The 100 Watt Lightbulb Goes Out: Ronald Howes, Easy Bake Oven Inventor, Dies at 83

The original EASY-BAKE used a 100 watt bulb as its heat source. (I always loved the fact that you could bake brownies with a lightbulb.) In its first year, over 500,000 pre-pubescent Duncan Hines wanna-be's talked their folks into spending $15.95. By its fifth birthday, the EASY-BAKE Oven was a household name.The toy was invented by Ronald Howes Sr, who died yesterday at age 83. According to his obituary , Howes sounds like my sort of guy.

He always had the coolest stuff on earth that I could mess around with," such as phosphorescent powder he was testing for various glow-in-the-dark applications, his son said.

But Mr. Howes always realized that the Easy-Bake Oven was, in his son's words, "the big one" in his career. About 20 million Easy-Bake Ovens have been sold since they went on the market in 1963.

Over the years, Mr. Howes' constant tinkering with possible new products was never confined to office hours. "We no longer have a garage in our house - it's a physics lab," his wife said. "You can hardly walk around in it."

• [Halloween Jack]

  $80? That’s a lot for a lightbulb in a plastic box. The Make crowd, or at least the electricians among them, should come up with a homebrew version. I’m another guy who was envious of the girls for things like this (also for getting to sell cookies as a scout fundraiser, and I sure could have used home ec classes in my life more than shop). When ThinkGeek’s drive-bay Easy-Bake computer peripheral turned out to be an April Fools hoax, I was heartbroken.

• [Anonymous]

  Hi Anonymous. I am turning 30 and getting my first Easy Bake Oven with Accessories. My mom would not buy me one, she had every right not to either, I would have probably done something horrid with it. Everything in the house was a chemistry experiment. I am taking it with me back to school for my dorm room. I know I sound old for it, but your dad touched many. My room and area looks like a toy store. Many people tell me oh grow up, but frankly I don’t care. I’m grown up when it counts. I am hoping to head to medical school someday and when I do, my Easy Bake will be taken with me. Your dad was a genius to come up with such a toy, to me that is one of the greatest gifts one can have to see and understand the world as a child, and his toy ideas with the grown up science behind them means he had the gift and ability to do this. He could play in a grown up contest, and that is truly a gift.

• [mongo]

  Thw EZ-Bake Oven used TWO 60-watt light bulbs, top and bottom, didn’t it? My sister had one and I horned in and used it once in a while. You guys just needed a sister so you could make cakes, too. (I made real meals and cakes in the real oven, too.)

  We had all kinds of toys that used line power that would be lawsuit fodder today.

  My Vac-U-Form heated up and melted a plastic sheet that you formed to make toys.

  Kenner had a a plastic injection molder that made toys like those army men like in Toy Story. You could remelt them and remold as much as you wanted.

  Creepy Crawlers baked squiggly ones out of liquid plastic goop.

  Wood burning kits?

• [Anonymous]

  My sister Cindy had one of these and we used to make stuff in it all the time. That bulb was bright!

• [soap]

  “It’s not a toy, it makes real cupcakes with a 40-watt bulb. And it has icing packets… but the secret ingredient is love… damnit.”

• [bshock]

  Being an insecure little boy, I never had the guts to ask for an Easy Bake Oven, but I always secretly wanted one. Kids love to make things and kids love to eat. Combining these two facts together in one invention was a fundamental act of genius on the order of defining the laws of gravity… well, if you like cake, anyway.

  • [freshacconci]

    Luckily, I had a sister who had one, so I got to play with it too. Until I put a bunch of crayons in it. Maybe that’s why it was never marketed to boys.

    • [Anonymous]

      im a girl but when i was a kid it didn’t cost 15.95 it cost 80 so instead my parents got me a creepy crawler mad lab oven which made gummy worms. i guess enough guys like y’all didnt get their own easy bakes because in the 90s we were lucky enough to have cheap boy ones.
      thanks guys!

• [coolvoodoo]

  I was a chemistry/electronics set kind of kid and always wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. They make brownies! Finally got to get one for my daughter for Christmas one year. Cakes and brownies were enjoyed by all.

