The Tyke behind early Little Tikes designs seeks recognition

Grand Rapids, Mich. — In an office building near Gerald R. Ford International Airport is a room seemingly out of place for a company that manufactures signs.

The room, labeled "Charlie's Studio," is a small office space with paintings in process and colorful toys spread throughout. It looks like a playroom for a child upon first glance. However, Charlie Tyke is no child.

At 91, Tyke actively uses the studio space at 2/90 Sign Systems, the business he founded in 1978 and that capped off his career in design. The toys in the space serve as a time capsule, trophy and evidence of Tyke's most famous creation: Little Tikes.

While Tyke's name is embedded in the Little Tikes brand, today he remains largely uncredited for creating the designs that have characterized the company since the late 1960s. Tyke's name is nowhere to be found on official websites and profiles published on the company, nor did current and former company executives, as well as toy industry groups, want to comment for this story.

The lack of recognition may be explained by a falling out that Tyke had in the 1980s with an early partner who emerged shortly after production started and who formally founded the company. The two have not talked in that time.

Through the years, Tyke and his family have taken steps to receive what they feel is long-overdue credit. At one point, Tyke considered — but didn't follow through on — taking out a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. His daughter, Rebecca Tyke, has taken to social media to spread awareness for her dad's creations by posting original marketing material and news articles.

Tyke said the recognition is all he needs.

"[Little Tikes] started in 1968 and you could talk to [people and] they have no idea I'm the creator of Little Tikes. And certainly, 20 years from now even my own kids won't know what I did," Tyke said in a recent interview from his playroom-like office in Grand Rapids. "I just think when you start a company like that, you have an ongoing legacy, it should be recognized."

Tyke's career in design stemmed from his deeply rooted passion for art, creativity and problem-solving.

While Tyke was growing up in Pittsburgh, he showed an early interest in art and attended an artistically gifted program at Carnegie Museum.

After serving in the the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, Tyke's first job out of college was designing power tools at Stanley Works, a manufacturer located in New Britain, Conn. Hoping to get into a new industry, Tyke left the company in 1966 to work for a manufacturer in the growing plastics sector.

After Tyke would clock out of his "boring houseware" design job, he would come home and work on creative designs for toys.

That early toy design work included the initial models of a ride-on toy and frog box made from polyurethane foam.

Tyke searched for a manufacturer to produce his designs and met Jack Hill, the founder of Rotadyne Inc., located outside of Cleveland. The pair struck a deal and began producing Little Tikes toys in 1968, Tyke said.

The nascent company used rotational molding, which was ideal for the company's rounded-edge products, and polypropylene to make the product sturdy. The company began by selling in Kmart and a few other locations, Tyke said.

The technology set Little Tikes apart in that era of innovation and toy making, said Phil Renato, professor of product design at Ferris State University's Kendall College of Art and Design.

"Rotational molding is a way of dealing with plastic that allows something to be very large but also very strong because it's mostly filled with air but has a large exterior cross-section," Renato said. "So you can have, for instance, a picnic table you can pick up with one hand and then strong enough for at least a child to sit on."

While working on Little Tikes, Tyke got a job at Mansfield Design Center in Mansfield, Ohio, about 70 miles from Cleveland.

"I could handle my design work, Little Tikes and everything's really happily ever after," Tyke said.

However, Little Tikes needed an injection of capital to scale up. During the first year, the company made around $1,000 or less, Tyke said, noting he "wasn't really in the numbers" and was mainly focused on design.

In need of materials and financial backing, Tom Murdough emerged in the early 1970s, reportedly acquiring Rotadyne in 1970, after a trade magazine had featured Little Tikes products like the teeter-totter, Tyke said.

In August 1971, Murdough filed to register the brand Little Tikes in Ohio. The application also states that the name Little Tikes had been used in operations since May 1968, according to the filing registered with the Ohio Secretary of State's office. In those early years, Little Tikes operated as a division of Hill's Rotadyne Inc., said Tyke, who maintains that he and Hill are co-founders of the toy company.

After acquiring Rotadyne, Murdough took on the role of scaling up Little Tikes. Tyke and Murdough, who has become widely known and acclaimed in the toy-making industry, maintained a close working and personal relationship, with Tyke continuing to design for Little Tikes.

