Original subtitles

(tense music) (train rattling)

[Narrator] For the Robbins family,

playing cards together is their favorite pastime,

especially a popular game called Crazy Eights.

[Merle] Spades.

[Narrator] While fun, there's just one problem.

[Merle] Reverse.

Uh-uh, jack is reverse.

No, jack means skip.

You had to remember certain rules

because it didn't exactly say it on the card.

You had a king, you had a jack, you had a queen.

What do these mean?

- Queen is skip. - No, jack is skip.

Jack is skip.

This is why you always win, mom, you change-

- Stop, just stop.

They were a competitive family,

so an argument over the rules

is fairly serious conversation.

In a moment of inspiration, Merle Robbins grabs a marker

and literally writes reverse on the card.

There, better?

[Narrator] Merle doesn't know it yet,

but he's just laid the groundwork for what will become

the bestselling card game in history.

[Kid] Uno.

(family cheering)

[Narrator] One that will take families away from the TV

and back to spending time together.

And it's not the only game changer of its time.

(checkers clattering)

I call it "Connect Four".

[Narrator] Both come from the minds of unlikely inventors.

With no game design experience,

the odds were stacked against them.

[Narrator] Who shake up an industry

dominated by electronics.

Here's the thing, you're kind of already making it.

He's not taking no for an answer.

[Narrator] They'll put their own revolutionary

twists on the classics.

This is a card game that I invented.

Tell your friends.

To create something that no one had ever considered

before is pretty incredible.

Trying to make games that are simple to learn,

difficult to master, and appeal to all ages

is the hardest thing to do.

[Narrator] And risk everything in the process.

Quite literally bets the house on it.

This is gonna be America's most popular family game.

So, don't try this at home

unless you've got one hell of an idea.

(dramatic music)

The 1970s pretty much kicks off

with the world very rapidly becoming

a much more complicated place.

Vietnam, Watergate, Nixon resigning.

Gas prices, inflation.

No part of who we are feels simple.

Everything feels like we need to think a little bit more.

And that manifests in looking backwards.

Yearning for a simpler and happier time.

[Narrator] Having come of age during the Great Depression,

Merle Robbins is no stranger to life's ups and downs.

Merle Robbins is almost 60-years-old

and has lived through America's toughest decades.

He was a hard worker, kind of a blue collar kind of guy.

[Narrator] After being laid off from a factory

in the mid '60s, Robbins manages

to make ends meet by working as a small town barber.

This guy came in and he just wanted all of the hair off.

The hometown barbershop was a a unique place, right?

So if you were a barber with one chair in your shop,

you had to be charismatic and gregarious.

There you go, sir, you're done.

Merle was a fun loving guy.

He loved games, of course.

He and his family played games a lot.

[Narrator] But after one too many arguments over the rules

for Crazy Eights, Robbins works on something

to put an end to the conflict.

There's nothing more understandable

about wanting your family to just get along.

And necessity is the mother of invention.

Merle had gotten some blank decks of playing cards,

so then he just had written on those

everything that was necessary to play the game.

Crazy Eights is a game where you're trying

to match numbers and suits until you run out of cards.

So he simplifies it even further

by changing the suits to colors.

He codified rules that people were already enjoying

as kind of uber Crazy Eights.

The idea is so brilliant.

You're taking a game that people really already know

how to play and just making it easy.

Players no longer had to be worrying about,

"Am I remembering the rules?"

And get more immersed in the actual gameplay itself.

But the game gets almost too simple.

It goes too quickly, it's too easy.

(tense music)

Blue.

You only had one card?

Mm-hmm.

If the game starts to feel repetitive,

if people start to feel like they can predict the winner,

that's when you wanna add something

that catches the players off guard.

So now, the Robbins family has gone from arguing

with each other over the rules of Crazy Eights

to developing the rules for a completely new card game.

They decided, let's add cards

where you really stick it to your competitor.

Cards that make the game more fun

and more challenging,

like the reverse cards and the skip cards,

special cards that could ruin your game or help you win.

(triumphant music)

(laughing)

When Merle created the draw four,

he put magic into the game.

That is so mean.

I'm gonna remember this.

