Torture Device or Child's Toy? Rubik's Cube Hits 50! What Hath Erno Wrought?

Confounding a couple generations, the vexing, multi-colored hexahedron celebrates its golden anniversary. While some celebrate wildly, others stifle yawns of defeated indifference. What up, Rubik?

Above video: Homer’s doing what I never could, and frankly, never wanted to! Solving a Rubik’s Cube…in fact, several! The voice on the radio is longtime The Simpsons voice of most non-Simpson-family characters, Harry Shearer, member of early-’70s L.A. comedy troupe, The Credibility Gap, which also featured Michael McKean, the late David L. Lander, and Richard Beebe.

The latter left the troupe in 1975 (when Rubik’s Cube was a one-year-old baby), which is when this 9-minute clip from Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow show aired on NBC (click here to view on YouTube), nine years before the film, This is Spinal Tap, hit theatres. Tom introduces Shearer, Lander, and McKean, who conspire to stage an hilarious taped spoof of Tom’s show (with Harry playing Tom with hideous wig, with the other two playing Tomorrow guests!).

The Cube Turns 50!

Nearly 4 years ago, Variety reported on the apparent in-development threats of, not only a game show, but a feature film, both centered on the multi-colored toy that’s been confounding most adults and many kids for decades…Rubik’s Cube.

So, the threat is only far-too-real…which only compels me to, once again, buckle under its mocking cuboid glare, and enthusiastically celebrate its 50th year of existence!

The now-pamphlet-sized Reader’s Digest, in their September 2024 issue, dropped a sizeable chunk of info about the toy and its birthday, so now’s my chance to get on the good side of this accursed box! But, I’ll drop in some snark, too, in an attempt to get even with this infernal plastic fiend! Look for these: [ ].

“Created by Hungarian architect, Erno Rubik (now 80, pictured above), he first created it to teach his students concepts of three-dimensional movement. Rubik spent about a month trying to unscramble his first prototype, which, at the time, he wasn’t sure could even be solved [take a hint, Erno…take a hint!]. He called it The Magic Cube. He soon acquired the patent. Despite the Cube’s success, Rubik continued his career in academia [making him, apparently, an academia nut].

“2024 marks the 50 anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube. More than 450 million have been sold since its 1974 invention, making it one of the bestselling toys in history, ahead of even the Slinky. The Cube was named Toy of the Year in 1980, and was inducted into Rochester, New York’s National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014, [joining little green Army men and Bubbles…whoever she is].”

I think I did have one as a kid, and I tried, of course, to get all the colours aligned… at least one line. But I’ve always been extremely impatient, especially as a child, so I either lost interest or, more likely, they took it away from me to preserve my sanity!🤣

Andres

of The Vinyl Room

The Masterpiece Cube: At this price, you can afford to throw it from vessel to vessel in frustration at the Boca Raton Yacht Club.

Reader’s Digest continues: “The first Rubik’s Cubes retailed for $1.99. Today, you can buy one for about $10. But, one very special cube is worth a lot more: $2.5 million. The Masterpiece Cube, designed by Diamond Cutters International, was created in 1995, and is made of gold, diamonds and other precious stones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires….and, yes, you can still solve it.” [uh, no I can’t. We’ve been through this!]

“In 1983, Erno founded Rubik Studio, where he designed other mechanical puzzles and furniture. In 2009, 35 years after creating his Cube, he released another geometric puzzle…spherical this time, called the Rubik’s 360” [See YouTube video showing how to solve the Rubik’s 360 by clicking here…jackhammer not included, for some reason]:

I got a couple of them for my kids as Christmas presents years ago. They could solve them in minutes. I would scramble one and start on it. After an hour or so and numerous bad words, one of them would retrieve it from me and solve it in a minute or so and hand it back. I never want to see another Rubik’s Cube. Ever.

Michael

of Michael Acoustic

After the Cube was released in the U.S., books on how to solve it soon followed. In 1981, You Can Do the Cube, written by 13-year-old Patrick Bossert, sold more than 750,000 copies in short order, making him the youngest author to hit the New York Times bestseller list. My personal follow-up to Patrick’s bestseller, No I Can’t! At This Point, You’re Just Mocking Me, was recycled into millions of colored stickers that were used to cover subsequent Cubes. I couldn’t be more proud.

Well, I had one, like everyone, and I couldn’t figure it out. I must have spent weeks and weeks playing around with it in spare moments at the London studio where I worked, about 1982. Then I just gave up. Same for most people I know.

Then one day this random guy, who was passing through some place where I was, picked up a Cube that was laying around and solved it in about 30 seconds! He did it several times consecutively (we scrambled the cube for him). He showed me how to do it:

It was 4 or 5 consecutive repeated moves, like a repeated pattern. If you just kept doing that pattern, and if you were fast like him, you could get all 6 sides completed in under a minute! I used to be able to do it, but can’t remember the sequence now!

🅝🅘🅒 🅑🅡🅘🅢🅒🅞🅔🖋🎸🎵🎥🎙

of The Song’s The Thing

“There are more than 43 quintillion possible configurations of the classic 3”x3” Cube. That’s a 43 with 18 zeros after it! So, you may be surprised that any Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or fewer. This computation is the result of mathematical research to uncover the minimum number of turns required to solve a particular puzzle. A bank of computers at Google took a total of 35 years of dedicated service to compute the answer of 20.”

