Russell S Kern

Marx Toy Kings Volume II Russell S Kern

(Softcover) MARX: TOY KINGS Volume 2 continues the epic story of "Toy King" (Time Magazine) Louis Marx and "The World's Largest Toy Company" -- the defining work on the development of Louis Marx & Company that puts you in the halls and research and development rooms using factual accounts and eye-witness interviews in an exciting story told by the people who were there. Now, with Louis named "Toy King" by Time Magazine, he faces his greatest challenge ever. Television advertising is putting competitors in the homes of children and Louis refuses to manipulate a child's desires with TV ads. ... Meanwhile the firm is at its height and Louis' designers Frank Rice and Al Bagg and Ed Hjelte are turning out the greatest playsets the world has ever known: The Giant Blue & Gray, Battleground, Wagon Train and many more, each complete with figures, accessories like forts and horses and equipment, a miniature world of their own in a single carton. These become so successful that Louis is opening factories in England, Hong Kong and Germany. Here is their story, a personal and industrial history told for the first time by the men and women who lived it and created the astonishing miniature worlds in a box. Interviews include Charles Marx, at the firm from the mid-1950's until the end, Ed Furie, Marx' personal assistant and a top salesman during the same period, Frank Rice and Al Bagg, playset designers of Battleground, Fort Apache, Iwo Jima, Guns of Navarone and many others. You hear from them throughout the history of the firm making "Toy Kings" Volumes I and II the bountiful, definitive reference works on the Marx company and the heyday of 1950's & 60's toys and playsets. Impeccably researched and written by film producer Rusty Kern, with wife Kathy, also publishers of Playset Magazine.com, America's only source of information on vintage toys, playsets and plastic figures. Over 225 photos