Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nuts and bolts. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices.
Mr. Potato Head is an American toy brand consisting of a plastic model of a potato "head" to which a variety of plastic parts can attach — typically ears, eyes, shoes, hat, nose, pants and mouth.
Rupert Bear is a British children's comic strip character and franchise created by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the Daily Express newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. In 1935, the stories were taken over by Alfred Bestall, who was previously an illustrator for Punch and other glossy magazines. Bestall proved to be successful in the field of children's literature and worked on Rupert stories and artwork into his nineties. More recently, various other artists and writers have continued the series. About 50 million copies have been sold worldwide.
The A. C. Gilbert Company was an American toy company, once one of the largest in the world. Gilbert originated the Erector Set, which is a construction toy similar to Meccano in the rest of the world, and made chemistry sets, microscope kits, and a line of inexpensive reflector telescopes. In 1938, Gilbert purchased the American Flyer, a manufacturer of toy trains. The Gilbert Company struggled after the death of its founder in 1961 and went out of business in 1967. Its trademarks and toy lines were sold to other companies.
Erector Set was a brand of metal toy construction sets which were originally patented by Alfred Carlton Gilbert and first sold by his company, the Mysto Manufacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1913. In 1916, the company was reorganized as the A. C. Gilbert Company. The brand continued its independent existence under various corporate ownerships until 2000, when Meccano bought the Erector brand and consolidated its worldwide marketing with its own brand. The coverage here focuses on the historical legacy of the classic Erector Set; for current developments under the "Erector by Meccano" brand name, see the Meccano article.
Alfred Carlton Gilbert was an American inventor, athlete, magician, toy-maker and businessman. Gilbert invented the Erector Set and manufactured American Flyer Trains.
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough, which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a musical extravaganza. Following the extraordinary success of their stage musical The Wizard of Oz, which was produced in New York beginning in January 1903, producer Fred R. Hamlin and director Julian Mitchell hoped to create more family musicals. MacDonough had helped Mitchell with revisions to the Oz libretto by L. Frank Baum. Mitchell and MacDonough persuaded Victor Herbert to join the production. Babes in Toyland features some of Herbert's most famous songs – among them "Toyland", "March of the Toys", "Go to Sleep, Slumber Deep", and "I Can't Do the Sum". The theme song "Toyland", and the most famous instrumental piece from the operetta, "March of the Toys", occasionally show up on Christmas compilations.
Babes in Toyland is a 1961 American Christmas musical film directed by Jack Donohue and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It stars Ray Bolger as Barnaby, Tommy Sands as Tom Piper, Annette Funicello as Mary Contrary, and Ed Wynn as the Toymaker.
Chad Valley is a long-established brand of toys in the United Kingdom owned by Sainsbury's.
Meccano Ltd was a British toy manufacturing company, established in 1908 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England, to manufacture and distribute Meccano and other model toys and kits created by the company. During the 1920s and 1930s it became the biggest toy manufacturer in the United Kingdom and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Trains and Dinky Toys.
Santa Claus: The Movie is a 1985 British-American Christmas film starring Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, and David Huddleston. It depicts the origin of Santa Claus, and his modern-day adventure to save one of his elves (Moore) who has been manipulated by an unscrupulous toy company executive (Lithgow). It was directed by Jeannot Szwarc and was the last major fantasy film produced by the Paris-based father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind.
Motion pictures featuring Santa Claus constitute their own subgenre of the Christmas film genre. Early films of Santa revolve around similar simple plots of Santa's Christmas Eve visit to children. In 1897, in a short film called Santa Claus Filling Stockings, Santa Claus is simply filling stockings from his pack of toys. Another film called Santa Claus and the Children was made in 1898. A year later, a film directed by George Albert Smith titled Santa Claus was created. In this picture, Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree. He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children. After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney.
Terry Pratchett's Hogfather is a 2006 two-part British Christmas-themed fantasy comedy television miniseries adaptation of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, produced by The Mob, and first broadcast on Sky1, and in High Definition on Sky1 HD, over Christmas 2006. First aired in two 1.5-hour episodes on 17 and 18 December 2006 at 20:00 UTC, it was the first live-action film adaptation of a Discworld novel. In 2007, the two episodes were rerun on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day respectively on Sky One and Sky1 HD.
The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab is a toy lab set designed to allow children to create and watch nuclear and chemical reactions using radioactive material. The Atomic Energy Lab was released by the A. C. Gilbert Company in 1950.
Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale is a 2007 American direct-to-video animated Christmas fantasy comedy film. The film was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Turner Entertainment Co., and is the first Tom and Jerry film directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone. It serves as the fifth direct-to-video Tom and Jerry film and is a semi-adaptation of 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann, with Jerry in the role of the Nutcracker and Tom in the role of one of the Mouse King's henchmen.
The Bell System Science Series consists of nine television specials made for the AT&T Corporation that were originally broadcast in color between 1956 and 1964. Marcel LaFollette has described them as "specials that combined clever story lines, sophisticated animation, veteran character actors, films of natural phenomena, interviews with scientists, and precise explanation of scientific and technical concepts—all in the pursuit of better public understanding of science." Geoff Alexander and Rick Prelinger have described the films as "among the best known and remembered educational films ever made, and enthroning Dr. Frank Baxter, professor at the University of Southern California, as something of a legend as the omniscient king of academic science films hosts."
Nuremberg is a 2000 Canadian-American television docudrama in 2 parts, based on the book Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico, that tells the story of the Nuremberg trials. Actual footage of the Nazi Concentration Camps (film) was included in this miniseries.
Glorious 39 is a 2009 British war thriller film written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, starring Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Jeremy Northam, Christopher Lee, David Tennant, Jenny Agutter and Eddie Redmayne. The film was released on 20 November 2009.
Gamages was a department store in Holborn, London. Trading between 1878 and 1972, it was particularly well known for its toy and hardware departments.
WCJ was a radio station, located in New Haven, Connecticut, that was licensed to the A. C. Gilbert Company from September 29, 1921 to December 1, 1922. Although short-lived, it was the first broadcasting station licensed in the state of Connecticut, and one of the first in the United States.
