Dan Klitsner

Last updated

Dan Klitsner is the founder and creative director of toy inventing and licensing firm KID Group LLC. [1]

Dan has invented and licensed several number one hit toys, including Bop It, [2] [3] [4] Perplexus and Hyper Dash. [5] His inventions have been the recipients of over two dozen awards nominations, 2 gold IDEA Awards and 4 Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards. He also co-founded QiGo Inc., which utilized USB Key technology to support child-safe internet connection for toys. [6]

Klitsner has served as a judge in a number of design and innovation competitions, including the IDSA international design competition, the Consumer Electronics Show, and the Toy of the Year Awards. [6]

In 2022, Klitsner honored the 25th-anniversary of Bop It! with its latest iteration, “Bop It! Button” where a single-button version of the toy calls players to “Bop It,” “Don’t Bop It,” “Do Bop It,” “Do Not Bop It.” [7]

Awards

2021 Toy and Game International Excellence Awards, Innovative Art and Design Visuals of the Year, Perplexus Snitch [8]

2015 Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards, Game of the Year, Simon Swipe [9]

2013 Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards, Game of the Year, Perplexus Epic [10]

2009 Creative Child Creative Toy Awards, Top Toy of the Year, Hyper Dash

2008 Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards, Electronic Entertainment Toy of the Year, Power Tour Guitar [11]

2003 Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards, Vehicle of the Year, Air Hogs Regenerator RC [12]

1999 IDEA Award Keytop Toys

1997 Duracell Toy Award, Bop It

Related Research Articles

<i>Bop It</i> Handheld audio game

Bop It toys are a line of audio games. By following a series of commands issued through voice recordings produced by a speaker by the toy, which has multiple inputs including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheels, flickable switches—the player progresses and the pace of the game increases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perplexus</span> Ball-in-a-maze puzzle

Perplexus is a 3-D ball-in-a-maze puzzle or labyrinth game enclosed in a transparent plastic sphere. By twisting and turning it, players try to maneuver a small steel ball through a complex maze along narrow plastic tracks. The maze has many steps. The number of steps ranges from 30 in the Perplexus Twist to 225 in the Perplexus 3x3 Rubik's cube Hybrid. Some levels drop the ball into a cup or a small rim to utilize its 3-D nature. Players must complete obstacles varying in difficulty to reach the end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MGA Entertainment</span> American Toy Company

MGA Entertainment Inc. is a manufacturer of children's toys and entertainment products founded in 1979. Its products include Bratz, L.O.L. Surprise!, Num Noms, and Rainbow High. MGA also owns Little Tikes and animation studio MGA Studios.

Lego <i>Harry Potter</i> Lego theme based on the Harry Potter film series

Lego Harry Potter is a Lego theme based on the film series of the same name and the eponymous novels by British author J. K. Rowling. It is licensed from Warner Bros. Lego models of important scenes, vehicles and characters were made for the first six films and all of the published books. The first sets appeared in 2001, to coincide with the release of the first film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Subsequent sets were released alongside the new films, until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The line then went dormant for three years, with sets being released in 2010 and 2011. In 2018, it was announced that more sets based on the Harry Potter franchise would be released, including new sets based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lego City</span> Lego theme

Lego City is a theme under which Lego building sets are released based on city life, with the models depicting city and emergency services, airport, train, construction, and civilian services. Legoland Town is one of the three original themes that Lego produced upon its launch of the Lego minifigure in 1978 along with Castle and Space. The Town brand was briefly replaced with Lego World City in 2003 and 2004 before it was simply rebranded as Lego City in 2005.

Lego Creator is a Lego theme for generic models. Creator sets have few specialized bricks to create buildings, creatures, vehicles, and robots. Some sets featured instructions for three different possible builds from the bricks included and most sets in recent years have used the 3-in-1 label. Creator is also a parent theme to Lego Icons, a Lego subtheme for adolescents and adults featuring advanced building techniques and large piece counts, mostly known for Modular Buildings and detailed vehicles. Creator also has had several other subthemes such as X-Pods and mosaics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rubik's Revolution</span> Handheld electronic game

The Rubik's Revolution is a handheld electronic game invented, designed, developed and patented by Rehco, LLC, a Chicago toy and game inventing firm. The Rubik's Revolution was formerly distributed by Techno Source and received the 2008 TOTY Game of the Year Award. 11-12 years later, it would be revamped by Techno Source's parent company, Super Impulse and be regarded as one of the many toys that would help battle boredom in the Covid-19 Pandemic according to Time To Play Mag Designed to resemble the classic Rubik's Cube puzzle, the device is a single rigid cube; it is about as large as a Professor's Cube, with each face subdivided into 9 square sub-faces. The center square of each face features a recessed LED-lit button colored to correspond with the stickers on the remaining squares. Gameplay involves pressing the buttons when they light up, or when directed to by the game's recorded voice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spin Master</span> Canadian toy and entertainment company

Spin Master Corp. is a Canadian multinational children's toy and entertainment company. Spin Master employs over 1,600 people globally with offices in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

PlayMonster is a manufacturer and marketer of family entertainment products that specializes in games, children's puzzles, toys, activities, and teaching tools. As of February 2016, Patch changed its company name to PlayMonster.

