Toy:Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone

Fisher-Price, best known for the play sets with Little People, began in 1930 specializing in toys for infants and preschool youngsters. The company marketed toys "created to fascinate and stimulate a child's imagination" and prided itself on producing safe and durable playthings. Mattel, Inc. purchased the company in 1993 and increased marketing and distribution of Fisher-Price toys throughout the world. The company first offered the Chatter Telephone, with its friendly face and bobbing eyes, in 1962 as a pull toy made of wood that emitted a friendly chatter sound when it was pulled and realistic rings when the rotary dial was spun. The Chatter Phone of today is made of plastic, and that rotary dial--which still makes the ring-ring sound--will puzzle youngsters when they see their parents using a real phone, with its touch-tone keypad.