The Toys That Built America

After passing on the biggest deal in toy industry history, Mattel President Ray Wagner finds himself a step behind former colleague-turned- rival, Bernie Loomis.

Ralph Baer invents the world's first home video game console. But it is soon eclipsed by a new table tennis game that becomes one of the most famous video games of all time.

A visionary named Marvin Glass oversees the creation of many of the most iconic toys of the 20th century. Glass pushes the boundaries of what a toy can be, and inspires generations.

At the height of the industrial age, a struggling Danish Carpenter emerges whose passion for innovation leads him to a new building material--plastic.

Hungarian professor, Erno Rubik, ignites "Cube Mania" with his 3-D puzzle that takes the world by storm.

In the 1970s, an art student creates a one-of-a-kind doll to sell at local craft markets. She has no idea that a young entrepreneur will use it for a mass-produced toy.

A former amusement park employee combines his animatronic knowledge with the cassette tape to create the world's first realistic talking toy.

After the U.S. videogame crash of 1983, a Japanese electronics company single-handedly resurrects the industry with a game featuring a jumping plumber.

These are the stories of America's most innovative, groundbreaking, and profitable toys designed to shock--and how they grew to claim a piece of the 100-billion-dollar industry.

The Christmas crazes that helped transform holiday shopping into the frantic, no-holds-barred $1.1 trillion frenzy that it is today.