When you play it, your opponent has to draw four cards,

which has resulted in death threats

from different members of my family.

Oh, I like that!

It allows you to feel the highest highs

and the lowest lows.

You're matching colors, you're focused,

you feel like you're in control.

Then some child hits you with a draw four.

It takes nerves of steel not to completely melt down,

but it's a lot of fun.

It's got that secret sauce.

There's an element of surprise.

You just don't know what's gonna happen next.

[Christopher] The game kept getting better and better

as he's adding new quality to the cards.

I say we make it red.

Damn.

(exclaiming)

All those kinds of things

that really made people shout, scream, laugh.

Everyone that played this game loved it.

So Robbins decided maybe we should

actually make this thing and try to sell it.

But in the '70s, it was really kind of

the Wild West in the toy industry.

It wasn't clear where to go

or what to do to get your game licensed.

And the movement in toys is more electronics in it,

more complicated, more futuristic,

games like Simon, Electronic Football, even Speak 'n Spell.

It's not exactly a back to basics time.

Television was definitely the competition

for children's attention.

You had to be modern with with your approach to toys.

[Narrator] With the odds stacked against him,

Robbins doesn't even know where to begin.

But 600 miles away, another inventor,

Howard Wexler, is already familiar with being an underdog.

My father was born in 1937

on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

He was a street kid, so he had to be endlessly creative.

Wexler is also dyslexic,

and that hugely impacts how he went through school

and how he engages with the world around him.

In school, he can't do the reading,

so that's really challenging for him.

He would get a toy and couldn't read the instructions.

It makes play and interaction even more important to him.

He loves making models and using his hands

and being creative physically.

Today, we talk all the time about learning differences,

about dyslexia, ADHD.

In the 1950s, it was actually a really unforgiving time.

People didn't know how to handle dyslexia then.

They just would say, you're stupid or you're not advanced.

You were constantly being told, the problem is you.

It's not until he's in college taking a class on psychology

that he learns this term dyslexia

that defines the challenges

that he'd experienced his whole life.

That was a moment when he really decided,

I wanna dedicate my life towards helping kids.

He decides to get a PhD in psychology

with a focus on childhood development.

So in his spare time, he's kind of like playing

with the idea of making toys, and so he says, you know what?

Like, no one ever succeeded

by being like one foot in, one foot out.

So, he goes all in on inventing toys.

[Narrator] By 1970, Wexler is able to leverage

his child psychology background into a job at Hasbro.

He was somebody who had a special set of skills

and advantages, qualities

that probably very few people in the toy

and game business would ever possess.

Hasbro was kind of the place to go if he really

was gonna learn about the industry.

Toy design in the '70s wasn't really focused

on the needs of the child.

Here comes Wexler with a lot of ideas about how

children's brains work, how they play, how they interact,

and how that can be applied to product design.

[Narrator] His first major creation is an innovative

new take on baby mobiles.

My father saw that a lot of the old mobiles being marketed,

they were more for the family.

All the child would see was a thin piece of paper

that had nothing.

He's the one that changed what a mobile

for babies looks like.

He's the one who creates the three dimensional version.

He had the mind to create from the baby's point of view.

So that was groundbreaking because

a toy was actually developed from their perspective.

[Narrator] The mobiles are a huge step forward

for toy design, but Wexler soon realizes

that most of his ideas won't find a home at Hasbro.

Sometimes, a corporate environment is not

the best place to foster creativity and passion.

Wexler started to feel the frustrations

of the corporation.

No, you can't do this because of cost.

No, you can't do this because marketing says this.

What he loved was developing,

that was really exciting for him,

but once you're in a box, you can't think outside of it.

So he really wanted to pitch things elsewhere

as an independent inventor,

and he decided it was kind of time to leave.

It's a very daunting experience.

Where do you start? What are you gonna do?

When you go out on your own

and you want to be a toy inventor,

it's like, good luck.

That's it.

Yes, you have freedom, you have creativity,

but if you don't have money coming in,

you're in a lot of trouble.

Unless he creates a big toy quickly,

it's game over for this new game creator.

[Narrator] In 1970, Merle Robbins is ready

to make the leap and turn his new card game

into a business opportunity.

I say we make it red.

Damn.

