Bert Mayer, who invented games like Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots, Lite Brite The mousetrap of the 1960s that delighted generations of children is dead. It was 99.
Mayer’s creations arrived in the postwar boom, when plastic molding and mass production changed the way American children played. This shift opened the door to more dynamic games, and Mayer seized the moment with designs that remained on shelves for decades.
Mayer died on October 30, said Rebecca Mathis, executive director of King-Bruwaert House, a retirement community in Burr Ridge, Illinois, where he lived.
Mayer successfully straddles two often opposing worlds, bringing a boundless childlike imagination along with a practical understanding of machines.
The idea for Lite-Brite came about in 1966 when Mayer was walking in Manhattan with Marvin Glass, who owned one of the largest toy design companies at the time, and the two men passed a window display featuring hundreds of colored lights. Engineers at the company doubted whether the light bulbs could be safely adapted for children, according to Tim Walsh, who interviewed Mayer for his 2005 book “Timeless Toys.”
Mayer, an employee of Marvin Glass & Colleagues insisted it could.
“There are billions of ideas out there, but implementing them into a final creative solution is often the hard part,” Walsh wrote.
Meyer created a small backlit box and sheets of black paper that allowed children to create luminous patterns. Lite-Brite was a huge success, earning spots on Time magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Toys and in the National Museum of Strong Toys’ Hall of Fame. New releases are still selling.
Mayer had a similar role with the design team that reimagined a massive boxing arcade game for home use. Development of the original concept was halted after a featherweight boxer died of a brain injury, making any game that evoked the tragedy unmarketable, company leaders believed.
Mayer revisited the idea with a simple change. “This is too good to pass up,” he recalled saying in a 2010 interview. “Let’s take them away from humanity, let’s make them robots. We won’t let them fall, we’ll have something funny happen.”
The result was Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, a minigame in which players control fighters’ fists by pressing buttons on joysticks. The player wins by hitting the opposing robot’s jaw, causing the spring-loaded head to theatrically appear.
The toy remained well-known to later generations, appearing in the movie “Toy Story 2,” and toy company Mattel announced its plans in 2021 for a live-action film adaptation.
Meyer launched his own company, Meyer/Glass Design, in the mid-1980s. The company has developed several best-selling books including Gooey Louie, in which kids pick snot out of Louie’s nose, and the board game Pretty Pretty Princess. His son, Steve Mayer, ran the company until 2006, according to the Times of India website. New York Times.
Born in 1926 as Burton Carpenter Mayer, he joined the Navy and worked for two years as an aircraft mechanic. After retiring from the toy industry, he moved to Downers Grove, a suburb of Chicago, where he built small planes and could be seen deftly flying them aloft from a nearby private airport into his 80s.
In interviews, Mayer would often compare aerospace engineering to game design, saying that both required creativity and teamwork.
“When you fly an airplane, use all the resources you have. That’s why we’ve been able to produce so many successful products,” said Mayer, attributing his success to the highly collaborative environment at Marvin Glass & partners.
Mayer’s car had a license plate that said TOYKING, and by most accounts, it did. In a 2010 interview, he said he was still happy to tell people what he did for a living, and have them say, “Oh, I played with that!”