The Etch A Sketch toy was invented in the late 1950s by
André Cassagnes, an electrician with Lincrusta Co, who named the toy ''L'Écran Magique'' . Originally, the toy used a plate glass screen, which was criticized by safety advocates for being easily broken and a danger to children. In November 1970,
Consumers Union filed a petition with the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, asking for emergency action under the 1969 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act. The
Food and Drug Administration responded that the toy had been redesigned, replacing the glass plate with plastic. The Etch A Sketch toy was featured in the 1995
Disney/
Pixar animated film
Toy Story, in a scene where a sentient toy performs a "quick draw" duel with
Sheriff Woody. This 12-second feature had been enough to give a significant sales boost, requiring the production line to work overtime to meet demand. By 1999, the company had again fallen into severe financial trouble from canceled orders of various products, reaching a point where the solvency of the company was in question. However, the company recovered with the prudent decision to agree to again have an Etch A Sketch appear in an animated feature film – this time in the 1999
sequel Toy Story 2. This scene featured an Etch A Sketch being used to present sketches related to the investigation of Sheriff Woody's kidnapping by
Al McWhiggin, the toy collector and the owner of Al's Toy Barn. At 45 seconds, the scene is much longer than the scene in the original film. The exposure from the highly successful Pixar movie resulted in sales of the toy increasing by 20 percent and ensured survival of the company. Etch A Sketch was manufactured in
Bryan, Ohio, U.S. until the company moved the manufacturing plant to
Shenzhen,
China in 2001. In France, its country of origin, Etch A Sketch was sold under the name of "
Télécran", rather than ''L'Écran Magique''. In February 2016, the rights to the Etch A Sketch name and design were acquired by
Toronto-based Spin Master Corporation.
Etch A Sketch Animator The Etch A Sketch Animator (known as "The Animator" in Canada, and simply "the animator" in Europe), debuted in 1986,
Etch A Sketch Animator 2000 With the return of the home video game market in the mid-1980s and the relative success of the Etch A Sketch Animator, Ohio Art decided to release a high-tech sequel to the Animator, known as the Animator 2000. Ohio Art released the system in 1987, at a suggested retail price of . The unit itself does not resemble a traditional Etch A Sketch: The classic knobs are replaced with "The Magic Touchpad", the system's form-factor resembles a laptop computer, and the unit features a large 6040 LCD screen. The unit contains 196 KB of "powerful computer memory" which is a significant upgrade over the roughly 2 KB of the original Animator. This memory upgrade allowed the system to have 22 frames in which to store drawings, and these frames could be animated in sequence up to 99 times. This memory upgrade combined with the relatively powerful custom processor was also important since the Animator 2000 was designed to be a portable entertainment/games system instead of simply an electronic drawing toy. The unit features a cartridge slot, and four cartridges were available: "Fly By", a flight simulator game; "Overdrive", a road racing game; "Putt-Nuts", a miniature golf game; and "Memory", a memory expansion cartridge. The price for one cartridge was .
Etch A Sketch Color In 1993, Ohio launched a color Etch A Sketch.
Etch A Sketch ETO – Plug and Play Drawing System/Etch A Sketch Wired These are basically hand-held controllers that connect to a television-like
handheld TV games and work like a regular Etch A Sketch, except on the television screen and with the addition of colors and sound effects. == Etch A Sketch art ==