Toymaker Burt Meyer, who designed iconic games including Mouse Trap, Lite-Brite, and Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, has died at age 99. Meyer passed away on Oct. 30 at a retirement community in Burr Ridge, Illinois. Born in 1926 in Illinois, Meyer served in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic between 1944 and 1946, before graduating from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in product design in 1952. Meyer, whose license plate read TOY KING, called Lite-Brite the favorite of the games he worked on as a partner at the Chicago firm Marvin Glass & Associates. Launched in 1967, Lite-Brite was a light box with colored plastic pegs that slotted into a plane to illuminate a picture. While most of Meyer’s games and toys were originally released in the 1960s, many have continued to be referenced in modern pop culture. 1999’s Toy Story 2 featured animated versions of the Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, and Mattel produced a limited edition with Buzz Lightyear and Emperor Zurg as the fighting robots. Lite-Brite featured in Stranger Things, Netflix’s supernatural drama set in the 1980s. Earlier this year, Vin Diesel announced his plan to turn Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots into a live-action film with Mattel, saying it would be “the testosterone-male answer to Barbie.”
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