Elliot Handler and continued to be produced in different versions until the early 1970s. Another product line was Hot Wheels, introduced in 1968, which gave rise to 10,000 different models. First called Mattel Creations, the company has become the largest toy maker in the world in terms of revenue. In April 2008, Mattel honored Handler with a 90th birthday party at its headquarters in El Segundo, California. Guests included his daughter Barbara Segal, the namesake of the Barbie doll. Handler died of heart failure at home in Century City, a district of Los Angeles, California, at age 95 on July 21, 2011.
Performo Toy Company other toy companies and other luxury goods producers while the movie tie-in enabled Disney's nascent toys and novelties business to weather the hard times of the Great Depression. "The Simpsons" episode "The Day the Violence Died" bears a remarkable similar story line to the Grove–Disney debate. In the July 15, 1933 edition of the Middletown Press and Journal, the Performo Toy Company announced they were filing for bankruptcy. It is believed that the Great Depression forced them to padlock their doors. Performo Toy Company The Performo Toy Company was established in 1925 by Torrence Leroy Dietz, in Middletown, Dauphin County,