Retro Toy | Cootie. (Without the s)

Today's Retro Toy: Cootie

Cootie, without the s, or you'll end up with the fictional disease we scare kids with so they'd behave.

Incidentally, the word cootie first appeared in a World War I memoir by Albert Depew , in which he describes the horrors of unimaginable pests and vermins that inhabit trenches where soldiers wade in regularly.  Incidentally also, cooties may have come from kuto, which is the Filipino word for the dreaded head lice, a good enough theat to keep kids from playing outside, especially during hot afternoons when lice is supposedly more rampant.

Anyway, back to the toy.  Cootie is the name of the tabletop game created by William Schaper in 1948.  The object of the game: be the first to build the bug creature by rolling the correct number in a die.

In 2003, the Toy Industry Association included Cootie in its "Century of Toys List", a list of the 100 most influential and memorable toys we've come to love.