This is our American stories, and we tell stories about just about everything, as you know.

And up next, a story by author Christopher Klein.

He's the author of four books.

He's also written for the Boston Globe, The New York Times, National Geographic,

Smithsonian, and American Heritage.

Here's Chris to tell the story of how Johnny Carson saved Twister.

It's 1965, and Ren Geyer is working for his family's Minnesota ad agency designing

point-of-purchase displays for products such as Pillsbury Cake Mix and 3M tape. And one day he's

brainstorming ideas for a mail-and giveaway to remote back-to-school sales of a shoe polish made

by Johnson's wax. And he's thinking of something that would tie in

with shoes, and he gets this idea for a new board game to be played not on a tabletop,

but on the floor.

He envisions a large mat, checkered with squares, on which players are the pieces.

Geyer found a large cardboard sheet, drew 24 colorful squares in a 4x arrangement, and called in co-workers to play a game in which they moved around like chess pieces.

The game was a hit, and Geyer knew he had an idea too good to waste on shoe polish.

He figured this could be a mass market game, but the problem was he had no experience in the toy industry.

So he enlisted the help of industry veteran Charles Foley and artist Neil Rabens to help him refine the concept.

Rabens came up with the idea of having players place their hands as well as their feet on the game board,

while Foley thought of putting six circles of the same color in four rows so that players would become entangled.

The inventors even came up with a catchy retail name for the game,

pretzel, because of its ability to twist people into unique shapes.

The game was simple to play.

...