Burt Meyer, who created enduring toys including Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Lite-Brite and Mouse Trap in the 1960s, has died. He was 99.
Meyer’s designs arrived during the postwar boom when plastic molding and mass production transformed children’s play. Those changes opened possibilities for more dynamic toys, and Meyer combined a childlike imagination with mechanical know-how to seize them.
He died Oct. 30, Rebecca Mathis, executive director at King-Bruwaert House in Burr Ridge, Illinois, where he lived, said.
The idea for Lite-Brite came in 1966 when Meyer was walking in Manhattan with Marvin Glass, owner of one of the era’s largest toy design firms, and they passed a window display of hundreds of colored lights. Engineers worried electric lights couldn’t be made safe for kids, according to Tim Walsh, who interviewed Meyer for his 2005 book Timeless Toys. Meyer, then an employee at Marvin Glass & Associates, insisted it could.
Meyer devised a small backlit box and black paper sheets so children could arrange colored pegs into illuminated pictures. Lite-Brite became a hit, earning a spot on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest toys and induction into the Strong National Museum of Play’s hall of fame. New versions continue to be sold.
He also helped transform a bulky, ill-fated boxing arcade concept for home play. After a featherweight boxer died from a brain injury, executives felt any toy invoking the tragedy was unmarketable. Meyer reimagined the idea: “This is too good to pass up,” he later recalled, deciding to replace human fighters with robots and to make the payoff humorous rather than violent. The result was Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, a tabletop game in which players manipulate joysticks to punch an opponent’s jaw and send its spring-loaded head popping up. The toy remained culturally visible, appearing in Toy Story 2 and drawing renewed interest when Mattel announced plans for a live-action adaptation in 2021.
In the mid-1980s Meyer launched his own firm, Meyer/Glass Design, which produced other bestsellers such as Gooey Louie and Pretty Pretty Princess. His son, Steve Meyer, ran the business until 2006, The New York Times reported.
Born Burton Carpenter Meyer in 1926, he served two years in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic. After retiring from toy making, he moved to Downers Grove, Illinois, where he built small planes and flew them from a nearby private airfield into his 80s. He often compared aerospace engineering and toy design, noting both demand ingenuity and teamwork: “When you’re flying the airplane, use every resource that you have in there,” he said, crediting the collaborative environment at Marvin Glass & Associates for many successes.
Meyer’s enthusiasm for his work was evident in small details: his car bore a vanity plate reading TOYKING. He delighted in telling people his occupation and hearing them respond, “Oh, I played with that!”
