Fifty Years of Operation!
First published in 1965, Milton Bradley’s Operation game (Amazon.com search*) is fifty years old this year! How did I overlook this fact until today and, more importantly, why haven’t I seen this presented as news somewhere out there in the wild?
The story of Operation creator John Spinello is wonderfully told in Timeless Toys* and is a tale that’s totally worth chasing down. Spinello, while attending the University of Illinois, designed a game as part of his industrial design studies. The prototype was eventually presented to Marvin Glass who reportedly said:
“What is this piece of @#&!? Get it off my desk.”
The story tells us that Glass then tried the game — which was then about searching for water in Death Valley (see the patent illustration, below) — his opinion changed immediately and the legendary toymaker loved the experience. Development at MGA eventually transformed the game into the classic Operation and today we can celebrate fifty years of digging for plastic “bones” with tweezers.
Happy fiftieth, Operation!
