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. Loomis leads a small-town toy company to record heights and revolutionizes the entire action figure market. But Wagner refuses to back down and steals a page from Loomis' playbook to create the next blockbuster toy that will put Mattel back on top.

Defense contractor 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. And when a third pioneer, Jerry Lawson, creates a console featuring swappable games, the fledgling video game industry explodes into an epic contest for control of what will become a multi-billion dollar market.

A visionary named Marvin Glass oversees the creation of many of the most iconic toys of the 20th Century; from chattering teeth to a legendary game based on a mouse trap, Glass pushes the boundaries of what a toy can be and inspires generations.

At the height of the industrial age, Alfred Carlton Gilbert goes all in on a revolutionary steel building toy that inspires generations of Americans to build bigger; decades later, a struggling Danish carpenter creates the world's biggest toy empire.

Hungarian professor, Erno Rubik's 3-D puzzle takes the world by storm; Leslie Scott stops at nothing to bring an iconic building block board game to market; Alexey Pajitnov risks everything to launch a video game obsession based on a puzzle.

In the midst of the 1970s folk art movement, art student Martha Nelson creates a one-of-a-kind doll to sell at local Kentucky craft markets. She has no idea that a visionary young entrepreneur will use her artwork as inspiration for a mass-produced doll that will spark a multi-billion-dollar toy craze. They will make him rich, but first he must fend off challenges to his empire from Nelson... and from a baseball card company looking to lampoon his dolls to make a fortune of their own.

In the 1980s, groundbreaking technology doesn't just improve adult life, it redefines classic toys. For the first time, childhood staples are reimagined by innovators pushing the boundaries of entertainment technology. A former amusement park employee combines his animatronic knowledge with the cassette tape to create the world's first realistic talking toy, while a NASA engineer invents an entirely new toy segment stemming from the boring old squirt gun. It's an era when technology redefines how we live, and these toy innovations are at the forefront.

After the U.S. videogame crash of 1983, a Japanese electronics company single-handedly resurrects the industry with a game featuring a jumping plumber. But a rival rises to challenge their dominance, setting off a two-way war between video game superpowers. In the process, the two companies will humiliate a third, transforming the fight from a two-player matchup into a three-way brawl...that will change the video game industry forever.

The Christmas crazes that helped transform holiday shopping into the frantic, no-holds-barred $1.1 trillion frenzy that it is today. From a hit doll in the Great Depression, to a $5 plush reselling for a thousand times its value, each season's 'must-have toy' makes the top of Santa's list for its own improbable reason... and sends desperate shoppers to unbelievable lengths just to buy it.

From a first-century Roman emperor who created an early version of the whoopee cushion to modern materials that emulate human body fluids, gross equals big bucks for toymakers; examining innovative toys designed to shock.