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Slinky Slinks It's Way To Hall of Fame
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 The Slinky and the jump rope are among the five toys designated Wednesday as inductees for 2000 to the National Toy Hall of Fame.Those two playthings, along with the bicycle, jacks and Mr. Potato Head, will formally be made part of the Hall of Fame at the A.C. Gilbert Discovery Village in Salem this fall. Salem is the birthplace of Gilbert, a medical doctor and famous toy master whose inventions included the Erector Set and Gilbert chemistry sets. Gilbert is quoted as saying, ``Play is essential to learning,'' said Pamela Vorachek, executive director of the village, which includes three 1800-era houses moved to the grounds and what's billed as the world's largest Erector Set, a 40-foot climbing tower. This is the third year for the Hall of Fame awards. Previous inductees include the hula hoop, Frisbee disc, Barbie doll, Lincoln Logs and the Monopoly game. This year's Hall of Fame selections were chosen, from among 34 toys nominated, by a panel of educators and civic leaders. Vorachek offered brief histories of this year's honorees as children demonstrated each and sang during the announcement Wednesday. Rope jumping was brought to America by Dutch settlers in the 1660s, she said, and at first was done mainly by boys because the culture then ``did not encourage girls to be physically active in case they harmed themselves.'' A marine engineer invented the Slinky toy, Vorachek said. Looking for a spring to counter the wave motion that rocks ships at sea, he knocked an experimental spring off a shelf and noticed it didn't fall but crawled to the floor. The forerunner to the modern bicycle was invented by a French count who basically connected two wheels to a bar, which he propelled with his feet but couldn't steer. The game jacks has an ``ancient and very vague'' history, but is believed to have stemmed from ancient counting games. Mr. Potato Head began in 1952 as a set of push pins shaped like ears, mouths and other face parts that could be pushed into any vegetable. In 1987, Potato Head stopped smoking, abandoning his pipe to become the ``spoke spud'' for the American Cancer Society's Smoke Out anti-smoking campaign. Other toys nominated for this year's awards included GI Joe, Original Nintendo, soccer ball, Beanie Babies, baseball glove and the cap gun. [Updated 3/23/2000]
  
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