Battling Tops

Lore & Background

Battling Tops was invented by Eddy Goldfarb and first manufactured by Ideal in 1968. The game involves two to four players launching spinning tops into a circular concave arena. Players wind a string attached to a pull tab around their tops, place them in launch positions, and pull the tab vigorously to release the top. The concave surface forces the tops together to battle, with the outcome somewhat indeterminate but involving a slight element of skill. Pegs in holes on the rim of the arena mark victories, and the first to win ten battles wins the game.

The game originally featured six different colored tops with character names: Hurricane Hank, Twirling Tim, Dizzy Dan, Smarty Smitty, Super Sam, and Tricky Nicky, though only four could battle at once. The tops were composed of octagonal discs slipped over a ridged shaft with a notch to engage the string. A sheet of colored stickers was included to match disc and shaft colors, but mixing and matching was possible, with the proviso that stickers only stuck once. In the 1968 version, an eight-top version included Fighting Frank and Rocky Rocko but only four colors, giving four sets of two. The six-player sets had red, yellow, green, light blue, white, and orange tops.

In 1977, the game was renamed Battling Spaceships in response to Star Wars fever. After Ideal was sold in 1982, Marx took over the game. By the late 1980s, the game was out of production. In 2003, Mattel rereleased Battling Tops. In the new version, Smarty Smitty was replaced by Cyclone Steve.

Reader's Guide

Battling Tops holds significance as a classic children's game that introduced a simple yet engaging physical competition using spinning tops. Its design, with a concave arena forcing tops together, created a dynamic that blended chance with a slight element of skill, making it accessible to a wide age range. The game's legacy is evident in its multiple iterations and re-releases, including a 1977 rebranding as Battling Spaceships to capitalize on Star Wars popularity, and a 2003 rerelease by Mattel. The game also shares conceptual similarities with the traditional Malay sport gasing pangkah, linking it to a broader cultural tradition of top-spinning contests. While out of production by the late 1980s, its influence can be seen in later spinning-top battle games such as Beyblade and Battle Strikers. The inclusion of named characters and colored tops added a collectible and personalization aspect, with the ability to mix and match parts. The game's enduring appeal is reflected in its continued mention in reference works and its status as a nostalgic item for those who played it in the late 1960s through the 1980s.

Did You Know?

• The game was renamed Battling Spaceships in 1977 in response to Star Wars fever.
• In the new version of the game, Smarty Smitty was replaced by Cyclone Steve.
• The 1968 version included an eight-top version with Fighting Frank and Rocky Rocko but only four colors.
• The game has similarities to gasing pangkah, a traditional Malay sport.

Origins & How the Game Works

Battling Tops entered the toy world in 1968, the brainchild of inventor Eddy Goldfarb and brought to shelves by the Ideal company. The core concept is deceptively simple: two to four players each wind a string—attached to a pull tab—around their spinning top, seat it in one of four launch positions on a circular concave arena, then yank the tab hard to send the top spinning into the center. The curved, bowl-shaped surface is the game's secret weapon, naturally funneling the tops toward one another so they collide and battle. Victory goes to whoever keeps their top spinning the longest, with a slight edge given to players who can time and angle their launch with a touch of skill, even though the outcome remains largely unpredictable. Wins are tracked by sliding pegs into holes around the arena's rim, and the first player to rack up ten victories claims the match. Interestingly, the game shares a conceptual kinship with gasing pangkah, a traditional Malay spinning-top sport, suggesting the appeal of top combat stretches far beyond Western toy aisles.

Characters, Design & Player Customization

The original 1968 set introduced six personality-driven competitors, each given a playful name: Hurricane Hank, Twirling Tim, Dizzy Dan, Smarty Smitty, Super Sam, and Tricky Nicky. Though six tops shipped in the box, the arena's four launch slots meant only four could clash in any given round. Each top was built from an octagonal disc that slid over a ridged shaft, the shaft featuring a small notch designed to catch the winding string. A sheet of colored stickers accompanied the set, intended to dress the disc and shaft in matching hues—red, yellow, green, light blue, white, and orange for the standard six-player configuration. Yet the design allowed for creative mixing: players could swap shafts, discs, and stickers freely, with the one caveat that the adhesive stickers could only be applied once. In a later revision, Smarty Smitty was swapped out for Cyclone Steve. The original 1968 run also included an eight-top variant adding Fighting Frank and Rocky Rocko, though that version used only four colors, creating four pairs.

A Bumpy Corporate Journey

Battling Tops has had a notably turbulent corporate life. Born under the Ideal brand in 1968, the game rode a wave of cultural enthusiasm in 1977 when it was rebranded as Battling Spaceships, a direct nod to the Star Wars craze sweeping the country. That rebranding, however, proved to be a brief interlude rather than a lasting transformation. In 1982, Ideal was sold, and the game passed into the hands of Marx, which continued producing it for a few more years. By the late 1980s, the title had quietly disappeared from shelves, and for nearly two decades it existed only in the memories of children who had once yanked a pull tab in a plastic bowl. Then in 2003, Mattel stepped in with a fresh rerelease, reintroducing the concept to a new generation of players. The journey from Ideal to Marx to Mattel mirrors the broader reshuffling of the American toy industry during that era, and the game's survival through three different corporate owners speaks to the enduring appeal of its simple, competitive format.

Cultural Roots & Place in the Spinning-Top Lineage

Long before plastic tops and pull tabs, the fundamental idea of spinning-top combat had deep roots in Southeast Asian culture. Battling Tops bears a clear conceptual resemblance to gasing pangkah, a traditional Malay sport in which players battle spinning tops for supremacy. This parallel suggests that the game's inventor, Eddy Goldfarb, was tapping into a universal human fascination with kinetic competition that transcends any single culture or era. In the modern toy landscape, Battling Tops occupies a similar niche to later phenomena like Beyblade and Battle Strikers, all of which center on launching spinning objects into a shared arena and letting physics decide the victor. What set Battling Tops apart in its 1968 debut was its deliberate embrace of unpredictability: the concave arena and the tops' collisions made each round feel like a small, chaotic event, where a flick of the wrist could tip the balance. That blend of chance and marginal skill gave it a democratic, accessible quality that resonated with children and kept the game in rotation across three different manufacturers over more than three decades.

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