Lego Ninjago is a Lego theme that was created in 2011 and a flagship brand of The Lego Group. It is the first theme to be based on ninja since the discontinuation of the Lego Ninja theme in 2000. It was produced to coincide with the computer-animated television series Ninjago, which was replaced in 2023 by a new series titled Ninjago: Dragons Rising.

<i>Skylanders: Spyros Adventure</i> 2011 video game

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is the first video game in the Skylanders series. It is a 3D action-adventure platform game that is played along with toy figures that interact with it through a "Portal of Power" that reads their tag through NFC and features the voices of Josh Keaton, Darin De Paul, Dave Wittenberg, Keythe Farley, Audrey Wasilewski, Joey Camen, Richard Steven Horvitz, and Kevin Michael Richardson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lego Friends</span> Lego theme

Lego Friends is a product range of Lego construction toys designed primarily for girls. It first launched as a computer game in 1999 and was expanded into a line of toys in 2012. The theme introduced "mini-doll" figures, which are about the same size as traditional Lego minifigures but are more detailed and realistic. The original cast consisted of Andrea, Olivia, Stephanie, Mia and Emma. The theme was rebooted and relaunched in January 2023 to focus on a more diverse cast of characters, the main cast now consisting of Aliya, Nova, Zac, Liann, Paisley, Leo, Autumn and Olly.

The LeapPad Explorer was the first release in a new line of LeapPad products after the discontinuation of the original LeapPad line by LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. LeapPad Explorer was released on August 15, 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kasey the Kinderbot</span>

Kasey the Kinderbot is an educational toy learning system designed, developed, and sold by Fisher-Price, a wholly owned division of the Mattel Corporation, nominated for the Educational Toy of the Year award in 2002. Because of its strong commercial sales, Kasey was reported as an important item in the balance sheet of Fisher-Price.

Kahootz Toys was a toy company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, best known for the relaunch of the classic toy Spirograph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debbie Sterling</span> American engineer, businesswoman

Debbie Sterling is an American engineer, businesswoman and the founder and CEO of GoldieBlox. Sterling is an engineer, spokesperson, and advocate for women in engineering and technology. Sterling was named Time's Person of the Moment and Business Insider's 30 Women Who Are Changing the World. GoldieBlox was named one of the World's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2014. The Toy Industry Association awarded GoldieBlox the 2014 Educational Toy of the Year.

Moose Toys is an Australian-owned toy design, development and distribution company founded in 1985. Moose is headquartered in Australia, has over 600 staff and distributes to over 50 countries.

Lego Super Mario is a Lego theme based on the platform game series Super Mario created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. It is licensed from Nintendo. The theme was first introduced in 2020. Since its release, the Lego Super Mario theme has received generally positive reviews.

Matthew (Matt) Nuccio is a toy designer co-credited with designing Creepy Crawlers, Tickle Me Elmo, Nintendo Power Glove, P.O.G's, Laser Challenge and Barbie Sparkle Kingdom. Products he designed have been embraced by American society, and been nominated for, or won, many of the toys industry's most important awards, such as the TOTY, the TAGie Games 100, Mensa Select, Origin, and Family Fun award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lego Life of George</span> Lego theme

Lego Life of George was a Lego theme that for the first time, combined standard Lego bricks with a mobile app. The theme was first introduced in October 2011. It was eventually discontinued by the end of December 2013.

References

  1. Fancher, Lou. "Bop It: Dan Klitsner". Johnson & Fancher, Inc. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  2. "Espacenet Bibliographic data". worldwide.espacenet.com. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  3. Virtue, Graeme (2016-06-13). "How we made Bop It!". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  4. "Talkin' Toys: Celebrating 25 Years of Bop It with Creator Dan Klitsner • The Toy Book". The Toy Book. 2022-09-27. Retrieved 2022-10-03.
  5. Buckleitner, Warren (2007-07-19). "Electronically Enhancing the Backyard Running Games of Childhood". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  6. 1 2 "Dan Klitsner, Co-founder, KID Group LLC | Digital Kids Conference - April 25–26, 2012 - Los Angeles, CA". engage2012.engagedigital.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2018. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  7. "Bop It! Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary With the "Bop It! Button"". Hypebeast. 2022-09-29. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
  8. "People of Play Announces 2021 TAGIE Winners". icv2.com. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  9. "2015 TOTY Winners". The Toy Association. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  10. "2013 TOTY Winners". The Toy Association. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  11. "2008 TOTY Winners". The Toy Association. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  12. "2003 TOTY Winners". The Toy Association. Retrieved 2022-09-18.