(exclaiming)

[Narrator] But he can't do it on his own.

All he had was a dream,

and unfortunately, dreams don't always translate to cash.

The idea was that 10 of the family members

would pool their money and print 5,000 games.

[Merle] What do you think?

I'm in.

Even have a name for it.

Naming games is a huge challenge.

You want a name that is short, simple, memorable,

and hopefully fun to say.

Uno.

[Merle] What is that, Spanish?

Italian.

And Spanish.

It means "one" in Spanish.

They thought it sounded really awesome.

It's you.

Oh.

They called it Uno,

but what they really meant to say was,

"you know" how to play the game.

I refuse to believe that

because nobody shortened the word "you" to "U" until 1995.

Prince did in the '80s, but not before that.

[Narrator] And the new name has another fun upside.

When you're down to your very last card

at the end of Crazy Eights, you say, "Last card."

Now, when you get down to one card, you shout, "Uno!"

- Uno. - (exclaiming)

[Narrator] Now, Uno needs a new look to match its name.

So Merle's son recommends a young designer.

I was just out of school, beginning a career

as a graphic designer.

Merle and I agreed for a $900 fee,

I would design the Uno cards.

Grove is struck by how fast the gameplay is

and he wants the design to reflect the speed of the game

and the simplicity of the game.

The imagery needed to be simple and straightforward.

You pick up the cards,

you immediately understand what they do.

The colors are simple.

The artwork is simple.

[Narrator] While the front of the cards

come in a variety of colors, to save money,

the back can only have one.

So I picked avocado green.

Beautiful, 1970s shag carpet, avocado green.

The pea soup green was an interesting choice,

but in the early '70s, that was kind of a cool color.

[Narrator] Happy with the redesign,

Merle Robbins is ready to make the decks.

(laughing)

But then he finds out it's going to cost him $8,000

to print the first run of cards,

which is about $60,000 in today's money.

He has some money, but not $8,000.

Whether it was the fear over spending that amount of money

or whatever reason, six of the 10 relatives

dropped out, leaving Merle and his wife Marie $6,000 short,

and that was a crossroads.

[Narrator] As Robbins worries this could be

the end of the road for Uno,

Howard Wexler starts his new life

as an independent inventor.

Wexler gets an office in Manhattan,

near to the hub of the toy world.

Now, he's on the clock and he's in a hurry.

Why? No more paycheck.

And he's got to eat and he's gotta pay rent.

His office is his apartment.

His apartment is his office.

He stays up late at night building prototypes.

[Narrator] Struggling to find inspiration,

Wexler turns to classic games.

He was drawn towards strategy games

because they were the easiest to make.

He's looking at Chess and Checkers, and Go, Parcheesi,

and he noticed that they're just horizontal.

He decides to think outside of the box to create something

so entirely new that no one had ever considered before.

For my father, playing with the look and feel

and geometry of things was just very appealing.

He did see things spatially or just structurally different.

So as there's more research, we're learning how people

who have dyslexia sometimes have an especially keen

understanding of physical space

and kind of visual arrangement.

This is when he has his moment.

The light bulb goes on.

What would happen if you made it vertical?

The vertical game helps kids

who see things differently.

Kids who are dyslexic or have other learning issues.

[Narrator] Now, Wexler has to figure out

how to turn his abstract idea into a real game.

So he found a bunch of clear plastic tubes

and now we have something that we could stack in.

(intense music)

Now we have something that we could use

as kind of a makeshift board,

[Narrator] But he's still unsure

of what the gameplay should be.

Wexler has to go through a series of steps

to implement his vision.

So, you take this big idea

and you keep boiling it down, boiling it down,

boiling it down, boiling it down.

He starts with, like, ping pong balls

and he's trying to create this puzzle thing.

It's not easy.

He's got a lot of stuff to figure out.

(pong balls clattering)

[Narrator] Meanwhile, Robbins takes drastic measures

to figure out his own money problem.

Quite literally, Merle Robbins bets the house on it.

He takes out a mortgage, goes all in on Uno.

He basically mortgages his entire life

because he has faith in what he's built.

This is a man who has been through two World Wars,

the Great Depression, and he is determined to make it work,

but he could lose his house.

