The Strong National Museum of Play: A Storyteller's Dream
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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee. And this is your source for candid conversations on arts and culture. Today, I'm speaking with a guest who's a natural storyteller. For the past 14 years, he's gotten to tell the story of the strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, home of the largest collection of toys, dolls, games and video games in the world.
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Rob Lee
He holds a bachelor's degree in history and a master's degree in journalism. He's the senior director of public relations at the Strong at the strong let's call it the strong. Please welcome Shane Ringwald. Welcome to the podcast.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be talking to you today, Rob.
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Rob Lee
Likewise. Likewise. Happy to start this off. And I think I think this is going to be fun and I'm looking forward to it as I was sharing a little bit before we got started. So I think starting off, I like to, you know, really do the introductory sort of questions before we get to deepen it. And I gave literally the kind of cut and paste bio, but if you will, could you share like the the your story?
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Rob Lee
Could you share your story? And I got a few bullet points under there and some bullet points, but I want to at least open it up for that. So if you could share your story, please.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that word story because for me, that's sort of been the thread, the theme throughout my entire life. So I've always been a storyteller. Ever since I was Little List of kids, I had stories about dragons and knights sort of pouring out of my head that creative energy. In third grade, I tried to write the next great fantasy novel did not work out for me, not a famous author, but that always carried through.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And I was also a big fan of history, sort of that story of us. It's people. How how did we get to where we are today? Both what are the triumphs of humanity? What are the many, many terrible mistakes we've made along the way? But how have we as people arrived at this point? And so that really led me to the history degree that you mentioned earlier, undergrad.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And then I went into journalism because that then became the way for me to tell a story, to tell a story about people. And of course, that's always a natural segway into public relations. And I think public relations sometimes has that sort of corporate sterile association. People think of it as, okay, you're you're a spokesperson for this big company and you say, Buy more toothpaste.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
That's important. But when you work at a museum like the Strong National Museum of Clay, that's all about how play reflects our culture. What are the things that we all love that sort of have this universal appeal? Who are the people that made the made these things? What are some of the stories that have gotten brushed to the side that we can now tell about the people that have created these things and influenced our lives?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So that idea of a storyteller that we've been talking about, it's kind of come full circle. And now that's my job at the museum is what are the new collections items, what are the amazing artifacts that people don't know that we have and the people behind them? What are the exhibits? Why is play itself important?
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Rob Lee
Right. That's that's great. It's great to be with you have that as a mission, I would imagine. It's fun and I have some questions related to that later, but I want to step back a little bit and ask about like for you growing up, what sticks out for you in terms of play where you, you know, you mentioned like the storytelling and that is a piece and I kind of relate to that as well.
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Rob Lee
But also, what sorts of play were you engaged in? Was it video games? Was it toys and if so, which ones?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So I was a big outdoor play. I loved kind of free roaming. I don't know. I think things maybe have changed as far as parenting. I'm the parent of a three year old now, and I don't want to be that helicopter parent, but I'm a little bit of that. Ooh, don't go near the road. Don't do this. But I remember back in my days, you know, late eighties, early nineties, kind of hopping on a bike with a group of friends and heading out across the neighborhood, going up into the woods behind our house and playing.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And there was a roleplaying element to that, too. We loved to build forts and pretend that we were defending a castle against the enemy and things like that. So that was always a big part of it. And I was a gamer growing up as well. I have a lot of memories of the Nintendo systems, the super and the 64 and playing those and kind of a and so those consoles evolved.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I lost track of that a little bit, kind of post-college and with the professional career. But yeah, definitely in my teen and even early 20 years, gaming was a big part of what I did. And that's another story that we tell in the museum, because it's had such a huge impact on the way that people play for the last, you know, 40 plus years.
