F rom W all C leaner to K id P leaser PLAY-DOH’S UNEXPECTED ORIGINS
Since the 1950s, Play-Doh has delighted children, inspired creativity, and made messes for parents to scrub. So, it’s ironic that the child’s toy was invented for a very dull and much tidier adult activity — cleaning wallpaper. In 1933, Kutol Products was not doing well financially. Cleo McVicker was tasked with shutting the soap company down, but instead, he saved it from collapse. When meeting with national grocery chain Kroger, they asked if Kutol could supply ready- made wallpaper cleaner. McVicker said yes, even though they didn’t carry the product. He promised Kroger 15,000 cases, with a $5,000 penalty to be paid if Kutol couldn’t deliver on time. Kutol didn’t have $5,000, so it was lucky that McVicker did have his product developer brother, Noah. Noah created the wallpaper cleaner from a well-known home formula — water, salt, and flour. The product turned Kutol’s fortunes around and helped the company to remain solvent. In the 1930s, people had a much larger need for wallpaper cleaner than you might imagine. Most homes used coal furnaces, which left black soot residue on walls. Worse, the wallpaper available in the 1930s was not water-resistant, so homeowners needed a means to dab the dirt rather than wash it away. Then, in the 1950s, many families converted their home furnaces to oil or gas. That was good news for anyone tasked with cleaning the house, but not for Kutol. Sales plummeted, and the company again faced ruin. This time, Joseph McVicker (Cleo’s son) took the advice of his sister-in-law, a teacher named Kay Zufall. She told him
that children loved to use the wallpaper cleaner as a craft product, and she even had an idea for its new name.
In 1956, Kutol created their subsidiary Rainbow Crafts and unveiled Play-Doh. Kutol didn’t have much of an advertising budget, but Joseph scored a meeting with Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo. Keeshan loved the product (and his 2% cut of the profits), and once Play-Doh made its television debut, sales skyrocketed. Despite the company changing hands several times, Play-Doh is now a childhood staple with endless color options, accessories, and playsets. It sells more than 100 million cans every year and was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. That’s a lot of success for a company that just wanted to stay afloat without getting its hands dirty.
L ightening the C lient ’ s L oad MEET MELANIE MAYO!
Melanie Mayo is now a senior paralegal, but she never saw herself going into law. She worked for years in underwriting back in her home state of Indiana. “I thought I’d do that for the rest of my life and follow in my father’s footsteps,” she says. But then she moved to Georgia, and her new job wasn’t what she thought it would be. Melanie went to a headhunter, who found her a job as a receptionist in a law office. “I didn’t even know the difference between a plaintiff and a defendant,” she remembers. “It was just the first job they sent me to.” But Melanie was hired and became more interested in the legal world as time went on. She advanced to a legal assistant role and then went to school to become a paralegal. Twenty years later, she will soon celebrate her seventh anniversary at The Manely Firm. “I love family law,” Melanie says. “It’s the only kind of law I’ve ever done, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. Michael Manely says that family law is a calling, and I think that’s true.” In particular, Melanie enjoys building a rapport with her clients and helping them through a
difficult experience. “Any kind of family law issue is very stressful on a client, and they need a lot of attention,” she says. “Many of them want to talk, and sometimes they just need to vent.” Melanie has a Pekingese dog at home, and her 25-year- old daughter has given her three miniature Australian shepherd “grand puppies.” She and her daughter spend a lot of time together and love binge-watching game shows. While she once thought she’d move back to Indiana, she has since decided that Georgia is home. “I’ll never leave,” she says. “We have a great team that works really well together,” Melanie says of the work environment at The Manely Firm. But making the most of the client’s journey remains her primary passion. “I like meeting them at the beginning of the case, explaining what will happen, and then seeing them at the end of the case once we’ve come to a resolution,” she says. “No one really wins in a divorce case, but we try to make the client as happy as we can with their outcome.”
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