Did you know the popular murder mystery board game Clue was invented by British musician Anthony E. Pratt, who developed the idea with his wife, Elva Pratt, during World War II air raids in Birmingham, England ? (Patenting it in 1944 and selling it for release in 1949 as Cluedo in the UK and Clue in the U.S.. Pratt was inspired by murder mystery parties and detective fiction, aiming to create a game to play indoors during wartime blackouts, initially calling it Murder!.)

Did you know Gumby, the iconic green clay character, was invented by animator Art Clokey, who first introduced him in his 1953 surreal student film Gumbasia, leading to The Gumby Show on NBC in the mid-1950s, featuring Gumby and his pony pal Pokey with their distinctive claymation style ? (Clokey developed Gumby with his wife Ruth, basing the lopsided head on his father's hairstyle, and the character debuted on The Howdy Doody Show before getting his own series.)

Did you know the game Barrel of Monkeys was introduced by Lakeside Toys, based on an S-shaped linking concept by Milton Dinhofer and Leonard Marks, launching in 1965 and later becoming a Hasbro product ? (Originally called "Chimp to Chimp," the game involved linking plastic monkeys with hooked arms into chains, inspired by the phrase "more fun than a barrel of monkeys," with the iconic barrel packaging added by Lakeside Toys.)

Did you the Smurfs were created by the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known by his pen name Peyo ? (They first appeared as supporting characters in a comic strip in the Belgian magazine Spirou on October 23, 1958. A Saturday morning cartoon in 1981 made them popular in the United States and beyond.)

Did you know The Easy-Bake Oven was invented by Ronald Bruce Howes Sr. for Kenner Products and introduced in 1963, inspired by New York City pretzel vendors, using two 100-watt light bulbs as a heat source to bake treats in a miniature oven ? (It became a massive hit, selling over half a million units in its first year and becoming a cultural phenomenon, even getting inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006.)