History
Marvin Glass and Associates was founded in 1941. Its founder, Marvin Glass, was an entrepreneur and the creative force behind Marvin Glass & Associates. His salesmanship and uncanny ability to spark creativity in the designers he employed was unparalleled. In 1949 he licensed a "novelty item" to H. Fishlove & Company called Yakitty-Yak Talking Teeth. This item was invented by Eddy Goldfarb, who worked for Marvin Glass for a very short time after World War II. MGA was contracted by Bally-Midway to design coin-operated video games during the 1980s. Some of the games produced by MGA during this era include Tapper, Domino Man and Timber.
The first big hit for Marvin Glass was Mr. Machine, a toy invented by a former watchmaker named Leo Kripak. A child could take Mr. Machine apart and put him back together. It was licensed to Ideal Toys and became such a hit that Lionel Weintraub, its president, made it his company mascot and featured it in many of Ideal's early TV ads. The company became so successful that Marvin Glass got his company logo printed on every package for the items it invented and licensed.
The organization's general counsel, James F. Coffee, and accountant Ernest Sonderling, were the architects of the successful business model whereby the designs and inventions were patented and licensed to various toy companies and manufacturers who would pay running royalties based on sales. Outside counsel, chairman of the Intellectual Property Department at McDermott Will & Emery, Robert J. Schneider, was responsible for procuring the patents and protecting them from infringement.
Several partners from Marvin Glass and Associates subsequently started Big Monster Toys, which remains to this day and is still based in Chicago.
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