Raw DataEdit

I'm just putting some info here as we find stuff.

1) Do we know when this was first made? Wikipedia says the '50's, but so far I've only found records dated 1964.

2) Do we know when the box changed from GE to Child Guidance? -- Ken (talk) 05:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have info on that stuff, although I'll check my Sesame product newsletters to see if I can find out more about the Sesame titles.

Why is this in the sandbox? If you take out the "Note" at the top, it could just be a regular page in Sesame Street Toys. It's okay for a page to be unfinished, as long as it doesn't say "This page is unfinished" on the article page. -- Danny (talk) 13:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I saw at least one other brand (Canon I think) making records for the show-n-tell; so the box changing may note be at the same time that Child Guidance started producing the records... I didn't seen any GE records post mid-60's for what that's worth. -- Wendy (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

To answer Danny, last night I was in kind of a hurry to get to my Bible study group, so I just threw together a couple of sentences after dinner so I wouldn't forget. And then when I got home, I saw that Wendy had already found a couple of pictures. And today I found information on a few more titles. So I'll be adding all of that tonight, and we'll put it in the toy section.

To make a comment to Wendy, yeah, I've seen some stuff from Canon, and also the whole name change thing gets very confusing since I don't know if Child Guidance was called something else before or after they got it from GE. I've seen listings for CBS Toys, and Gabriel, but no pictures or titles relevant to us, so I don't know when they would have made TV sets and records. I'm sure we'll figure it out. -- Ken (talk) 02:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the GE connection. I think we should list this as "Child Guidance", since that's what it says on the box.

This is what I know about Child Guidance, from some of the product newsletters: In 1973, CTW contracted with Questor, who created "Child Guidance" as a newly-established subsidiary. Child Guidance produced a lot of Sesame toys and games from 1973 to 1983 -- the main hand puppets, the main finger puppets, floor puzzles, ride-on toys, all kinds of cool stuff.

At some point, Child Guidance was sold to CBS Toys -- 1979 at the latest, although it might have been earlier. By 1980, the newsletters are referring to Child Guidance as a subsidiary of Gabriel Industries, but they say CBS Toys again in 1983.

CBS Toys is related somehow to Playskool, which was part of Milton Bradley, and I think it's all owned by Hasbro now.

The history of toy company mergers is arcane and confusing, and I still haven't found a good source that explains it all. I'm hoping that as we collect information, we can start to piece together some of the history. But I think on item articles like this one, we should list the name that's on the box. -- Danny (talk) 15:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked through the product newsletters, and there's no sign of the Show 'n Tell -- although the newsletters only go up to 1984, and these pictures look like late 80s to me. It's also not mentioned in the Products Catalog that I have from 1986. -- Danny (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That's weird, since the Fraggle one is (supposedly) 1985. I wonder if (or why) SS titles would stop, and yet Fraggle titles were still made. Do you have any Muppet toy literature or catalogs similar to what you have for SS stuff? There's a picture and article on Muppet Central about the Fraggle one, and the cover matches these, except that the top stripe is orange with the Fraggle logo, so I'm guessing that there are more Fraggle ones out there. I wish I had a number. Thanks for the Cookie Monster one, Danny! -- Ken (talk) 03:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Sesame license and the Fraggle license were handled separately, so it's not a mystery why one would continue and the other one not. As for the date: Not seeing it in the product newsletters doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't produced in the early 80s. I just can't find any evidence one way or the other right now. -- Danny (talk) 12:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Gah, sorry. I just looked at the newsletters again, and I made a mistake -- Questor didn't establish Child Guidance as a subsidiary; it was Child Horizons. So Questor isn't involved. -- Danny (talk) 12:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)