Playtime in the Crescent City

Scott Touchton was reading a word-a-page picture book with his young daughter, flipping through fat pages depicting ice cream and pretzels, when it hit him. Ice cream? Pretzels? The block letter word at the top of the page read “food,” but Touchton’s New Orleans sensibilities told him otherwise, rejecting those examples in favor of king cake and crawfish and launching the Mandeville dad into an unexpected—though surprisingly relevant—business venture. 

The Kickstarter campaign to fund My Town Toy Company, the company Touchton formed to launch his New Orleans-themed toy idea, began on May 19 with a goal of raising $15,000 by the campaign’s end on June 18. Contributors who pledge five dollars or more on his Kickstarter page will receive special perks, and backers pledging fifteen dollars or more will receive Touchton’s first My Town Toys creation: a New Orleans food shape puzzle.

“The factory sets a general order of three thousand units,” Touchton said. “So we have to pay the factory to manufacture those, then pay for toy safety testing to make sure it’s safe if kids put it in their mouths, and then for shipping. It’s a lot of money.”

Touchton said he believes that contributions through Kickstarter will mimic the support of his growing fan base and help fund the bolstering project he never saw coming.

“The first thing we did was try and see if anyone else was already doing this,” Touchton said. “We thought that someone must surely be making New Orleans-themed toys since there are children’s books about New Orleans and a ridiculous amount of New Orleans-themed kids clothing.”

But when their research didn’t reveal any potential competitors, Touchton said he and his wife decided to create the toy themselves.

“Right now we’re manufacturing the prototype sample,” Touchton said. The sample, the aforementioned New Orleans food shape puzzle, is an amusing regional take on traditional toddler puzzles made with basic colors and shapes. The puzzle’s substitutions include an oyster representing ovals, beignets representing squares, and a bowl of gumbo representing circles.

“It’s fun because the pieces can interact away from the puzzle,” Touchton said. “We had other kids come over, and they were all playing with the little beignets like a tea party, putting the gumbo in a pot on the play stove.”

And Touchton’s ideas don’t stop at puzzles and poboys.

“The wonderful thing about Louisiana is that there are so many options,” Touchton said. “We have a couple of other puzzles in mind. We’d like to work on that and get really good at it before we start going crazy with our other ideas.”

The main idea, though, is to keep in mind a celebration of one of the country’s signature regions.

“We just really want to focus on the culture of New Orleans and Louisiana,” Touchton said. “It’s so diverse, and we need to be proud of that.”

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Editor's note: The company is accepting pre-orders through its Kickstarter page; donate $15 or more to receive the first ever New Orleans food-themed puzzle by Christmas!