A Lachsack (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, literally "laugh bag") is a novelty toy consisting of a small cloth bag containing a plastic box with a push button that, when pressed, plays recorded laughter. The Lachsack was invented in 1968 by German inventor Walter Thiele. It was the most successful of about 1,600 items he invented. The device originated from a talking parrot

soft toy A stuffed toy is a toy with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, lovies and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be called soft toys ...

that he produced for the Wienerwald restaurant chain. When the company rejected the parrot, Thiele placed its miniature battery-driven

record player A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

into a sock, replacing the disk recording with one of laughter and named it the ''Lachsock'' (laugh sock). The ''Lachsock'' was successful. Thiele developed the concept by staging a laughing contest and using a recording of the winner's laughter in the redesigned ''Lachsack'' in which the sock was replaced by a small sack. The winner, a tax inspector from

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

, was offered a prize of either 1,000

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or a 10

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royalty per ''Lachsack'' sold. He played safe and chose the lump sum. An estimated 120 million had been sold by 2007 and the ''Lachsack'' is still in production. The original ''Lachsack'' was a brown bag made of

jute Jute ( ) is a long, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...

. Today's versions usually are smaller, available in different colours and use digital audio technology. The toy is sold under several different names such as Laugh Bag, Laughing Bag, Bag of Laughs and Bag of Joys.

Sources

External links

Picture of an old and a new Lachsack
Novelty items 1970s toys {{toy-stub