"When I offered them Falcon's family's phone number, they said no," Rubin told UPI in 1987.
Worlds of Wonder chose not to comment on Falcon's shooting when it took place, and when called by Jerry Rubin, the Southern California coordinator for the National Stop War Toys Campaign, he said that he was "shocked by their insensitivity" to the incident. Lazer Tag certainly doesn't fit the definition of warfare in the modern day, but the game was lumped into the mix in part because it used gun-shaped devices and promoted the toys in a battle context, and in part because of the toymaker's response to the shooting, which did them no favors. ( Yes, this is a thing that actually happened.) In 1985, a massive campaign to stop the production and sale of war toys picked up an unusual amount of steam, with grassroots advocacy groups coming out against the likes of G.I. The reason for this can be partly pinned to a movement that had a lot of steam in the late 80s: The anti-war-toys movement. But in the death of Leonard Falcon, much the blame was largely directed toward Worlds of Wonder. In the Crawford incident, the police officers received much of the criticism from the public. The two incidents, while having much in common, were each defined by their respective eras. The "prowlers"? A group of teens who thought it'd be fun to play Lazer Tag at night while wearing dark clothing. In Rancho Cucamonga, CA, deputies were called to investigate the scene at an elementary school after receiving a call that there were armed prowlers on the loose. It didn't involve an airsoft gun, but a misunderstood game of Lazer Tag. Nearly 30 years earlier, a situation with many parallels to the Crawford shooting played a contributing role in the failure of Worlds of Wonder. That led to an Ohio state representative, Alicia Reece, to introduce a bill that would require airsoft guns to have a brightly colored design that would differentiate it from a traditional gun. It was a tragedy, and one where a police officer mistaking a toy gun for a real one played a factor. Crawford's name is one of many that the Black Lives Matter movement has coalesced around. When they confronted the man, they believed the gun was real, shooting and killing the Ohio man and leading to ongoing protests. In 2014, a man named John Crawford III was walking around a Walmart location with an air rifle, raising concern among store-goers who called police. Worlds of Wonder's demise came about partly due to a police shooting (By the way, Kingsborough is still an active executive he spent a few years at PayPal and is now the managing director of Capital One's venture team.
In other words, Kingsborough and his company was trying to sell high-priced toys that could offer significantly higher levels of fun and engagement than cheaper alternatives. Worlds of Wonder Founder Donald Kingsborough, in a 1987 Fortune article, discussing his philosophy around the toys his firm sold, including Lazer Tag, the firm's second-biggest hit and the inspiration for a Saturday morning cartoon. Lazer Tag teaches them to play with each other, and Teddy Ruxpin teaches bravery and friendship." What children gain from our toys is social value. "Having a lot of toys is not what Worlds of Wonder is about. Here's what happened to what might have been the weirdest toy company of all time. So why don't you remember Worlds of Wonder? Easy: Because it flamed out just as quickly as it hit the top of the Christmas list. In this environment, Worlds of Wonder, a firm mostly made up of former Atari employees, was destined to succeed-and it did, thanks to an animatronic teddy bear that could tell you a story. Some companies, like Tiger Electronics, doubled down on the cheap silicon and thrived.
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