Most people living today either had or at least got to play with a Lite Brite as a kid. I didn't have one myself, but many of my friends did.
I bought a Lite-Brite for my little brother in law who is 16 years younger than me and played with his. The main thing I did with his set however, is pick up all those pieces that got scattered all over his room!
Lite Brite was first released by Hasbro in 1967 and is a great creative toy. It has changed a bit over the years and is still available in many different forms today.
It is basically a box with many peg holes covered with black paper. You design a picture with different colored translucent pegs. Then, you turn on the light that is inside. The black paper holds back the light in the places there are no pegs. The light does shine through the translucent colored pegs to reveal your masterpiece. It shines the light bright. Hence the name - Lite Brite!
Do you remember Lite Brite? What was the most creative picture you ever made with it? I bet you never made anything as good as the David Crowder Band did in their music video SMS (Shine). They spent over 2,000 hours and used over 700,000 vintage Lite-Brite pegs, to make a stop motion Light Bright animation! It is the most amazing thing I've seen done using a great vintage toy. Check it out!
What'd you think? Pretty great huh? My family and I are going to get to see The David Crowder Band in concert this winter at WinterJam. After seeing this video, I'm pretty excited to see the band.
If you are one of the few unfortunate ones who never got to play with a Lite Brite, you can play with a virtual one on Hasbro's website by clicking Here.
If that's not good enough for you, you can pick up a number of different kinds of Lite Brites Here
Now days they look a little different. The most popular style is probably the Lite-Brite Cube
I wonder if we could make a stop motion animation like "Shine" with one of these. If anybody tries it, definitely let me know!
