kartooner.com

In the same era as Speak and Spell, The Little Professor, Shrinky Dinks and Transformers, there was Lite Brite — the quinessential toy for any child wishing to shed their creativity.

Lite Brite was a simple concept. It was essentially a peg board with a backlight in addition to hundreds of multi-colored pegs — which resemble a cross between a Christmas light and those plastic pieces that remain affixed to model kit sheets.

When I first plugged a Lite Brite in I wasn’t sure what to do next. It wasn’t until I figured out that included in the box were a handful of patterns to inspire you. These included sail boats, clowns and the occassional island scene (one island smack dab in the middle of the ocean with a single palm tree protruded to one side).

Over time a child would lose several of the pegs and more often than not you would be left with more than one color over another. For me, I had close to 50 or so purple, 10 red and what seemed like a 300 pieces of green.

Today, the Lite Brite has evolved into the Lite Brite Cube — a variant on the original design. Instead of one flat panel, you now have four panels combined to create a cube — which to me signals the intelligence or techno-savvy of today’s youth.

Children of yesteryear were entertained and content with unpretencious technology; things like Slip and Slides, Speak and Spell and remote-controlled robots. Those were the days.