Mr. Potato Head

Mr. Potato Head was the invention of George Lerner[?] in the late 1940s. The idea was originally sold to a cereal manufacturer so that the separate parts could be distributed as cereal package premiums. This was not successful and Lerner bought back the rights to textile manufacturers Henry and Merrill Hassenfeld, who did business as the Hassenfeld Brothers, later to be shortened to Hasbro. When it was first sold to the public in 1953 it became the first toy to be sold through national television advertising. Although originally produced as separate plastic parts to be stuck into a real potato or other vegetable, a plastic body was added to the kit in 1964.