
Long before Glen Powell’s Twisters reign, there was another Twister hero. No, not Bill Paxton or Helen Hunt—Johnny Carson.
The classic game Twister, which was co-invented by Charles Foley and Neil Rabens in 1966 for the Milton Bradley Company, went on to become a bestseller and a phenomenon among children and adults alike.
However, Twister almost didn’t come to fruition at all. In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, Mel Taft (who served as head of development at Milton Bradley at the time) recalled showing an early version of the game to his sales manager, who was immediately concerned that it would be seen as sexual.
“When I showed it to my sales manager, he said, ‘What you’re trying to do there is put sex in a box,’” Taft recalled. “He refused to play. He said it was too far out, kids wrapping themselves around each other like that.”
When Twister hit the shelves, Taft explained, the reaction from consumers was “good, but not wild.” But after Sears refused to stock the game, deeming it too risqué, everyone behind the product feared it was doomed… until an unlikely hero came along to save the day.
“Sears was so powerful back then that its decision could make or break a product,” Twister developer Reyn Guyer wrote in his book Right Brain Red: 7 Ideas for Creative Success. “Twister was dead. But then someone more powerful than Sears gave the game a spin.”
In a Hail Mary move, Taft instructed Milton Bradley’s publicity team to see if they could get Twister on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Fortunately for everyone, Carson came through—and the plan couldn’t have gone better.
On the May 3, 1966 episode of The Tonight Show, Carson played a game of Twister with actress Eva Gabor—who at the time was best known for starring on the popular sitcom Green Acres.
“Someone brought out the mat, and Eva, God bless her, said, ‘What’s this, Johnny?’” Taft told The Guardian. “When he saw she was interested, he made her get down on all fours and climbed on top of her. The camera was on both of them and her dress, very low-cut to begin with, dropped even lower. The audience went absolutely bananas.”
After the Tonight Show stint, the tide shifted for Twister seemingly overnight. Suddenly, customers couldn’t get enough, stores quickly sold out, and Sears happily kept it on the shelves. By 1967, Twister had already sold more than 3 million copies.
Today, Twister is owned by Hasbro (which acquired Milton Bradley in 1984) and continues to flourish as one of the most popular games on the market. In 2015, it was even inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
While Carson may not have invented “the game that ties you up in knots,” he and Gabor certainly deserve some credit for keeping Twister alive and transforming it into a massive success.
Perhaps someday Glen Powell can continue the Tonight Show tradition and play a game of it on air with Jimmy Fallon?