A FAMILY COMPANY SINCE 1961
Founded in Toledo, Ohio by Harland P. Crenshaw on a single thesis: the American boy deserves real entertainment, not pale substitutes.
Our Origin Story
In the spring of 1961, Harland P. Crenshaw — a former toy-industrial engineer and the holder of three patents in fuse composition — walked into a Toledo radio-repair shop with three hundred dollars and a conviction. He believed American boys were being shortchanged. The toys of the day, he said, were all talk and no kaboom.
He prototyped the first Glitter Claymore that very afternoon using a coffee can, a kitchen match, and two ounces of glitter his wife had set aside for Christmas wreaths. The prototype worked. Mrs. Crenshaw's Christmas wreaths were not affected in any way that could be proved. Harland filed the paperwork the following Monday.
By the end of 1961, Boom-Fun! Industries had three products, one employee, and a mailing list of sixty-two Ohio families. By 1964 the catalog ran to twelve pages. By 1971, the Junior Dynamite Fishing Kit was the best-selling demolitions toy in the country. Boom-Fun! has not missed a catalog cycle since.
Today, three generations of the Crenshaw family still hold majority voting control. We still ship every order from the same Station Road building Harland bought in 1961. The building has been expanded nine times. We are not done expanding.
Our Mission
“To bring American boys and girls the most exciting, most educational, most authentic entertainment experiences on the market — and to keep on bringing them, generation after generation.”
Harland P. Crenshaw wrote that sentence in 1961. We have not changed a word.
Sixty-Five Years of American Kaboom
Harland P. Crenshaw founds Boom-Fun! in a converted Toledo radio-repair shop. First product: the original Glitter Claymore, prototyped with a coffee can and Mrs. Crenshaw's Christmas-wreath glitter.
Junior Dynamite Fishing Kit debuts. Sells out at the Ohio State Fair in four hours. Harland personally delivers the first hundred reorders by pickup truck.
Earl Whitfield III joins as President, Consumer Boom Division. The catalog expands from three items to seven by year's end.
Donovan Pryce joins the Research & Fireworks laboratory. Rainbow Fuse (U.S. Patent #3,247,891) enters production the following spring.
Merritt Halberd joins as VP of Parental Outreach. Sparky the Safety Mascot is introduced on the back cover of the fall catalog.
First issue of 'The Fuse' mailed to Boom-Fun! Club members nationwide. Subscription list passes 10,000 households.
Junior Dynamite Fishing Kit becomes the #1 selling item in the Boom-Fun! catalog for the third year running. Production triples.
Blasting Cap Lunchbox debuts. Initial production run sells out in eleven days. Classroom orders sustain the line through the decade.
Harland P. Crenshaw celebrates twenty years at the helm. Ceremony held at the Toledo facility. Every employee receives a commemorative decoder ring.
Sixty-five years in business. Still American-made. Still family-owned. Still kaboom.
The Boom-Fun! Board of Directors
The men who bring American kaboom to America's children, every quarter, without fail.
Harland P. Crenshaw
Harland founded Boom-Fun! in a converted Toledo radio-repair shop in the spring of 1961, on the strength of a single conviction: that the American boy deserved real entertainment, not pale substitutes. A veteran of the 1950s toy-industrial sector and the holder of three patents in fuse composition, Harland personally engineered the first Glitter Claymore prototype using a coffee can, a kitchen match, and two ounces of glitter his wife had set aside for Christmas wreaths. The rest, as they say in our industry, went kaboom. Harland remains the company's largest voting shareholder and continues to personally approve every new product design, typically from behind the wood-paneled desk he has occupied since 1963.
“A real kid wants real fun. That's why we made real products. Anything less is just pretending.”
Earl Whitfield III
Earl joined Boom-Fun! in 1964 from a regional fireworks concern, where he had distinguished himself by personally redesigning the factory floor three times in eighteen months. As President of the Consumer Boom Division, Earl oversees the entire product catalog from concept through manufacture, with a particular fondness for the Glitter Claymore line, which he personally expanded from one variant to the current three. A devoted family man, Earl keeps a framed portrait of his wife on the corner of his desk at all times and a Boom-Fun! Junior Dynamite Fishing Kit in the trunk of his Oldsmobile.
“If a product is worth making, it's worth making in quantity. We make our products in considerable quantity.”
Donovan Pryce
Donovan joined the Boom-Fun! Research & Fireworks laboratory in 1965 and has personally authored every product specification sheet in the current catalog. He is the architect of the proprietary Rainbow Fuse (U.S. Patent #3,247,891), the Glitter Confetti Aerial Mortar's high-lift payload formulation, and the felt-lining specification that makes the Blasting Cap Lunchbox classroom-safe. Donovan's signature bald pate and neatly-trimmed dark beard are well-known on the factory floor. He conducts all product testing personally, occasionally to the concern of his safety officer.
“The best toys teach the best lessons. Our toys teach a great many lessons, very quickly.”
Merritt Halberd
Merritt joined Boom-Fun! in 1967 following a successful career in regional broadcasting and is the company's primary voice to the American parent. Clean-shaven, charcoal-suited, and possessed of the most trustworthy delivery in the industry, Merritt has personally answered every piece of parental correspondence since 1967, a task he performs from a handsome oak desk on the third floor of the Toledo headquarters. He is the author of the Boom-Fun! Club membership materials and the entirety of Sparky's Safety Handbook for Young Detonators.
“Parents want what's best for their children. Children want Boom-Fun! We reconcile these priorities.”
Still American-owned. Still American-made. Still kaboom.