Let’s celebrate the remarkable story of a man, a bug, and a company that grew from a Robbinsdale basement into an American toy legend: Herb Schaper, the game of Cootie, and Schaper Manufacturing.
Our story begins with William Herbert “Herb” Schaper, born in 1914 in Hennepin County, Minnesota. His father was a baker, his grandfather a railroad boiler inspector. Herb attended North High School in Minneapolis. He was tall—six foot two—and stocky. In fact, his draft card in 1940 listed him as 289 pounds and unemployed, with a ruptured eardrum that kept him from military service in World War II.
But Herb was always industrious. Over the years he worked as a baker, a Minneapolis mail carrier, a builder on the Alaska Highway, and a maker of commercial popcorn machines. He even tried running a toy store, but found it too seasonal.
By the mid-1940s, he was working in a Minneapolis “war plant” making radar panels. One evening in 1945, exhausted, he sat down to relax by carving fishing lures—a favorite hobby. But that night, instead of another casting plug, he added legs, a head, antennae, and a long nose. He had made not just a lure, but a bug. And soon, a game.
The bug’s name came from slang coined by World War I soldiers, who had called the lice in their trenches “cooties.” Versions of a “cootie game” already existed on paper as early as 1915 and in classroom chalkboard versions during the 1920s and ’30s. But Herb transformed the idea for the postwar plastic age.
In 1948, with $1,200 of his own money and small contributions from friends, Herb began hand-making the first Cootie sets. His wife, Frances, and neighbors pitched in. Six women even sat on his front porch in Robbinsdale gluing and piecing together the first bugs. The very first run produced 40,000 wooden games, and soon the figures were being molded in plastic.
Herb first sold the game at the Schaper family’s bakery in Robbinsdale. Then he approached Dayton’s Department Store in Minneapolis, offering a few dozen sets on consignment. Dayton’s reluctantly agreed. The games sold out in days. By Christmas of 1949, Dayton’s had sold 5,592 sets.
The following year, word spread to Chicago, Milwaukee, and beyond. By 1950, Herb’s “basement business” had exploded. Schaper Manufacturing Co. was incorporated, and the company employed over 125 people.
In 1952, Schaper built his first real plant at 1800 Olson Memorial Highway in North Minneapolis. That year, he received a patent for a “separable toy figure.” By 1953, sales topped $1.5 million. Cootie had become a sensation, filling a market gap for children under six who couldn’t yet read but wanted to play games.
Herb once marveled, “Nobody could believe a thing like that could go so fast. It’s pretty simple. Everybody who sees it asks, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ We started with just $1,200. If this business proves anything, it proves that an idea can still succeed.”
Through the 1950s, Herb expanded his lineup: Skunk, Pickins, Sparetime Bowling, Stadium Checkers, Tickle Bee. In 1956, Schaper released a comic book, The Friendly Cootie Bug, printed over a million copies, tucked into game boxes. Kids across America met Cootie’s smiling face.
Schaper was also a pioneer in plastic manufacturing and television advertising. His games were among the first made entirely of plastic, and in 1952 he bought TV ad time on Captain Kangaroo, making Cootie one of the first toys ever promoted on national television.
The company grew rapidly. By 1957, Schaper had moved to a new headquarters at 650 Ottawa Avenue North in Golden Valley. Thunderbird Plastics, a division of Schaper, manufactured the plastic parts, while Highlander Sales marketed the games.
Herb’s business was not without drama. In 1963, a warehouse door on Olson Highway was accidentally left open. Hundreds of neighborhood children poured in, hauling away toys by the armload—marbles, balls, and bags full of Cooties. The press dubbed it a “gang robbery,” but Herb, good-natured as ever, shrugged: “There’s nothing we can do.” For the kids of Minneapolis, it was Christmas in July.
By the 1960s, Schaper was a national force. In 1961, the company went public. By 1968, sales had reached $6 million, and in 1969, Schaper released two of its biggest hits: Ants in the Pants and Don’t Break the Ice.
In 1971, Herb, then 57, decided to retire. He sold the company to Kusan, Inc., a Tennessee plastics firm owned by Bethlehem Steel, for $5.3 million in stock. The new president was Bill Garrity, a respected industry executive. The company became known simply as Schaper Toys.
Even in retirement, Herb remained a visible presence. In 1972, the design of Cootie was softened: fewer pieces, bigger eyes, a friendlier smile. Sales continued strong, and Schaper launched new products like Don’t Spill the Beans and Hound Dog.
The company kept growing. In 1975, a giant 2,500-pound inflatable Cootie appeared in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, returning every year for nearly a decade. By 1978, Schaper Toys employed 774 people and boasted $40 million in international sales.
But the toy industry was changing. By the early 1980s, imports dominated, competition grew fierce, and copycat “rustler” companies flooded the market. Still, Schaper scored successes like the Stomper line of motorized vehicles. By 1984, the company reported revenues close to $100 million, though that figure soon dropped by half.
In 1980, tragedy struck. Herb Schaper, “Mister Cootie” himself, died of cancer at the age of 66. He was buried at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis. Two streets in Plymouth were briefly named Cootie Lane and Cootie Boulevard in his honor. His wife Frances and their family continued to be active in the community.
In that same year, Herb and Frances donated land from the Golden Valley facility to the city. Today, that land is Schaper Park, home to Minnesota’s first outdoor fitness challenge course, inclusive play areas, softball fields, and Schaper Pond.
In 1985, Bethlehem Steel sold Schaper Toys to Tyco Toys of New Jersey. At the time, Schaper had about 250 to 550 employees, with plants in Lakeville and headquarters in Plymouth. A year later, Tyco sold the rights to Cootie and three other Schaper classics to Hasbro’s Milton Bradley division. By 1987, the Plymouth and Lakeville plants had closed, ending nearly 40 years of Minnesota-made Cooties.
And yet, the little bug lived on.
In 2003, the Toy Industry Association named Cootie one of the 100 most memorable toys of the century, alongside Slinky and LEGO. The game remains in production today under Hasbro, its rules unchanged: roll a die, build your bug, and race to be the first to finish.
In total, by the time Herb retired in 1971, over 25 million Cootie sets had been sold. Today, that number has grown many times over. Millions of children around the world have rolled the dice, snapped on six legs, two antennae, a proboscis, and eyes—bringing their Cootie to life.
Herb himself once said: “Good games are a way for people to entertain themselves. It’s harmless adventure, and a lot of fun besides.”
From a whittled lure in a Robbinsdale basement to an enduring piece of pop culture, the Cootie bug is more than a toy. It’s a symbol of imagination, perseverance, and joy. Herb Schaper, a man who had no children of his own, gave joy to millions of children worldwide.
And that is a legacy that will never fade.