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SPEAKER: It's a game that's near and dear to me. I remember playing it. In fact, I remember playing it with a girl I had a crush on, and--

REYN GUYER: It may have been the source of several amorous activities, or at least friendships.

SPEAKER: Friendships, definitely. And I want you to tell how it popped into your head.

REYN GUYER: I was working on a Johnson shoe polish idea. I was trying to think of what they call a self-liquidating premium, which means send $2 and the label from the shoe polish, and you get X.

And the X I was trying to make was a kind of a paper game where people could-- the kids could stand around and they could have colors on wrapped around their shoes and-- let's see. Then they would get on this grid, and they'd walk back and forth. And all of a sudden, uh-oh, this is bigger than that.

And I went out in the bullpen with the artists and I got a big sheet of 6 by 4 sheet of cardboard, and I drew a large grid on it, foot circles on it. So I had 24 squares there, and I got a whole bunch of the artists-- usually artists or in a creative business people are willing to do almost anything. And in this case, it proved to be true.

I said, OK, you're the green team, you two are the white team, and you two-- and we just divvied up and said, I don't know where we're going or what we're doing.

But when we finally got those eight people standing on these squares, we were in very close proximity to each other and we started giggling, and it proceeded from there. Everything was coming along just fine, and they began to show the idea ultimate to the retailers.

In those days, if Sears would buy it, then everybody bought it. And Sears looked at it and said, no, you guys, you are too far out. And they said, we're not going to put it in the stores. Plus, it's probably a little bit body for us, and we just really shouldn't do that.

They'd already paid their money to take their chance with a PR company who had gotten the game, as it were, on the Johnny Carson show. And so it showed up as a segment on the Johnny Carson show.

And Johnny said, well-- incidentally, the guest that night, the featured guest was Eva Gabor. And she, of course, showed up in a very low cut gown. And Johnny seized the moment and went ahead to play the game with Eva Gabor on the show.

And they were lined up, as I've said this before, but they were lined up 50 deep at Abercrombie and Fitch, which was a store in New York at that time the next day. So that changed their mind that. Essentially, that little piece of fate change the whole course of getting Twister around in the market.

SPEAKER: Why do you think people like the game?

REYN GUYER: Well, I think in the mid-1960s, it broke a rule. And the rule was at that time, you really don't go around touching and feeling in the middle of a social, a large social situation.

SPEAKER: Have you ever heard anybody say that when Twister came on the scene, that was the beginning, that was the beginning of the decay of our moral values?

REYN GUYER: [LAUGHS] No, I hadn't ever heard that. I really hadn't heard it ever stated in that way, and I don't believe it.

SPEAKER: Why do you think you became an inventor? Is this genetic trait that you inherited? Is it something that can be brought out of you, something that you learn?

REYN GUYER: Almost everything that I've been involved in that's been successful is fun for other people, and I seem to be able to recognize that. And I like being around creative people.

At our offices when we're dealing with the creative development of things, whatever it is now, the movies or the television shows, or whatever it is we're developing now, they're funny. Any room where there's creativity going on, you can all of a sudden hear laughter coming from it on a regular basis. And so it's fun to be around it.

I think a friend of mine who was doing some consulting and looking at our team, we were doing some team building, he told me two things. He said, you're a person who really hasn't lost the child in you. You still honor the child in you. And the second thing that I notice in you is you have a large capacity for enduring ambivalence.

SPEAKER: What do you think he meant?

REYN GUYER: I find myself sitting in meetings where there's absolute chaos. When you're developing ideas with a team, it's chaos. You don't know where you're going, and it looks like you've lost the path more than 100 times and all you do is keep going.

SPEAKER: Maybe it also helped you to be patient as well.

REYN GUYER: Well, patience implies that you grit it out. Now, I think it's just used to being confused. And so I was-- that's an ordinary path for me. OK, here's another situation where I'm confused. Well, I've gotten through them before. So OK, we'll get through this one. And I think it's been helpful.

SPEAKER: What is the state of inventing these days in our society? Are we losing that spirit that we once had? Is it being stolen away by the computer age?

REYN GUYER: Oh, not at all. I think that the computer age is enhancing creativity to a great degree. The creative people, the biggest areas of opportunity in creativity, two of them, anyway, are in film and in computer software, and it is enhancing the way we can make music accurately.

The kind of creativity that goes on now, It forces people not to think of one person as being the inventor. And that is always the case Every good thing that I've been a part of has always come from a team. It has not been-- I get attributed as being the inventor. I look on myself as a developer, and certainly I am an inventor.

But when it comes to the Nerf ball or the Twister game, I'm really a developer. I've been very closely involved in the creative and inventive process, but I am not the sole person. And the people who have worked with me know that and have been a part of it.

SPEAKER: What kind of advice can you give to fledgling inventors out there who I'm sure seek it from you all the time?

REYN GUYER: Well, number 1, I'd say-- I made a little list on my way down here. I was thinking maybe you might ask a question like that. Number 1-- it takes more than one person. When you're creating an idea, it usually comes about from a team.

Number 2-- everyone is creative. There are creative bankers, there are creative insurance men, there are creative advertising men, obviously, and women everywhere.

Make one. Make sure that you make the product, make a prototype, make an example. The best products that I've been involved in always have had a well worked out prototype.

And usually, when you're making an idea, like you go up the trunk of the tree and it's-- somewhere along the line you're going to branch off and you're going to end out on some limb. And that's probably where the prize is. It's usually not the trunk of the tree. You start there. So make one. You find out oftentimes it doesn't work, but something else works.

Fourthly, break a rule. Always ask the question, what happens if. What happens if. If you're in a group and you're working with a group, ask the question, what would happen if-- just keep asking that question over again.

Sixthly, or whatever it is, it takes time. For something to bear fruit and come to its ultimate, whatever it's going to be, it takes time. So corollary to that, you know the ideas that you have that are really good. Treat them like gold.

I wrote down here at the bottom. It said, beware of the big corporations. They usually have no heart. They change personnel too often. They lose sight of the fact that there was a personal relationship. They are big and they can force their bigness on you. And lastly, get a good lawyer.