Skip-It is a children's toy introduced in 1960s, the most popular variants of which were manufactured by

Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) is an American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld electronic games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as '' Brain Warp'' and the ...

in the 1980s and 1990s. The Skip-It apparatus was designed to be affixed to the child's

ankle The ankle, the talocrural region or the jumping bone (informal) is the area where the foot and the leg meet. The ankle includes three joints: the ankle joint proper or talocrural joint, the subtalar joint, and the inferior tibiofibular joint. The ...

via a small

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

hoop and spun around in a 360 degree rotation while continuously skipped by the user. Early toys similar to the Skip-It included the Jingle Jump, the trademark application for which was filed on December 30, 1963 by Jak-Pak Industries. In the spring of 1968,

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

-based plastic company Twinpak released a toy with similar function known as the Footsee, supposedly based on a game Twinpak co-founder Bob Asch saw an Arab child play in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. The toy was a tremendous success in Canada, and Reliable Toy Company of

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

released the Skipit (as the name was then spelled) that same year as a competitor. Twinpak sued Reliable for copying the design of their toy, and secured a temporary

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

prohibiting Reliable from manufacturing the Skipit, but by June 15, 1968 the two companies had reached a settlement allowing Reliable to continue manufacturing Skipits. Both toys were also distributed in the United States at this time. In 1975, the Chemtoy Corporation would release a similar toy called the Lemon Twist, which featured a lemon-shaped ball. Tiger Electronics acquired the rights to the Skip-It in 1988 from its American rightsholder, the Paul E. Price Company. Tiger Electronics added a mechanical digital counter to the ball, which was patented by

Avi Arad Avi Arad (; ; born August 1, 1948) is an Israeli-American studio executive and producer of film, television and animation. He became the CEO of Toy Biz in the 1990s, was the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment and is the founder, ...

and Melvin R. Kennedy in 1990. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Skip-It apparatus became a commercial success through its advertisements on daytime

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

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as well as other children's programming. A version of the toy was featured in the Hong Kong martial art movie '' Butterfly and Sword'' (1993) where the character Miu Siu Siu / Ho Ching is seen playing with it. In 2011, ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine included it in their 100 greatest toys ever. In 2013, a spin-off of the board game

Twister Twister most commonly refers to a tornado. Twister or Twisters may also refer to: Aviation * Pipistrel Twister, a Slovenian ultralight trike * Silence Twister, a German homebuilt aircraft design * Wings of Change Twister, an Austrian paragli ...

was developed, Twister Rave Skip-It.

References

Physical activity and dexterity toys 1980s toys 1990s toys {{toy-stub