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Okay, we're just going to make a quick stop. Girl, that is literally the biggest lie I tell myself. Because one quick stop turns into picking up tujente, grabbing snacks, loading up everybody's stuff, idiar repente and namo se nun adventura. Yes que veces, the best adventures are the ones that you make up along the way. That's why the 2026 Nissan Rogue is ready for wherever the day takes you with intelligent all-wheel drive and five-drive modes.
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Hi, I'm Andy Richter. I might not have won the Mirror Ball last season. That was so fun. And I did win the best gig ever. Hosting the Dancing with the Stars official podcast.
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Alright, well let's get to work. Behind-the-scenes secrets, and more from every episode. That was smoothering! It's gonna be iconic. My dreams are coming true.
Dancing with the Stars official podcast. New episodes every Thursday on Disney Plus and Hulu and wherever you get your podcasts. Should it stay or should it go? What if I mess it up? What if I have to pay taxes now?
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This is Our American Stories and we tell stories about just about everything as you know. And up next, a story by author Christopher Klein. He's the author of four books. He's also written for the Boston Globe, the New York Times, National Geographic. Smithsonian and American heritage.
Here's Chris. to tell a story of how Johnny Carson Saved. Twister. It's 1965 and Ren Geyer is working for his family's Minnesota ad agency designing point of purchase displays for products such as Pillsbury Cake Mix and 3M Tape. And one day he's brainstorming ideas for a mail-in giveaway to promote back to school sales of a shoe polish made by Johnson's Wax.
And he's thinking of something that would tie in with shoes. And he gets this idea for a new board game to be played not on a tabletop, but on the floor. He envisions a large mat checkered with squares on which players are the pieces. Geyer found a large cardboard sheet. drew 24 colorful squares in a 4x6 arrangement and called in co-workers to play a game in which they moved around like chess pieces.
The game was a hit and Guyer knew he had an idea too good to waste on shoe polish. He figured this could be a mass market game, but the problem was he had no experience in the toy industry, so he enlisted the help of industry veteran Charles Foley and artist Neil Rabens to help him refine the concept. Ravens came up with the idea of having players place their hands as well as their feet on the game board, while Foley thought of putting six circles of the same color in four rows so that players would become entangled. The inventors even came up with a catchy retail name for the game. Pretzel.
because of its ability to twist people into unique shapes. The game was simple to play. A spinner told a player to put either a hand or a foot on a particular colored dot, and the winner was the one who stayed up the longest without elbows or knees hitting the ground. Presswell required coordination, flexibility, absolutely no hang-ups about personal space. When Geyer's team pitched pretzel to game maker Milton Bradley, the company's head of research and development, Mel Taft, was immediately sold.
Other Milton Bradley executives, however, thought the board game too provocative. That the idea of being that close to someone, especially someone of the opposite sex, was socially unacceptable. One company salesman even called it sex in a box. Taft pressed ahead though, and Milton Bradley agreed to produce the board game, but with a new name. Since a toy dog called Pretzel was already on the market, Milton Bradley changed the game's name to Twister and marketed it as the game that ties you up in knots.
Having grown up in the Midwest though, Geyer disliked the new moniker because it reminded him of deadly tornadoes. Right foot blue. Right foot blue. Left hand, red. Left hand red.
Left, right, yellow, blue, green, yeah. With the rhyme. Wilson Bradley found a company that manufactured shower curtains to produce Twister's vinyl mats and placed cartoon characters on the packaging to make the game more innocuous. It appeared at first, however, that the naysayers concerned about the game's sexual overtones were correct. Major retailers who gathered at the annual Toy Fair in New York thought Twister too risque as well.
Sears Roebuck wouldn't even include it in the company's Christmas catalog. You gotta get it! Yeah, but. from MD. With demand flagging, Milton Bradley considered pulling Twister from the market.
Before it could cancel production, though, the toy company's public relations firm scored a coup by getting the game onto the premier late-night television program in the United States. NBC's Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC.