• [mpb]

  What was the Easy-Bake predecessor? I think it used real electricity. I remember the cake mixes, brownie mixes, little metal pans re-used for decades, etc.

• [Inventorjack]

  I think a lot of boys wanted these. Who wouldn’t want to make sweet, delicious desserts?

  But my 100-in-one Radio Shack kit almost made up for not getting one.

  Also, I wanted to be in the school band, but my parents got me an old computer instead.

  It wasn’t destiny that turned me into an electronics and technology nerd, it was my parents!

• [Bob K]

  Yes, Easy Bake is a classic, but as the comments above illustrate, boys felt a little left out of the fun. That’s why I invented a toy oven specifically for BOYS: the “Queasy Bake!” Check out the commercial:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCxbE85h7Gk

  Hasbro, current maker of the Easy Bake, also made this toy a few years ago. Still want one? Find it on eBay.

• [Steve Schnier]

  A life well lived. Mr. Howes obviously enjoyed what he did. Good for him.

• [apoxia]

  As a non-USer raised on a high concentration of American television, the Easy Bake Oven has got to be one of the strongest US cultural icons I can think of. That and the twinkie. I have never seen either in real life.

  • [Gilbert Wham]

    I dunno, my sis had an easi-bake, and I’m from England. For me, the icons have gotta be malaise-era cars. Those awful, wallowing boats that people drove on Kojak, Starsky & Hutch, The Rockford Files, etc.

    Anyway, RIP Ronald Howes. You clearly were awesome. I know I’ll have arrived at where I wanna be if anyone ever describes my garage like that…

    • [apoxia]

      Ah, well England is a tad more cosmopolitan than where I’m from – New Zealand. I’ve certainly never seen them here. I also suspect we’re from slightly different generations – myself being a child in the eighties and early 90s.

• [WalrusSP]

  How will we make tiny brownies when incandescent bulbs are phased out over the next several years?

  • [Anonymous]

    we’ll have a brisk trade in illicit old bulbs

  • [AnthonyC]

    I was under the impression that we were only trying to phase out incandescent bulbs *for lighting.* They’re inefficient for making light, but excellent at turning electricity into heat. That’s why they work the same way a regular electric oven does- just smaller.

    I expect if incandescent bulbs were banned in all cases, we’d find that either a) toasters and ovens will be banned, too; or b) bulbs for easy-bake ovens (and spin-offs) will be available at toy stores, though maybe under a different name (‘filament,’ ‘heating element,’) and higher price.

• [Sparrow]

  I remember getting kind of creative with my easy bake oven when the small packages of mix ran out. I divided cake mixes with disastrous results (they rose too fast), looked up and modified recipies and made cakes and muffins from scratch (had to substitute for eggs and use less baking powder,) and even used it to made hot dogs.

  I wonder if he was cremated? And how long it took. (I’m hating myself for writing this, but I couldn’t resist.)

  • [Anonymous]

    No, he was not cremated. And no, I don’t hate you for that comment, though I’m a bit annoyed…. We are hearing that line a lot.

    He was buried next to family members in a simple pine coffin at his request. At the visitation before the funeral Mass it was touching to hear from so many people about how he had changed their lives for the better, and not from Easy-Bake so much but from his personal interaction with others. He was very kind.

    He was a unique man who actually made a difference in this world. And he was my father. I can only hope to be as well loved when my day comes.

    One of the saddest things is he asked me to sell his lab equipment when he was gone. I’m doing as he asked, but it’s like selling away little pieces of my dad.

    I’m glad to hear so many fond memories of Easy-Bake!

• [warreno]

  Undertakers estimate it will take 18 months to cremate his body.

• [PFlint]

  You wanna market this product to boys? Put Jacques Pepin’s face on it. OK – Gordon Ramsay? “Oh, [bleep] me!”

  Actually, on the box of the kitchen playset (sink, oven, etc.) at Sam’s Club has boys in the picture.

• [Anonymous]

  What about lava lamps?

• [Ugly Canuck]

  So this guy’s baked, eh?