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Rob Lee
So in your role, you know, in sort of this public relations and media relations and storytelling on average and it's maybe, you know, more complicated than I would would hope. But what does a typical day look like for you? And maybe the answer is there is no typical day.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
You'll probably get that a lot. Right. So there are a lot of ebbs and flows that it does depend on what the stories are, what's happening. So I get to be very responsive to the other teams at the museum, sort of. I am their service center. So if our collections team says we just acquired this amazing collection from this trailblazer in the video game industry, we want to announce that.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Then I get to jump on that project and how do we tell this story? One of the interesting snippets. What's the bigger kind of tale? Yeah, just as an example of what a crazy day for me can look like. So a few days ago, we announced our National Toy Hall of Fame finalist. So that's a big program that we have at the museum that just lets us talk broadly to a national, international audience about why are toys important?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
What are the the best toys of all time? What makes a toy good? What what are those toys that sort of bring us all together that we all have multi generations of people that have played with? So we announced that and had huge fanfare and working with CNN to get them materials on the Today Show. And so that for me is sort of a big, big, busy but fun day.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
They're not all like that.
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Rob Lee
But so was there in having the and I think you touched on it a little bit, so if you have, I hope you don't mind kind of restating or adding a little extra depth to it. Was there any like life experiences? And I would imagine growing up, you know, impacts it, but everything in your life experiences that helped shape your creative sensibility, having these sorts of interests in in storytelling, having this sort of interest in in play overall or having even an interest in like history and journalism.
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Rob Lee
Because in describing it, I could see those kind of intersections and those kind of like how they point together. But, but tell me about that.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So for me, I have this really distinct memory. When I was little, I mean, I was preschool age, maybe four ish, a little under where I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mother. And I had all of these all of these stories about dragons and knights and different things that were sort of pouring out of my head.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
But I didn't know how to write them down. And I, I could do the illustrations I wanted to draw the pieces, but I remember my mom sitting there and this was several nights and she would write them down and then I would illustrate after. And then we would put the yarn in and at the end of it I would have my own book that I had created, and I remember being just so proud of that.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And now as a parent of a three year old, I look back and that that's a lot to sit there and have somebody dictate a story to you and to just write it down and have that sort of patience. And I always look at that as a moment where that could have gone the other way. She could have been too busy.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I my hand is crappy and I don't want to sit here and write for two straight hours. And I can imagine sort of like how that might have dampened that spirit, but instead it sort of ballooned from that point forward.
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Rob Lee
Yes. Like, hey, scribe, I need you to write.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Please get you a pen and ink out and.
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Rob Lee
Take a note. Scribe. Yes? You're a little yellowed. Yeah. So what what sorts of tools do you utilize in sort of this marketing and storytelling that have been really effective for promoting, like, exhibitions or getting the word out and the message out around exhibitions and bringing basic basically awareness to specific exhibitions, but awareness to the museum overall.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Sure. So the museum does have a bigger marketing team that does paid advertising and all of that good stuff. But what I really enjoy doing more lately is not necessarily about long form storytelling. You know, the press releases and the here's all of the information, but those short snippets, stories that you could tell, whether that's through video on social media, but those little small bites that make people the Pixar interest, oh, that's I didn't know about that person.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I didn't know that they had invented that. I didn't know the story of that. And oh, now I can learn more about that, plus additional things at this exhibit or at the museum. And that's definitely been super effective. And it's also changed sort of my view of how to tell a good story. From the beginning it was writing like, I love short stories and novels I was telling you about, you know, trying to write a novel and third grade that didn't pan out so well.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
But a story doesn't have to be long form. A story can be told and 15 seconds if you do it effectively, if you have a hook, if you have an interesting character, if you have a factoid that people are going to, it's going to resonate with people.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, it's a show that I watch. I think it's called Two Sentence Horror Stories, and it's kind of that and even changing because that's one of the things that I'm really interested in, kind of changing how we view all of it, like blow it all up and let's let's really revise it. So, you know, I've had this podcast described as anthropology by some people or storytelling and kind of and document and documentary and all these these different things in I have to think about it is more than a podcast.
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Rob Lee
There's some attention there and there is an effectiveness there and a certain angle that and I think what you were describing a moment ago that really resonates with me is I bet you guys didn't know this you know the did digital nose and that that's really what interests me because I try to go into every conversation and I position myself and I think of myself as a facilitator for storytelling.
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Rob Lee
Like you guys as the guests are coming in and telling the story. I'm just kind of molding it in a certain way, curating it in a certain way, but being able to do that sort of, you know, thing and coming into every conversation with a fair amount of like intellectual curiosity, that that's what kind of makes. I think the conversation is interesting and rich.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah. And I love the idea of what you're doing and now I have ideas kicking around in my head about maybe we should have some kind of podcast about the play podcast.