(The Great Depression, and he is determined to make it worku)

[Narrator] After putting his house on the line...

It's a pleasure doing business with you.

Thank you very much.

[Narrator] Merle Robbins is able to raise enough money

to print the first run of Uno.

The odds were stacked against Uno from the beginning.

A Midwest barber with no connections

in the card or toy business.

He didn't have money, he didn't have infrastructure,

and he didn't have any experience.

But Merle Robbins knew that they had something special

and they had to put it out into the world.

So Merle Robbins' initial order is for 5,000 Uno decks.

He starts selling them out of his barbershop.

So you can imagine coming in for a haircut.

And what's this pea soup green box of cards here?

Now, this is a card game that I invented.

It's $3 a pack, if you're interested.

He makes some sales, but not a whole lot.

Tell your friends.

This is really not the traditional way

for a toy or game of any kind to be introduced.

It's very grassroots and it's hard

because you're really just working off of word of mouth.

[Narrator] As Robbins struggles to sell his game,

in New York, Howard Wexler

still hasn't figured out the goal of his.

Howard Wexler was really looking to create something

that took games to the next level.

But what is the fun?

What is the game?

[Narrator] Then one day, he has a breakthrough.

(balls clattering) (pensive music)

While experimenting with his tubes

filled with ping pong balls,

Wexler realizes that by stacking these balls

of different color, you're creating lines of color

or not, if your opponent plays his color against yours

and blocks you.

This leads him to thinking of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Versions of Tic-Tac-Toe have been played

in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome.

It may be the simplest and earliest game

we've ever come up with.

Tic-Tac-Toe is easily one of the most recognizable

and easy games to play.

Everyone and their grandmother

knows how to play Tic-Tac-Toe.

To take that mechanic that was maybe stale

and making it fresh is exactly the definition

of a true inventor.

You're taking something old, you're making it new again.

So now, you've got Tic-Tac-Toe with tubes

and ping pong balls, but that's big.

So what else do we use?

I mean, you're looking at 42 ping pong balls.

That would at least take up a giant shoebox.

He's in his office mulling and he realizes,

wait a minute, I can use checkers.

Checkers are perfect.

They're slim, they're familiar,

they're cheap, and they're everywhere.

[Narrator] But using checkers will require a redesign.

As Wexler heads back to the vertical drawing board,

1,800 miles away,

(hawk screeches) (tense music)

Merle Robbins is pressing forward

to take Uno beyond the barbershop.

He decides he's gonna go on a grassroots

marketing campaign and travel the highways

and byways of America trying to sell Uno decks at campsites.

So you know what you do here now?

A two or a, yeah, you got it.

You got it, you got it.

He had created a really good game

and he just needed to get word of mouth out there.

- Uno, uno! - Oh, whoa, whoa.

RV parks and mobile home parks

and campgrounds are a very good place

to promote to families, and particularly kids.

Draw two.

- Yes! - (all exclaiming)

He would play the game with people and go,

"Would you like to buy a set?"

That is yours, sir.

Thank you very much and thank you for that.

Enjoy that game.

It takes him a while,

but he eventually sells the first run of 5,000 game decks.

[Narrator] After spending months on the road

and having made only a small profit,

Robbins returns home.

Certainly they had seeded the market for the game,

but he risked a lot to take it on the road.

He mortgaged his house,

but also he was 60-years-old at the time,

took a toll to try to sell this in RV parks.

That's a young man's game right there.

(knocking)

Merle Robbins is a brilliant inventor,

a dedicated family man, and a hard worker.

But sometimes you need more than that

to make it in the world of business.

- Mr. Robbins? - Yeah.

Bob Tezak.

I want to talk to you about Uno.

Oh, well, it's $3 a pack.

I'm here to offer you a lot more than that.

(knocking)

[Narrator] In 1972, Merle Robbins has played

all of his cards and is unsure of his next move.

- Mr. Robbins? - Yeah.

[Narrator] Until Bob Tezak shows up at his door.

Bob Tezak is a mortician, but an ambitious one.

Bob Tezak was from Joliet, Illinois.

By the time he was 24, he owned a funeral home

with his family that was part flower shop,

part funeral home.

Flower shop attached to the funeral home.

