May 1, 2013 (Wednesday)
Mr. Potato Head: [holding his left arm in his right hand] Do we have to hold hands? [All laugh] –from the movie, “Toy Story.”
Today is his birthday; he’s 61. Who is he? Why, Mister Potato Head of course.
May 1, 1952 is the day that the Hasbro Toy Company put him on display and offered him for sale. However, the plastic version of the potato was not made available until 1964. The original was a real vegetable or piece of fruit. The nose, eyes, etc. were stuck into the real potato, etc. like we stick pins in a pin cushion.
Mister Potato Head was not born into the toy world until 1952, but he was created many years before by George Lerner, who took potatoes from his mother’s garden and made characters for his sisters by sticking stuff into them or on them.
Mister Potato Head became a movie actor in 1995 when he was a cast member in “Toy Story.” His appearance on the screen, however, was in the first commercial for a toy on television in 1952.
His being popular for such a long time has landed him a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, N.Y.
The popularity and success of this toy is a tribute to entrepeneurs and inventors everywhere in this nation who began with an idea and turned it into a business.
George Lerner had fun with the idea when he was a kid. Who knew his little home-made character would make him famous and give him a very good living.
Devotional Thought:
Using a kit, we can create a unique Mister Potato Head. As incredible as it may seem, many of us today are are creating the God of our choice in much the same way, by adding what we want and removing what we don’t want. We seem to think that God will automatically become whatever we want him to be. Instead of God creating us, we try to create God. Somehow we seem to think that God is obligated to become whatever we wish Him to be.
The one true God has revealed himself to us in many ways, through the Bible and through human experience. Best of all, He has revealed Himself through His Son. Jesus said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” If, therefore, you want to know what God is like, take a good look at Jesus Christ, his only begotten son.
The God revealed in the Bible is the one true God. The god of our own design is no more God than Mister Potato Head.