Fisher-Price is a well known brand of
toys. They are produced in
East Aurora, New York, as a division of
Mattel Toys. One of the better known lines of
Fisher-Price is their
Little People toys, which include various sets of buildings and vehicles with their respective
people figures, which used to be manufactured in wood but are now manufactured in
plastic. The
Little People characters are armless and legless. In addition to
them, Fisher-Price also had, during the
1970s and
1980s, a series of full bodied action figures.
Fisher-Price is named after two of the company's founders,
Herman Fisher[?] and
Irving Price[?]. The other original founder was a woman,
Helen Schelle[?]. The three founders went in
1930 to the international toy's fair in
New York City. They brought 16 toys with them.
Fisher-Price was basically dedicated to the making of wooden toy
dogs at that time. That tradition continued on for the next four decades.
During the 1960s, Fisher-Price began to produce their famous Little People line, with items such as school buses, farms, etc. hitting the markets. The Little People toys gained much popularity and quickly replaced the wooden dogs on Fisher-Prices production line. In 1969, Quaker Oats Company[?] bought over Fisher-Price.
During the 1970s, Little People expanded to include Sesame Street characters on its line, and also the Sesame Street buildings.
In 1991, Fisher-Price became independent, and in 1993, a merger between Fisher-Price and Mattel is agreed upon, Fisher-Price becoming a unit of Mattel then.
In 1997, after Mattel adquired the Tyco Toys[?] brand, Mattel decided it would market all of its infant and pre-schoolers products under the name of Fisher-Price.