My parents gave me one when they came out, and I became obsessed with it for the next couple of years. I had a “regular” one, and a smaller one, and would fidget with them all the time. Not for nothing, they made a pretty good return about 7-8 years ago, when my (now) 19-year-old was in 6th grade. Everyone in his grade had one!

Kevin Alexander

of On Repeat Records

If at first you don’t succeed, make the problem smaller, Master Rubik seems to be saying, here. “Yo, Erno, fetch me my blood pressure sleeve!”

“A standard Rubik’s Cube measures 2 1/4 inches on each side, but Pennsylvania manufacturer Super Impulse sells one that is a scant 3/4-inch on each side, the size of a single die [or, as they say, now, in elementary schools, “number cube.”] On the other end of the spectrum, Dubai’s Knowledge Park is home to the world’s largest version, measuring nearly 10 feet on each side and weighing more than 660 pounds”:

When I was a freshman in college, I had to take a math course but didn’t want to take a traditional subject like advanced algebra. Instead, I enrolled in a general survey course which included all sorts of random topics including some computer programming with Basic.

For some reason we also had to learn Rubik’s Cube, and solve it as part of the final. One day in class, my professor needed to borrow someone’s Cube for an example of some kind. I lent him mine. When he was done he threw it back to me. Of course, I was never good at baseball and completely missed the Cube!

All of its pieces shattered around the classroom! I don’t recall the professor apologizing for not handing it back to me instead. I ended up having to buy a new one so I could take the final!

Dan Pal

of PalCinema, Television, & Music

“The first cubing world championship was hosted in Rubik’s native Budapest in 1982. The fastest solving time then was 22.95 seconds, held by Vietnamese American, Minh Thai. But since then, the record has been broken many times, most recently in 2023 by Max Park, who solved it in just 3.13 seconds!”👇

I had lots of nerdy friends growing up, and a lot of them would play with a Cube. They would be able to complete it in record time, and I would be duly impressed. They’d try and show me how to do it and I could never figure it out.

I eventually learned that I’m spatially dyslexic (my own diagnosis), and to this day can’t figure out how shapes fit together or combine to form new shapes. Even building IKEA furniture, I’m liable to assemble the parts completely wrong and have to take the entire thing apart and start over. Thankfully, I married a woman who is extremely spatially logical and patient, so she handles the assembly of anything that needs assembling in our house.

Steve Goldberg

of Earworms and Song Loops

I tried and tried and could only get the bottom two rows to match up. Could never get the thing solved. And yet, I know a magician who solves it behind his back in 30 seconds. Go figure.

MK Piatkowski

of Song of the Day

Not MK’s magician friend, but, from 2019, New York Jets rookie offensive tackle, Calvin Anderson (6’5”, 305 lbs):

“Anyone can try the cube, even those with visual impairments. Customized stickers are available to swap in more easily distinguishable colors from the standard palette of red, yellow, blue, orange, green and white. And some special versions even feature raised symbols, allowing blind solvers to give it a go”:

Rubik’s Cube was always one of those toys that was more fun to think about playing with than actually playing with! I remember having one when I was young, and I would fidget with it occasionally. I never quite learned how to quickly align all the colors on all the right sides like I’ve seen some do, even in person.

However, I still played with my Rubik’s Cube until some of the color stickers came off. When that happened, it didn’t make solving the Cube any more accessible, but it did make playing with it a lot less stressful!

Stanley C.

of If Ever You’re Listening

I Didn’t Play With the Rubik’s Cube; It Played With Me

by Keith R. Higgons of

Abandoned Albums Podcast

The Rubik’s Cube was, at first, my nemesis until it became my sworn enemy.

As a 13-year-old, I already knew everything when it was first released and thought: “How hard can this be?” Turns out pretty hard. Well, at least for me. And, of course, I had friends that could solve it with no problem. I mean, if they could solve it, I should be able to meet the challenge head-on and solve it. Well, I couldn’t. It didn’t help that I had the attention span of a gnat back then.

After repeatedly failing to solve it the conventional way, I put my mind to work, which, at my age, meant taking it apart. If you think the Rubik’s Cube is usually tough to figure out, try taking it all apart and putting it back together so all the colors align!

I will neither confirm nor deny that tears were involved in asking my mother for a ride to the mall to get another one. 

I went about it again with my new Cube, trying to solve it like everyone else. For some reason, I was certain a fresh Cube would solve itself. Spoiler: It didn’t. My next plan was to remove the stickers and “solve” it that way. I sat on the floor with all the color stickers removed and lined up on the edge of the coffee table as my mother watched me.

She pulled from her Virginia Slim, shook her head, and blew out a plume of smoke. 

This time, I was successful, but what I had done was flagrantly obvious. My older brother breezed through the room and, without stopping, looked at it and called me an idiot. I can’t say he was wrong. 

Don’t even get me started on the little mini ones they put on keychains. Thankfully, I had no need for keys. That didn’t stop my father from putting one in my stocking that year for Christmas….the sadist.

“Now 80 years old, Erno Rubik remains as passionate about his Cube as ever, not only as a recreational puzzle, but also as an educational tool. A program called “You Can Do the Cube” brought Rubik’s Cubes into U.S. classrooms in 2008, and cemented their status as a STEM toy. The next installment, Rubik’s Academy, plans to use the Cube to teach concepts such as spatial reasoning and perseverance.” [Well, isn’t that spatial?]

YouTube video: “How Does Music Affect Your Rubik’s Cube Solves?”

Click here for YouTube video: “How to Solve the Rubik’s Cube!”