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Etch A Sketch--Just Turn the Magic Knobs and Let Your Imagination Soar




"You have to admit it's pretty impressive that a toy that can't connect to Wi-Fi, doesn't have Bluetooth capabilities - heck, doesn't even have batteries - continues to be iconic and have relevance today, especially when children are increasingly putting down toys and picking up video game controllers" (Tech Times, July 10, 2015).
Skydiving Chicken
The Etch-A-Sketch has captured my imagination for as long as I can remember having one (an imagination, that is), and upon reflection, I can attribute my ability to live an imaginative life in a square world, a world restricted much like this "vintage" red toy, requiring creativity to problem solve and create beauty in a world ruled by the linear, the geometric, right turns and left turns only, to this toy.  I quickly learned that if I turned both knobs at the same time, I could get some pretty amazing results, like my "Skydiving Chicken."  Before you judge, just know that my skills are rusty and using a keyboard is a different, less tactile experience from using the real thing, like most technology-in-place-of things.

 And so tonight, it is close to Christmas, and I think of years past, my own childhood, and I google Etch-A-Sketches, stumbling across a vintage ad on Ebay along the way and then searching for more ads, and I ponder things like using these ads to review visual rhetoric, heck, all of the concepts of rhetoric, appeals to ethos, logos, pathos, consideration of audience, purpose, context, as students analyze the ads past to present.

 Then I stumble across gems like the Tech Times article, quoted above, and I see how the Etch-a-Sketch endures in the 21st century because my mind had already jumped to virtual models of this toy like the one used to draw my Skydiving Chicken at Simply the Best Games or the rest of the drawings made on the Mega Fun Games Etch-A-Sketch.  (Incidentally, I liked Simply the Best Games simulator better because the knobs turned when I drew and the screen doesn't look so yellowed).  As the Tech Times article notes, there are also apps for your 
smartphones, bringing the Etch-A-Sketch to a screen nearest you.

 And finally, before having a little fun, I find the saddest ad, the one Ohio Toys ran in 2013 to commemorate the life and death of the inventor of the Etch-A-Sketch, André Cassagnes, reported on here by AdWeek.  In this advertisement, the Etch-A-Sketch is pictured with a simple frown line.  Below the picture, appears the following text:


I am left with thoughts of just how this toy endures and how it appeals to its current audience so used to emoticons and screens.

A Little Family Fun: Etch-A-Sketch Draw Off  


"A Suit of Hearts"
My son's heart attempt
My boyfriend got it perfect on the first attempt!
My third, and best, attempt






My daughter's heart, aka "The Fat-Legged Horse"

What are your Etch-A-Sketch memories?  Are you an Etch-A-Sketch artist?  Share your creations, "real" or virtual.

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