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Rob Lee
Look, I mean, I might know a podcast. I might not. So what would you say are and I might modify this question a little bit, but what would you say are the key elements of great storytelling? And I know effectiveness is one and that is probably like up there, like, have you thought this through? You know, kind of.
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Rob Lee
Kind of. But what are the key elements of great storytelling and what would you say your number one storytelling tip is?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So for me, I always look for the people, the interesting people that have sort of moved and shaped. And in the case of the museum, the world of play, the world of toys, the world of video games, and something that's becoming increasingly important in the museum world. And I think we all across the museum world need to do better at it.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Continue to do better at it is to tell the stories of the people that, you know, the stories got pushed to the side for whatever reason throughout history that the lesser known stories. Sure. Which could be everything from in the video game industry, not just telling the story of the biggest players in the industry, but the smallest players in the industry as well.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Everybody knows Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft, but who are the other ones? But it's also the individuals who, you know, may have got marginalized or pushed to the edges for whatever reason. We have at the museum. A really interesting exhibit on women in the video game industry as an example, because it's often thought of as a very male driven domain.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Certainly in the early industry, not a lot of representation across all groups as far as who was making games, who was designing games, who was creating games. But there were so many stories in there that people don't know of women in the industry that were were designers that created games that, you know, we would tell a story. People go, Oh, I didn't know that she made that game.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I yeah, I played that in the late seventies and that was my favorite arcade game. So not that, you know, not that I take credit, like we get to tell the story that no one else is telling, like certainly others are. But to to be a part of that is gratifying to to have somebody say, oh, I didn't know that I, I hadn't heard of, but she changed the industry or this person changed industry.
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Rob Lee
It's it's important to have some of those things sort of sort of baked in, you know. And again, that's why I think with I would describe what I'm doing as facilitating that. This is like this is the version of the interview that I want to do, you know what I mean? And or the version of the story that I want to come out.
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Rob Lee
And I always joke with people. It's like, if you want to get on here and talk about He-Man for an hour, we can talk about iMac for an hour. You know, go battle cat or go ahead in, in. And I would imagine there is a fair amount of interest in those kind of like let's get to the other level.
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Rob Lee
What was that thinking that went into some of these things? Some of these things that we love? Like what comes to mind for me is the toys that made us and you know, those different documentaries around like cartoons or even the video game documentary that was on Netflix.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah. That showcase how the.
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Rob Lee
Yeah.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And that's something that we as a museum love to collect. So we have the objects, you know, the masters of the universe toys and toys from the eighties and going back. But when we can get our hands on the archival documents, the the personal notebooks of the people that created the prototypes, and we can tell that story of how that came about, sort of the creative, inventive energy behind it.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And sometimes it's that great creative story of somebody had an idea of Baer's an example, credited with creating the first home console video game system. And just an amazing story of somebody whose family fled Nazi Germany. He came to America. He was working in the with the defense industry for a while and then he was on a was forgetful.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
It's a bus or train, but he was just riding along on his way home. And the idea of, huh, what if we connected a video game to our TV and we could play it in our own house? Like the fact that nobody had thought of that prior and now it's just so universal. Oh yeah, you can play a game like it's just such an amazing creative story.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And then there are the ones that are you know, the stories of how something came about. And it was somebody had idea and somebody stole the idea and somebody sued somebody. And they're they're sort of less of that American dream, creative spark of genius moment and more of the. Okay, well, that's unfortunate, but that's a part of the history of it, too.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah.
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Rob Lee
One thing that always sticks out is the mass of the universe story or even the transformer story. I was like, Oh, this was just to sell more toys or this cartoon or what have you, or Yeah, I don't care if it's to scale. Put a saddle on that tiger or what have you. This is what we're doing, right?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
This just hearing more for never ties in.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, just inches hearing the story that goes along with some of these things it is enthralling it's I could do a whole season with like the one dude that was responsible for making even something like the movie one's right. Like even something like the guy that made the T-Rex walk in the first like Jurassic Park. I could watch him for like a four episode arc.
