Puppet, Twister, Super Soaker make Toy Hall of Fame
A panel of experts picked the inductees from a field of 12 finalists that also included the spinning top, coloring book, Wiffle Ball, American Girl dolls, Battleship, Jenga, PLAYMOBIL, scooter and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Twister inventor Reyn Guyer made the players the game pieces that intertwine as they try to reach hands and feet to colored dots without landing in a heap on a plastic mat.
"Some saw Twister as a passing fad, but large-scale Twister matches, popular on college campuses in the 1980s, boosted sales," said Nicolas Ricketts, a curator at The Strong museum where the hall of fame is housed.
The high-powered water blaster was the invention of Dr. Lonnie Johnson, a nuclear engineer who got the idea from a pressurized heat pump he was designing for NASA's Galileo Mission to Jupiter, according to The Strong.