So you're getting them at both ends.

Clearly an entrepreneur.

Tezak, by all accounts, was like P.T. Barnum

and Donald Trump combined.

[Narrator] After stumbling upon the game,

Tezak sees Uno as his ticket

to being more than a mortician.

Tezak's brother-in-law brings Uno to Thanksgiving

and Tezak loves it so much

he plays it for one straight week.

He got his heart set on buying this product

even with no knowledge of the business

or experience in the games area.

He realizes this isn't produced by Hasbro,

it's not produced by Milton Bradley.

It's produced by just some guy out of Ohio.

And he was able to find Merle Robbins

because their name and address is printed

in every copy of the game.

He said, let's go fly to Ohio and meet these people.

This is America, let's take a shot.

I don't wanna buy just one pack.

I wanna buy the whole thing.

I don't know.

I mean, how much are we talking about here?

[Narrator] Tezak offers Robbins $50,000

to be paid over the next five years

and a 10 cent royalty for each deck sold

in exchange for the rights to Uno.

Bear in mind, that's about $400,000 in today's money.

- Can I come in? - Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Narrator] The deal proves to be too good

for Robbins to pass up.

So with Bob Tezak's generous offer,

Merle Robbins is able to close his barbershop and retire.

[Narrator] Now, the fate of his game lies in the hands

of inexperienced Bob Tezak and his new business partners.

We formed a company called International Games.

International Games really have this almost boiler room,

hot shot, Wall Street origin story.

It's called International Games

and at this point, Uno was created by a dude from Ohio

and sold by another guy from Illinois.

We had these grandiose plans to conquer the games world.

This was very in keeping

with Bob Tezak's approach to everything.

It was bold, it was audacious,

it was a little bit of an overreach.

The early years of International Games

was quite, quite interesting.

We had an empty room in the flower shop.

We didn't have any money to spend on rent or any salaries.

[Narrator] But Tezak does insist on spending money

for a crucial change to the game.

(dramatic music)

The green color that we inherited from the Robbins

was kind of blah.

He loses the avocado green

and creates the now iconic black and red design.

Red really expresses the energy you get from playing Uno,

the excitement, the adrenaline rush, it's eye catching.

[Narrator] While the new and improved Uno

is ready to mass market,

the market isn't necessarily ready for Uno.

Uno started on a very small scale in the Midwest.

We were selling maybe 500 games a year.

[Narrator] But the cash strapped startup

is still on the hook with Merle Robbins.

Tezak has an obligation to Merle Robbins

to pay 10 grand a year

and selling a game isn't as easy as it looks.

[Narrator] As Tezak pushes for Uno to take off,

Wexler finally lands on the right board design

and the ultimate goal for his game.

So, even though he's basing it on Tic-Tac-Toe,

he thinks connect three is way too easy.

So he ups it a level, ups the complexity,

and lands on Connect Four.

But it took a while for him to decide

what that perfect formula would be

when connecting the four in the grid.

How many rows and how many columns there are.

That's really the special sauce

because you don't want stalemates.

You don't want it to be too easy.

You don't want it to be too hard.

So it plays on a seven by six grid.

[Narrator] However, play testing reveals a flaw.

You have to turn it over and shake the pieces out.

He found that that was very unappealing

for young children to flip over.

So he always wanted a cascade.

Having kids fill something up

and then dump it out is positive for their development

and just their sense of satisfaction.

Little children, even if they don't know how

to play strategically, can fill up a grid

and then just release the checkers

and hear the cascade and enjoy that.

[Narrator] Wexler ultimately figures out a simple

but ingenious idea.

(checkers clattering)

He creates this great release at the bottom,

which is like a favorite part of the toy.

Kids just love it.

(checkers clattering)

It is approachable, it's tactile, it's pleasing.

It's fun to play.

(checkers clattering)

The sound of those checkers are like the fireworks

of your celebration.

(checkers clattering)

Or the drumbeat of your misery.

(checkers clattering)

[Narrator] Once Howard Wexler is finally ready

to share his masterpiece,

he knows exactly where to pitch it.

(inquisitive music)

The key is it allows kids to think multi-dimensionally.

He goes back to Hasbro, the place that gave him his start.

