Creation In the early 1940s,
Brooklyn-born toymaker
George Lerner came up with the idea of inserting small, pronged body and face parts into fruits and vegetables to create a "funny face man", however, the exact origin and inspiration for this idea are unknown. One theory is that, as a child, Lerner often took potatoes from his mother's garden and, using various other fruits and vegetables as facial features, made dolls for his younger sisters. Yet another version states that Lerner came up with the idea in 1949 and was inspired by his own children, who often played with their food. On April 30, 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. The
campaign was also the first to be aimed directly at children; before this, television commercials were mostly targeted at adults. The commercial revolutionized marketing by focusing on children as a target audience and encouraging them to convince their parents to buy the product (a concept that came to be known as the "nag factor"). Additionally, between 1949 and 1952, television sales had increased exponentially, and a massive
polio outbreak in 1952 resulted in children spending even more time indoors. in 1964, Hasbro began to include a separate plastic head and body in each box and made the attachments less sharp, leaving them unable to puncture vegetables easily. These changes were due, in part, to parental complaints about finding spoiled food in their homes, but there were also reports of children choking on the small pieces or cutting themselves with the sharp ends. In 1985, Mr. Potato Head received four postal votes in the run for mayor of
Boise, Idaho in the "most votes for Mr. Potato Head in a political campaign" as verified by
Guinness World Records. In November 1987, Mr. Potato Head became "Spokespud" for the annual
Great American Smokeout and surrendered his pipe to Surgeon General
C. Everett Koop in Washington, D.C. Also in 1995, the Mr. Potato Head Pals Mix 'n' Match game was made. This box contained four bodies and four sets each of hands, eyes, noses, mouths, hats, and shoes. Aimed at young children, the goal of the game was to build characters to match the provided cards. In 2000, Mr. Potato Head was inducted into the
National Toy Hall of Fame at
The Strong in
Rochester, New York. In 2006, Hasbro also began to sell sets of pieces without bodies for customers to add to their collections. Some of these themed sets included Chef, Construction Worker, Firefighter, Halloween, King, Mermaid, Police Officer, Pirate, Princess, Rockstar, and Santa Claus. In the same year, Hasbro introduced a line called "Sports Spuds" with a generic plastic potato (smaller than the standard size) customized to a wide variety of professional sports teams. In 2010, Hasbro received a Toy & Game Innovation Award from Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. As of 2012, sales of Mr. Potato Head and related products were reported to have exceeded 100 million units since the original release. Since 2024, new models of the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head toys have been produced. ==Versions==