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Rob Lee
So that kind of sort of minutia of these are the things that I love and how can I learn more and do a more comprehensive sort of deep dove in it? Those are the things.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
That really interested him about. Yeah, that's the great thing about the museum. Even for me, like there's just so much nostalgia and these toys and I have a personal interest in knowing these stories too. So then to get to figure out how to encapsulate that story and tell it to other people is kind of a dream come true.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, I did a movie review of This is so stupid, but I did a movie review of the first two Ninja Turtles movies from the nineties, and I have some of the old figures like in my creative like water area. So I'm doing terribly dubbed voices and it's like two Leonardo was talking to each other. One is a pop, one is an action figure, and it's like, Hey, Leonardo, Leonardo, are you going to listen to this new episode of I was like, This is terrible.
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Rob Lee
But it was like me going back to play, so which is a Segway. So it's a haphazard Segway, but a Segway nonetheless. So despite working at the strong, the strong it isn't just all play. You know, obviously there's work getting done. So how do you make work feel? Like playing like I'm very interested in that kind of juxtaposition.
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Rob Lee
Like you're in a place that has play in the title, but you're working at a place. So how do you.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Get to play arcade machines all day? And yes, drop pinball machines? Well, I think it's sort of the higher level about the museum. So we are as a museum, super interactive and can't be a museum about play without letting families come and play and run around. But we do sort of underneath that all have really serious academic underpinnings.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So we publish a peer reviewed journal about play that talks about what is play. Why is play important? You know, we have the collections items that we interpret and we tell those stories. So you can look at the first handmade prototype monopoly set and then you can go and play a version of, you know, many of our games that are oversize.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So that's the interesting thing about what we do is we do it, we do bring work and seriousness to a subject that's fun and whimsical. And then day to day for me, you know, there is there's paperwork there are certainly things like in any job where it's I don't necessarily want to be doing this right now. It's not the most exciting part about my day.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
But the nice thing is that there are those moments where, you know, I'm working with media on a story and we're sort of in the depths of the museum, in the vault, and we're shining the spotlight on some really cool artifact. And those are the moments where, okay, this is actually fun and playful and work can be play.
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Rob Lee
It's fantastic. So I got I got two more real questions and then I got a few rapid fire questions for you. So before we get to the Rapid Fire ones, let's, let's get the let's get the real estate, the vegetables out of the way before we get to the desert. Let's put it that way. So how does the museum sources, collections and its exhibits and all of that stuff, how does the sourcing go?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah, so we're interesting. As far as the collecting museum, lots of museums collect things that there may not be that many of they may be so old that there are only certain ways to source them. And you're an art museum and you're looking for art from ancient China. There's only so many places that's sort of floating around and so many auction houses that have that.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
But we're in the business of toys or older toys, but toys that are being made today. So there's a little bit of that element of constantly collecting and figuring out what's being brought to market today that in 100 years might be important to a scholar or relevant or tell us something about our culture. So we have to be very forward thinking on that.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
But as far as where we get things, if it's something that we just need an example of, that's kind of every day and there's a million in the world that might come from eBay or someplace online. If it's something that there's only one of, then we may acquire that from the person that has it. Sometimes things will go up for auction.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
We did acquire the only prototype monopoly set in the entire world that was in the Steve Forbes personal collection and went up for auction. So that was one of those moments of, okay, monopoly is hugely important. It's a war game that everyone recognizes. It's sort of a part of American culture and fabric and tells us a fairly interesting story about capitalism as well.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah.
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Rob Lee
Capitalism is fun.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
You think about all of your friends, even though the story from that is that it was based on a game that was the opposite. That was supposed to be about the sort of the ills of the people, the renting and landlords, and then making the money and pressuring everybody else. So it was supposed to teach people that this was not good and then it somehow more in the Great Depression into, well, you don't have money now, but wouldn't it be fun to bankrupt your friends because you're in your personal life, you are struggling.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
So again, back to the interesting.
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Rob Lee
Way to do a rebrand, right? So this this is the last one. And I think I've got a good sense on some of the skills that that you're using in your work. So are there any ones that you feel like you want to highlight? Feel free to do so as a public relations like manager, director, director of Public Relations for the Museum, which skills do you rely on most and what skills are you still developing?
