{"id":14824,"date":"2013-07-16T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devwp.davison.com\/blog\/?p=14824"},"modified":"2025-04-04T08:31:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:31:49","slug":"the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/","title":{"rendered":"The Game That Ties You Up in Knots"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"video\"><iframe title=\"Original 1966 Twister Game Commercial\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8g2eEZu_0L4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Thanks to the creativity and innovative spirit of Charles Foley, the co-inventor of Twister, who passed away earlier this month, millions of people have had the curse and delight of attempting to contort themselves into awkward and uncomfortable positions while playing the sometimes controversial board game. With the slogan \u201cThe Game That Ties You Up in Knots,\u201d Twister was the first game to use humans as board pieces.<\/p>\n<p>Reyn Guyer, Reynolds Guyer House of Design\u2019s chief executive officer, said that he designed a game called King\u2019s Footsie \u2014 a Twister-esque game that was originally intended as a promotion for children\u2019s shoe polish. He pitched the idea to 3M, but the company declined.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Foley and Neil Rabens were then hired to refine the concept. Rabens said that he initially devised a game called Pretzel, in which people made \u201cgoofy moves\u201d on a grid, but did not intertwine. Foley, whom Rabens described as the \u201cidea man,\u201d altered the concept to create the Twister we all know today.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14825 aligncenter\" title=\"Twister P1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Twister-P1-248x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"248\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Twister co-inventors Charles Foley (left) and Neil Rabens (right)<\/p>\n<p>It encompassed Foley\u2019s four requisites for a participatory game, needing a bit of skill and a bit of chance, allowing you to stick it to an opponent and being entertaining to watch. The game was licensed to Milton Bradley, who took Twister to Sears, the largest toy seller at the time.\u00a0 Twister immediately drew criticism from some who called it \u201csex in a box.\u201d Deeming the game too risky and too risqu\u00e9, Milton Bradley decided to pull the game right before Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>However, the company had already engaged a public relations firm that had landed Twister on \u201cThe Tonight Show.\u201d\u00a0 The game quickly became a sensation after Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor played. Gabor appeared moral in her blonde up-do and modest in a white dress, giving the game more innocence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-14826\" title=\"Twister P2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Twister-P2-300x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"213\" \/>Twister became a top seller and brought Foley a level of fame. The patent was issued to him and Rabens for the apparatus for playing a game wherein the players constitute the game pieces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat makes the Twister game timeless is the fact that it\u2019s always been about showing off your free spirit and just having some laugh-out-loud, out-of-your-seat fun,\u201d said a spokesman from game-maker Hasbro, Inc. \u201cThe game\u2019s popularity continues today as young fans still have fun getting tied up in knots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although Twister was the most popular of his 97 patented inventions, co-inventor of the game Charles \u201cChuck\u201d Foley had been inventing all of his life and had many innovative inventions. On July 1, 2013, at the age of 82, Foley passed away from Alzheimer\u2019s disease complications.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-14827\" title=\"Twister P3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Twister-P3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"187\" height=\"250\" \/>Foley had started inventing at an early age and when he was 9, he invented a locking system for his grandfather\u2019s farm, to keep the cattle from escaping the pen. As a young man, he worked as a salesman, served in the Michigan Air National Guard and worked on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company, before taking a job at Lakeside Toys in Minneapolis. Over the years, Foley invented dozens of other toys and games, such as designs for plastic toy handcuffs and safety-tipped darts. He also invented a product called un-du, a liquid adhesive remover. Un-Du was named \u201cBest New Product of the Year\u201d in the 1993 School Home Office Products show in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was extremely passionate about what he did,\u201d said his son, Mark. \u201cHe had great vision. His motto was \u2018I want to invent something that should be in every home and every commercial environment imaginable.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to creative and innovative people like Foley, we are able to enjoy embarrassing ourselves in the fun that Twister provokes\u2014if only we could all live like Mark said his father did:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8220;He never stopped having fun. He tried to think like young people thought. He never wanted to grow up, and he always maintained his enthusiasm for seeing things through the eyes of a child.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Copyright Davison 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sources:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/m.apnews.com\/ap\/db_289563\/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Bng68x9h<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/lifestyle\/214841111.html<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/articles.washingtonpost.com\/2013-07-11\/entertainment\/40512481_1_reyn-guyer-mark-foley-charles-f<\/p>\n<p>Images:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/cooltools_legacy\/archives\/undu_web.jpg\">http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/cooltools_legacy\/archives\/undu_web.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twister_(game)\">http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twister_(game)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/articles.washingtonpost.com\/2013-07-11\/entertainment\/40512481_1_reyn-guyer-mark-foley-charles-f<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the creativity and innovative spirit of Charles Foley, the co-inventor of Twister, who passed away earlier this month, millions of people have had the curse and delight of attempting to contort themselves into awkward and uncomfortable positions while playing the sometimes controversial board game. With the slogan \u201cThe Game That Ties You Up &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,66],"tags":[1284,1285,1286,1287,1288,1289],"class_list":["post-14824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inventions","category-inventor-stories","tag-board-game","tag-charles-foley","tag-hasbro","tag-neil-rabens","tag-reyn-guyer","tag-twister"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Game That Ties You Up in Knots - Davison<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Davison confidentially works with people to develop their new product ideas. 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The inventions have sold in Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, Amazon and more.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/","og_site_name":"Davison","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DavisonInvent","article_published_time":"2013-07-16T13:00:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-04-04T12:31:49+00:00","author":"nikki","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Davison","twitter_site":"@Davison","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"nikki","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/"},"author":{"name":"nikki","@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/#\/schema\/person\/591ebf065dc0d45e5d3c353e7108abe8"},"headline":"The Game That Ties You Up in Knots","datePublished":"2013-07-16T13:00:17+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-04T12:31:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/"},"wordCount":726,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Twister-P1-248x300.jpg","keywords":["Board Game","Charles Foley","Hasbro","Neil Rabens","Reyn Guyer","Twister"],"articleSection":["Inventions","Inventor Stories"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/","url":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/","name":"The Game That Ties You Up in Knots - Davison","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/the-game-that-ties-you-up-in-knots\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.davison.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Twister-P1-248x300.jpg","datePublished":"2013-07-16T13:00:17+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-04T12:31:49+00:00","description":"Davison confidentially works with people to develop their new product ideas. 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