No one has seen a game that stands up vertically.

Wexler has to get a manufacturer to bite on this.

I call it Connect Four.

The feeling that he had when he finally got to

go and pitch the game is like, "I've arrived."

Like, this is the end of the magic trick.

(checkers clattering)

Unfortunately, they're not interested.

Resounding no, goodbye.

The very people that had faith in him in the first place,

tell him no.

This has to be a massive blow,

especially when he knows

how groundbreaking this game can be.

(tense music)

(checkers clattering)

[Narrator] After spending months designing Connect Four,

Howard Wexler is devastated when Hasbro turns it down.

We are at a time when kids are looking for electronics

and there's batteries and there's all kinds of stuff.

Connect Four doesn't have a lot of bells

and whistles, let alone electronic ingredients.

[Narrator] But he refuses to give up.

Now comes the really hard part for Howard.

He has to find another company

that's gonna manufacture this toy.

So Hasbro doesn't want Connect Four.

Maybe their arch competitor, Milton Bradley, will.

He's not taking no for an answer

and they're like, "All right, we're gonna talk about it

so that you leave us alone."

Okay.

Like, all right, Howard, you're being a pain in the ass.

But that was only after a lot

of pitching and probably pleading.

And he comes armed with a very special selling point.

So here's the thing, you're kind of

already making it.

The game uses checkers.

You are already producing

half of the game pieces as we speak.

It's an incredibly easy, easy lift for Milton Bradley.

Okay?

All we need to build is a grid, that's easy.

That seems to do the trick

and Milton Bradley picks up Connect Four.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] But there's a catch.

Milton Bradley goes, "All right, we'll take the concept,

but on one condition, I'm gonna bury it in the catalog.

Just totally bury this.

And in fact, I'm not gonna even put it with the toys and games.

I'm gonna put it with like, the school supplies.

So way in the back, let's see how it does."

So this had no chance of doing anything

and that's where it kind of sat.

[Narrator] While Connect Four's chance

of success seems slim,

(suspenseful music)

Bob Tezak is desperate for a retailer

to take a chance on Uno.

We were going up against very, very big odds.

We were pretty much living hand to mouth,

trying to service small retailers.

Tezak knows he has to get it into stores

and into distribution as soon as possible.

He's gotta get it out on a national level

and he's heard Walmart is this up and coming retailer.

The story goes that it went to Bentonville, Arkansas

and got a quick no from the buyer.

But then this gentleman walks up.

- These yours? - They are, this is Uno.

This is gonna be America's most popular family game.

[Tim] And it turns out that guy was Sam Walton.

The CEO of Walmart.

And you're a family business?

We are, just like you.

All the best businesses are.

And he turned to the buyer and said,

buy a couple cases from him.

So Sam Walton put Uno in Walmart,

which at the time, had about 173 stores.

That certainly was the key moment

because Walmart was about to explode.

Things started to really pick up.

We were tripling sales every year

from about '76 to 1981.

It just kept growing and growing and growing.

By 1981, they sell 11 million copies of Uno.

So with a 10 cent commission on 11 million decks sold,

that's a cool million for Merle Robbins.

But Bob goes on to make so much more money,

so much more money.

Bob Tezak has a company jet

and they build a $2 million headquarters

in Joliet, Illinois, and they're just riding high.

Bob Tezak is investing in new projects,

and new properties, and fancy cars.

None of us in the company were wealthy.

We started with nothing, and we ended up

with a very successful product that gave us the wherewithal

to have very fruitful lives.

Tezak goes on to start a NASCAR race team

called Uno Racing.

He goes into politics and he becomes a delegate

at the Republican National Convention.

It's mind boggling to think that in the span of 10 years,

he goes from delivering flowers to funerals

to shaking hands with Ronald Reagan.

But then something very interesting happened.

[Narrator] As Uno starts selling abroad,

International Games urges Robbins

to renegotiate the terms of their deal.

There was a little bit of a dispute when we first went

to the European markets to line up sales and distributors.

International games asked the Robbins

if we could cut the royalty for the foreign sales

to five cents until we were able to recover

some of our upfront expenses.

Merle Robbins, instead of getting 10 cents a deck,

he's now only getting five cents when it's sold internationally.

