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Lite-Brite
Synopsis of Toy
“Lite-Brite, making things with liiiight,
What a sight, making things with Lite-Brite!”
The world may never know how many future Picassos, Monets, and El Grecos got their start in the dark of their bedrooms, sitting in their jammies and basking in the 25-watt glow of a new Lite-Brite creation. Punching colored pegs through black construction paper may not have been formal training for the next Guernica or Toledo at Night, but it couldn’t have hurt.
Hasbro unveiled its new art toy in 1967. The design was elegantly simple: a grid of holes covering the front of what looked like a small television housing. A responsible adult installed a light bulb behind the screen, and the rest was up to the child’s imagination. Using pegs of eight different colors—green, blue, red, yellow, orange, pink, purple and clear—children either created their own pictures or followed the color-by-letter patterns provided. When the work was done lights went out, Lite-Brite went on, and a new masterpiece came to luminescent life.
The versatile toy was limited only by the size of the screen, the range of colors available, and the depth of imagination. For the creatively challenged, Hasbro provided dozens of pre-patterned picture sheets (sold separately). Over the course of Lite-Brite’s lengthy career, characters from Scooby-Doo to Darth Vader, from My Little Pony to Mickey Mouse to Mr. Potato Head have graced the screens of Lite-Brites across the country. Planning ahead for absent-minded children and/or their slippery-fingered younger siblings, the good folks at Hasbro also offered refill packs of the small pegs, ensuring the future of glowing art for generations to come.