You make the call.
I can't figure out whether these guys are pulling my leg or this thing really works. It sounds cool but it's going to take a fifth of something expensive to get your IT guy to install one at the office.
1 comment:
That easy dishwasher, I never knew that this existed. I had an original 1964 easy bake oven, which I found recently. It was wrapped very well and stuck up in the attic. Still had 3 original cake mixes! I donated it to the Brooklyn childrens museum. I think I used it only once. My mother thought that it would set her house on fire!
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