They agreed initially

and after a short period of time,

evidently some legal advice from

one of their local attorneys said

that they shouldn't have done that.

Merle thought that Bob Tezak was not paying him

all the royalties that he was due.

Thank you.

Merle Robbins lets him know in no uncertain terms

that he has worked too long and too hard.

So he threatens him with some pretty spicy legal language.

Oh, come on, we had an agreement!

[Narrator] A dispute over Uno royalties

pits Merle Robbins and Bob Tezak against each other

in a contentious battle.

It's not surprising because they sort of were like

oil and water, right?

The home spun barber and the crazy showman.

But Merle was a tough negotiator.

Merle was able to stand up to them

and say, hey, I don't think my royalties are correct.

I don't think I'm getting a fair shake.

We just went back to giving them the 10 cents a game.

So it never got to any court.

It never went to any lawsuit.

[Narrator] In the end, Uno leads

to a big windfall for Robbins.

Merle Robbins comfortably retires

and spends the rest of his life enjoying time with his family.

He passed away in '84 and lived to see his game

go from the barbershop in Arlington Heights

to all over the world.

Which just goes to show that if you tough it out

long enough, it's never too late.

[Narrator] Eight years later, Tezak sells Uno

and International Games to Mattel for $40 million.

Uno makes Bob Tezak a lot of money,

but unfortunately, money can corrupt.

The problem with ambition

is that it is a double-edged sword.

It can send you to great heights

and it can also send you to crashingly low lows.

Bob ends up in some big, deep trouble.

He's sentenced to almost 13 years in prison

and has to pay about a million dollars

in fines and restitution.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, Howard Wexler's Connect Four

has also been serving time,

stuck in the back of Milton Bradley's catalog

for seven long years.

But something surprising happens, people start buying it.

Milton Bradley decides they are going

to invest in a marketing campaign.

They're going to put some advertising dollars

behind Connect Four

and create one of the most iconic commercials of all time.

[Announcer] The name of the game is Connect Four.

Gotcha, four across.

- Hmm, one more game. - (checkers clattering)

[Announcer] Object, connect four of your checkers

in a row while preventing your opponent from doing the same.

But look out, your opponent can

sneak up on you and win the game.

- I won. - Where? I can't-

- Here, diagonally.

Pretty sneaky, sis.

(checkers clattering)

[Announcer] Connect Four, the vertical checkers game

from Milton Bradley.

That TV ad was the beginning of the huge success

that Connect Four still sees today.

The sales growth skyrocketed after the commercial.

In the '80s, it really started to do super, super well.

Connect Four tapped into a need for some simpler games

that appealed to everyone.

[Narrator] And Howard Wexler continues

to make new games to this day.

He licensed about 150 other games.

So his legacy is very important.

He's very well respected.

Because of the types of toys that Howard developed,

he actually got a nickname in the industry.

He was called The Toy Doctor.

Howard Wexler was told his whole life

there was something wrong with him,

that there were things he could not do

and he not only proved them wrong,

but created a toy that other children could also enjoy.

Wexler opened a door for companies

to really look at how they create toys.

Now, it's a huge deal in the toy industry

that toys deal with learning challenges,

that they deal with emotional and social skills.

To me, that's what lifts Howard Wexler as a game maker

and Connect Four as a toy from not just being a toy

that built America, but quite realistically,

a toy that really builds us as humans.

(triumphant music) (checkers clattering)

Pretty sneaky, Howard Wexler.

[Narrator] Together, Connect Four and Uno

have left their indelible mark on the game industry.

The greatness of these games

is the genius could be humbled by the eight-year-old.

A PhD could be demolished by their seventh grader.

This is why these games are amazing.

[Narrator] Today, Uno has sold over 150 million packs

in 80 countries and in 26 languages.

While Connect Four sells up to 10 million units

annually around the world.

As times get more difficult, why not go back

to the basics when life was simpler,

when you could get around the kitchen table

and play some games with your whole family?

Going back to things that are simple and joyful,

that's the magic of these games.

It's why Connect Four is one of the most enduring games

in all of American history,

and I think Uno is very much

a close second in that department.

(dramatic music)