"Tom Murdough is a classic entrepreneur — aggressive, market-oriented and with vision," Hill said in a 2016 interview with Plastics News.

Thanks to Murdough's involvement, just four years after Little Tikes was established, the company was generating $10 million in annual sales, according to Tyke.

"All I'm doing is designing, and Tom Murdough is taking care of the marketing, and he's a hell of a marketing guy," Tyke said. "I give him all the credit for growing the company."

Tyke said he had his "life made" with two jobs: Doing the design work for Little Tikes — making about $25,000 a year in royalties, he said — and working as a consultant with Westinghouse ASD Group, which brought him to Grand Rapids in 1975.

After a couple of years in Michigan, Tyke wanted to build up his own business for his family. He started Open Plan Accessories Inc., which is now 2/90 Sign Systems. Doing so required capital, and he sought to sell his royalty rights with Little Tikes.

At the time, Tyke had stock as well as royalty contracts for more than 25 products with the toy company, he said. When looking to sell the royalty rights, Tyke attempted to keep one for the Rainbow Chair intact to keep his relationship with the company going.

Murdough — now widely credited as a founder of Little Tikes — insisted on a "clean break," Tyke claims.

Tyke continued his work with Little Tikes and Murdough until 1981, when Tyke said he sold his remaining stock in the company and royalty rights for around $50,000.

Three years later, in 1984, Murdough sold Little Tikes to Rubbermaid for $42 million.

After selling Little Tikes, Murdough in 1991 founded Step2 Co. LLC that would go on to make toys after his non-compete with Rubbermaid expired. He sold Step2 in 2016 and later established Simplay3 Co., another toy company where he serves as CEO.

Through a Simplay3 representative, Murdough, who turned 86 in February, declined to comment for this story.

Meanwhile, Tyke gets little public credit for his role in the creation of Little Tikes. The Little Tikes website credits Murdough for founding the company in 1969.

Little Tikes' current parent company, MGA Entertainment, which purchased the toy company from Rubbermaid in 2006, also declined to comment for this story.

The Toy Industry Hall of Fame, established in 1984 to "recognize the people behind the power of play and the wonderful toys that facilitate it," inducted Murdough in 2020, according to the hall of fame's website.

The recognition puts Murdough alongside other honorees including industry heavyweights like Muppets creator Jim Henson, Walt Disney and Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, who introduced the first box of Crayola crayons.

Murdough's profile on the hall of fame attributed him as the founder of Little Tikes in 1970 and credits him for "introducing products so creative they earned him the reputation as 'the godfather of rotational molding' and his company as the world's largest rotational molder."

The Toy Association, a trade association for the U.S. toy industry, also declined an interview for this story.

The lack of recognition is a wound that still runs deep with Tyke and his family. Through letters, emails and calls, he continues to seek recognition from the company for his contributions.

In a recent letter to Murdough that went unanswered, Tyke's daughter, Rebecca Tyke, wrote: "I'm writing to you as a last attempt to get my father recognized as the creator of Little Tike Toys. Although you are the founder of the Little Tike Toys Co., I feel the story isn't complete without mentioning my father's contribution.

"… this request isn't about money. It's about being recognized for your vision and talent. It doesn't take anything away from you; my dad always gave you credit for being an amazing marketer and having the foresight to hire an outside financial wizard."

Today, Tyke still serves on the board of 2/90 Signs, which is credited for a variety of wayfinding innovations and maintains operations in Cascade Township, southeast of Grand Rapids.

In the early stages of 2/90 Signs, Tyke saw a solution and marketable evolution for the signage industry which, at the time, was manufacturing mainly metal or wood signs that couldn't adapt to new information or did not give guiding directions.

The company's clients include Johns Hopkins Health System, a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule Contract that allows 2/90 Signs to sell products and services to government customers, and a contract to manufacture signs for government agencies through UNICOR, a federal prison labor program.

Since 2001, 2/90 Sign Systems has been employee-owned through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Tyke still attends quarterly board meetings and contributes ideas for the business and products. He maintains that he is not retired.

If Tyke had to encapsulate his career into one word it would be "fantastic," he said with a chuckle.