And we certainly don’t have to spend a lot of time talking about how the thing works: Just ask the Ball any ‘yes or no’ question, give it a good shake, and peer into the ‘Spirit Slate’ window for your answer. It is made now, as it was then, to look like the eight ball from a pool table, but about four inches high. Tyco got hold of the prediction toy after that, and nowadays, toy giant Mattel is the place the Ball calls home. The original Magic 8 Ball was produced by the Alabe Crafts company in the late 1940’s, and billed not for its swami abilities, but as a conversation piece and a paperweight. There’s hardly a toy more ubiquitous, and seriously, the scariest thing about the Ball is probably that there are websites out there that offer “how to burp” instructions-to get rid of those annoying little air bubbles. And if you ever find yourself with a pressing question, but no ball in sight…there are plenty of Internet sites at which a computerized 8 Ball can be queried in a pinch. There are mini-keychain versions, and there are wiseacre twists on the Ball, like the Sarcastic Ball (with answers like “Yeah, and I’m the Pope”) and the Financial Advisor Ball (“Buy pork bellies!”). Here are the facts: the little black Ball has been around for more than fifty years, it can still be found on many an office desk, on many a home coffee table, and in toy stores everywhere.
It’s a waste of time, it’s a way to commune with dark spirits, it gets annoying air bubbles that make it hard to read its predictions…blah, blah, blah.
Like the rest of the members on the Fortune Telling Toy team, the Magic 8 Ball gets its share of nasty accusations.
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