TOYHEM! It’s amazing the things that capture our fancy… — Welcome to TOYHEM! For the sixth straight holiday season, we’re bringing you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! — Dan — By CHRIS FRANKLIN Around 1979, I walked into the local Howard’s Brandiscount Store and saw a bubblegum vending machine festooned with various superhero items. I don’t recall all of them exactly, but I know there were stickers, possibly iron-on patches, and other items small enough to fit into one of those ubiquitous domed receptacles. But the thing that immediately drew my attention was a series of five small cards that featured the most popular heroes from both DC and Marvel: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. When I walked past the images, they changed! From a superheroic bust portrait to a candid shot of their alter egos. Superman changed to Clark Kent, Spider-Man into Peter Parker, etc. Now, this lenticular technology wasn’t new to me. I recognized this was the same way my grandmother’s framed print of “The Last Supper” changed to a portrait of Jesus. But watching the superheroes change before my very eyes was more than my little brain could pull away from. I didn’t realize it at the time, but lenticular printing, or “flicker” printing if you will, is based on innovations in visual storytelling and animation that go back to the paleolithic era, and art found on corrugated cave walls in France. This art form was revived over the centuries such as the tabula scatula or “turning pictures” that gained popularity in England beginning in the 16th century. Fast forward to the 1950s, and the concept was utilized on mass-produced buttons promoting the presidential campaign of Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower. When tilted, the button’s image would change from the famous slogan “I LIKE IKE” to one of the man himself. Promotional lenticular items based on politicians and popular musicians like Elvis and the Beatles were produced for the next several decades. Toy manufacturers knew that this visually stimulating technology would appeal to kids, and so applied it to all range of moppet-centric items. Prizes found in boxes...