Gag toys seem to satisfy buyers’ desire for laughs

NEW YORK – To draw attention to themselves at this past week’s American International Toy Fair, almost everyone had a gimmick.

University Games corralled “Jeopardy” uber-champ Ken Jennings. Toypresidents hired an Abe Lincoln look-alike.

S.S. Adams had fake vomit.

The shiny yellow plastic mess was laid at the threshold of the company’s 10-foot-by-10-foot booth in the Jacob Javits Convention Center, awaiting discovery. Owner Chris Adams stood nearby and pondered the question of what goes into making plastic vomit at the company’s factory in Neptune, N.J.

“Plastic,” he said, pausing briefly for effect. “And vomit.”

“It’s kind of like making pancakes,” he went on. “You put the plastic substance on a hot griddle, and then you put in all the other food bits, which are sort of like putting blueberries on the pancakes. If you’ve been a short-order chef, we’ll hire you to make plastic vomit for us.”

Ah, to be the grandson of perhaps the most prolific enabler of pranksters this country has ever seen. Sam Adams, who founded in 1906 what eventually became S.S. Adams, invented, among other things, the joy buzzer, the dribble glass, the springing snake in a can and squirting cigarettes.

To be sure, most of the attention at Toy Fair, billed as the largest toy trade show in the Western Hemisphere, goes to sophisticated electronic toys and gadgets. This year, the Toy Industry Association’s toy of the year was a kind of preschool Xbox aimed at teaching kids the alphabet and other lessons.

Hasbro introduced a cell-phone-like two-way radio that kids can use to call or text-message each other. And Mattel is releasing a digital video camera for children.

In the $20.1 billion toy industry, new – or at least re-released – is almost always better than old. Yet the rubber pencil, the hot-pepper-flavored bubble gum, the fake lottery ticket and the candy that makes your mouth turn blue continue to find a place in the land of Lindsay Lohan Barbies and remote-controlled Robosapiens.

“Kids are mischievous,” said Reyne Rice, a toy trend specialist for the Toy Industry Association. “There will always be a market for that.”

Back almost a century ago, Sam Adams created that market, establishing a company that soon became known as S.S. Adams. The first product was a grayish powder that caused people to sneeze.

The powder became a national craze, according to a 1946 article on Sam Adams in the Saturday Evening Post. In the years that followed, Sam Adams (described by his grandson as a “very sober, solid citizen” who didn’t play jokes on people) invented about 600 novelty items, about three dozen of which were patented.

When Sam Adams died in 1963, his son, Joseph, took over and ran the business until 2001, when Chris Adams took over from his father.

Last summer, David Haversat, whose first magic kit as a child was from S.S. Adams, acquired a 50 percent stake in the company. The private firm does not reveal sales or profits, but Chris Adams, 43, said it has been a stable business over the decades.

“It’s grown with the market,” he said. “It’s never mushroomed.

“Our items are a little bit like fad items, but they’ve never completely taken over. They’ve never faded into obscurity, either.”

S.S. Adams carries about 160 products and comes out with a handful of new items each year. The company has had to import more things in recent years but still makes almost all its magic tricks and some pranks on decades-old machinery in New Jersey.

The company sells mainly to a network of about 1,200 smaller, independent stores, magic shops, and theme and amusement parks such as Disneyland. But it’s not the only maker of exploding matches, whoopee cushions and snapping packs of gum.

“Anything that deals with bodily functions seems to sell with kids,” said Ed Slater, whose company acts as a broker for products made by Forum Novelties, in Melville, N.Y. “The past couple of years, the shock items have been strong.”

Back at the S.S. Adams booth, Adams was optimistic about the future of fake ants and rubber chocolates.

“People need something, some little device like a magic trick, to get someone’s attention, to mystify them,” he said. “Or some little joke thing to throw them out of their everyday routine and make someone laugh.”