Okay. Yeah. It's a testimony. From New York, the tonight show star. Johnny Carton.
This is Ed McMahon, along with Doc Severanson of the NBC Orchestra, inviting you to join Johnny and his. With an average of 12 million Americans tuning in every night, the Tonight Show was among television's greatest showcases. And now, here. On the night of May 3rd, 1966, host Johnny Carson played a game of Twister with glamorous actress Ava Gabor. star of television screen acres.
Sidekick Ed McMahon worked a spinner and guffawed from his couch as Carson and Gabor. got down on all fours and contorted in strange positions. The stars were in knots. The audience was in stitches. The impact of the hilarious segment on Twister sales was immediate.
The next day, customers deluged Toy Stars such as F.A.O. Schwartz. Promotional spots on Art Link Letters' House Party and the Mike Douglas show also raised the game's profile, and Milton Bradley's newspaper advertisements began to boast of the sensational new party game seen by millions on TV. While kids and adults alike were swept up in a twister craze, teenagers proved to be the game's sweet spot. During the 1960s, Twister became as much a staple of teenage basement parties as shag carpeting and faux wood paneling.
By December, Mill and Bradley's factories were turning out 40,000 boxes of Twister a day, and it still wasn't enough to keep up with holiday sales. The toy company even scrapped a planned advertising campaign tied to New Year's Eve to allow its production line to catch up with demand. By the end of 1967, 3 million Twister games had been sold and it became one of the decade's most popular games. When Twister was enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2015, actors recreated the moment when Carson and Gabor saved the game from history's dustbin. Since its release, an estimated 65 million people have played Twister, proving that it, unlike shag carpeting and fake wood paneling, was no fad of the swinging 60s.
And a special thanks to Greg Hangler for producing the piece. And a special thanks to Christopher Klein for telling the story. of the night Johnny Carson saved Twister. And by the way, what a coup for that PR firm. I mean, Twister was dead on arrival.
And by the way, it's hard to imagine for people born, let's say, after 1980, to understand the power of the Sears Catalog. And if the Sears Catalog said no, it would be the equivalent today of Amazon saying no. It was that powerful. And my goodness, what a fun game. I know it was one of the great games at parties when I was a kid.
And what a great way to just laugh and be stupid. And by the way, that it's enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York is no surprise. 65 million people have played the game. A great piece of storytelling by Christopher Klein. The story Of Twister and how a late-night talk show host saved it and made it the game it is today here on Our American Stories.
Lee Habib here again. Our American Stories tries to tell the stories of America's past and present to Americans, and we want to hear your stories too. They're some of our favorites. Send them to us. Go to allamericanstories.com and click the Your Stories tab.
Again, please go to AllAmerican Stories.com. and click. the Your Stories tab. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S.
and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. Love discovering new music before anyone else?
Stop being just a listener. Start making the rules and work with your new favorite artist before they even break. The Beam is a free music competition app where real emerging artists compete, you vote, and massive brands step in to fund the next big name. Your votes change careers. Find them first.
Download thebeam at thebeam.com or on the app store. Vote for an artist you love or discover your next obsession. It's the first music chart that pays artists. Should it stay or should it go? What if I mess it up?
What if I have to pay taxes now? If you're unsure about an old 401k, it's okay. Fidelity can help you understand your options, avoid mistakes and taxes, and feel good about your decisions for your retirement savings. To learn more, visit fidelity.com/slash rollover. Be sure to consider all your available options and the applicable fees and features of each before moving your retirement assets.
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Now just 248 and 358. This is the Dan Lebatar Show. This is Dan Lebatar, and I've been doing this for more than two decades. Our show is contagious. It's a little bit addictive.
It's uh. In the most positive of ways. It has a good amount of range from smart to silly, and it's got a journalistic backbone. Monday through Friday, I show up and talk about sports, listen to the Dan Lebetard show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts.
Okay.
