Twister

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Photo: Buzz Magnuson, Pioneer Press

Name
Twister
Designer
Charles Foley, Reyn Guyer, Neil Rabens
Client
Milton Bradley
Date
1964/1965
Disciplines
  • Game Design

In 1964 Reyn Guyer was working in the office of his father, Reynolds Guyer Design of St. Paul, Minnesota, had a promotional idea for a shoe polish product that involved people as game pieces. Showing this idea to his colleagues Charles Foley, a game designer, and Neil Rabens, an artist, the three refined the concept and came up 8 different games using people on a mat. The most promising, called Pretzel, was sold to Milton Bradley who changed the title to Twister. Introduced in 1965 the game that placed players in compromisingly close quarters quickly came under fire from critics who labeled it “sex in a box.” Large retailers such as Sears refused to carry the game and its future seemed doomed. The promotion for the game was not cancelled, however, and in May 1966 Johnny Carson and Ava Gabor played Twister on The Tonight Show, bringing national attention and spiking overnight demand for the game.