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Rob Lee
And which part of your job surprises you.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Think would surprise me, would not necessarily surprise me, but what was different from what I was used to. So from story time background that we've been talking about in journalism, the writing side of things, the talking to people kind of 1 to 1 and offline and I had down. But when you jump into a role like this, you have to sometimes jump in front of a camera, sometimes jump on zoom like this and have this conversation.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And that was something that I had not had a lot of experience with at you know, there was a little bit in the back of my mind. Sometimes the writing process is pretty introverted. You're you don't have to talk to people. You can turn the lights off in your office and type of way. But how how do I take that storytelling and do it sort of in a verbal way?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And that for me, when I made the transition from journalism to PR was something that was new. And I think I've hopefully developed those skills over the last 14 years, but it's it's one that's definitely always a work in progress because there's still that little part in the back of my head that was the the introverted writer. That's like, where are we talking right now?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
What is everything coming out of your mouth? Okay, you could have probably written this so much better.
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Rob Lee
I have that on occasion to and doing. I've been podcasting for 13 years, almost 14 and when I do more kind of public facing things, I'm like, Oh, right, I'm in front of people. So I actually.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Like how they're looking at me. Yeah.
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Rob Lee
And the thing is like people are really surprised when they see me in first because I'm 64. So it's like I can't hide either. I was like, Oh jeez, is there a huge monopoly like metal dog that I can hide behind? It would be great.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah, yeah. The podiums that can help you as you're presenting in front of them.
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Rob Lee
So so those are actually the, the real questions. So if you're ready to rock and roll on these rapid fire questions, we can do it.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I'm ready. This is the part where that. So that old introverted writer part of my brain. It's like a rapid fire.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. So as I always tell people, don't overthink it, don't overthink it, overthink it. And yeah, brevity is key here. What do you collect in your own personal life?
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Whiskey Z okay.
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Rob Lee
To say any particular note.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I like Scotch because my wife and I, we went on our honeymoon and we've been back a few times. I have some heritage, heritage and family and I don't know, it just connected with it. So and I should put out there these aren't like the multi $100 bottles or the lot of the entry level, but.
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Rob Lee
I think I take it out.
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Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Of my hands.
00;25;43;16 - 00;25;45;20
Rob Lee
I'm a Scotch guy as well. So. So shout out to you.
00;25;45;24 - 00;25;49;09
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
All right. And I have a lot of books, too. I mean, that goes hand in hand with.
00;25;49;27 - 00;25;50;25
Rob Lee
I have a lot of DVDs.
00;25;51;16 - 00;25;51;26
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Okay.
00;25;52;09 - 00;25;58;24
Rob Lee
Yeah, it's a lot of, like, just dead tech, but it's something. It's something about the tones, man. It's a warmer feel when you have something in your hand.
00;25;59;01 - 00;26;03;18
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
It's nice to have. Yet I have something that. Just my streaming library or a catalog.
00;26;03;25 - 00;26;11;04
Rob Lee
Yeah. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones or Stranger Things. If there was only one that you could watch the rest of the days, which one would it be?
00;26;11;11 - 00;26;31;29
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Oh, wow. This is I know I should say I watch all of them and love all of them. And I'm I haven't started House of Dragon has been spinoff of Game of Thrones, but I've started the other Lord of the Rings Amazon series. I know I might go Stranger Things right now, though. I just it's just the eighties.
00;26;31;29 - 00;26;33;11
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Nostalgia is such a.
00;26;33;29 - 00;26;47;15
Rob Lee
Child of the eighties. It's just it's just right there. It's just like and it kind of leans into some of all of the other things that are there like that, the fantasy elements are there, some of the gaming stuff. It's just like I could actually have been one of those kids.
00;26;47;28 - 00;26;58;29
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah, I think that's when you can put yourself in those shoes. You're like, okay, I'm on my bike and I'm, you know, going through the neighborhood on my way to fight some demonic.
00;26;59;23 - 00;27;05;12
Rob Lee
I think I'm actually the demogorgon. I think that's actually what's happening on the mind player is fine.
00;27;05;12 - 00;27;08;06
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Least you admit it, right? You know, you know you're all.
00;27;08;16 - 00;27;18;20
Rob Lee
I own it. I own it. Describe the biggest perk of your your job of either working where you're at or what your role is. But what is the biggest perk of doing what you do?
00;27;18;29 - 00;27;42;01
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
I think it's meeting all sorts of amazing people, both in terms of people in the media and in the industry. I've had the privilege of meeting designers and inventors and folks that have sort of changed and shaped the course of play. And then just every day getting to work across all the themes of the museum, but just kind of sitting in the silo and doing one thing but saying, Hey, what do you guys have that's new?
00;27;42;01 - 00;27;47;12
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
What do you have that's new? What can we talk about? Yeah, and sort of getting it right from the experts and the sources.
00;27;47;29 - 00;28;07;13
Rob Lee
It's pretty crisp. Here's the last one. I wanted to save this one because I think it really ties everything and it will lead into some of the shameless plugs I'd like to wrap up on. But if one is a perk, if a person only has one hour to spend at the museum, it at this current stage, what would you recommend that they check out?
00;28;07;14 - 00;28;11;07
Rob Lee
What would you recommend the day? See, they have one hour. That is a tight hours.
00;28;11;08 - 00;28;11;25
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
That's a tight.
00;28;11;25 - 00;28;16;19
Rob Lee
Hour. 59 minutes, 59 seconds. What would you recommend.
00;28;16;27 - 00;28;37;27
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
If it's an adult visitor or an adult group that you know isn't necessarily going to want to play as a family? We actually have a tour called Our Must 12 Must Artifact tour that takes about an hour, kind of an audio tour that takes you through the 12 things that once you walk out the door, you can say, Wow, I can't believe I saw X, Y and Z.
00;28;37;27 - 00;28;55;29
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And that has on it that first broke that monopoly that we were talking about. It has on it some of the earliest video game systems. We have one of the first handmade jigsaw puzzles from the late 1700s. So the kind of things that you would say, I couldn't see that anywhere else. I'm glad I got to see that.
00;28;55;29 - 00;29;14;05
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
You know, if you go to the louver, you want to see the Mona Lisa. If you go to here and you want to see this? Well, for us, we don't have those things. But you can see the first monopoly's that you can see. So I would recommend picking that tour up and moving quickly. It's a big space now.
00;29;14;06 - 00;29;26;16
Rob Lee
I appreciate that. I, I, I think, you know, really try to like capitalize and not to monopolize on your time. I realize how corny that sounded at the end when you're trying to capitalize.
00;29;26;16 - 00;29;27;07
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Those are perfect.
00;29;28;10 - 00;29;48;04
Rob Lee
When you try to capitalize when making the most of your time. I think having a few places that are like, these are the showstoppers. Everything is great here. But this is definitely for that first introductory trip. You got to go, you got to check this out, and then you're going to get drawn back and plan your next two trips but that first and then.
00;29;48;04 - 00;29;58;23
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Come back and bring the full family and spend half a day or a full day. Yeah. Play your way through the history of video games, drops and tokens and some pinball machines.
00;29;59;11 - 00;30;07;15
Rob Lee
That's fantastic. So that's pretty much all I have for today. So I want to thank you for coming on to this podcast.
00;30;07;18 - 00;30;09;00
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Yeah, so a lot of fun.
00;30;09;14 - 00;30;20;15
Rob Lee
Absolutely. And I want to invite and encourage you to tell the fine folks where the listeners to to check out the strong museum, to check out you on social media, all of that good stuff. The floor is yours.
00;30;20;27 - 00;30;44;29
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
Sure. So museum play dawgs. Our website has tons of information about the museum and exhibits and all of the collections items that we've been talking about. We also have the National Toy Hall of Fame, which I had mentioned earlier in the podcast of the World Video Game Hall of Fame as well. So those are two programs that really let us tell that story to a bigger audience about these playthings and how they shaped our lives.
00;30;45;13 - 00;30;51;05
Shane Rhinewald - Strong Museum of Play
And you can also check us out on Facebook, Twitter, all of those fun things are at Museum of Play.
00;30;51;24 - 00;31;12;04
Rob Lee
Well, there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Shane Ryan Wall from the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. And I'm Rob Lee, saying that there is a play in and around your neck of the woods. You just got to look for it.
