The Magna Doodle is a magnetic drawing toy featuring a drawing board, magnetic stylus, and magnetic shapes. It is an artistic toy in which the artist has endless opportunities to create new art while avoiding the mess of traditional art supplies.

The Magna Doodle is made with a magnetophoretic display panel that is filled with a thick opaque liquid that contains very small dark magnetic particles. Those tiny pieces are pulled to the drawing surface by the stylus and shapes that have magnets on their tips. The images can then be erased by using the sliding eraser bar to move the particles to the hidden back side.

Between the top and back layers is a middle layer cut into a honeycomb design that evenly distributes the liquid static and the particles throughout the panel. The liquid’s density allows the particles to be pulled to the surface by the magnetic implements, but not by gravity.

It was invented by the Pilot Corporation in 1974, though they did not trademark the name “Magna Doodle” until 1986. Tyco produced the Magna Doodle until ’97, then when Mattel bought Tyco the toy fell under the Fisher-Price brand. Pilot continued to create the panels for the toy when it was sold through both companies.

Not only has Magna Doodle been a popular toy with kids, it has also been featured on television shows. A version of it appeared in the 1990s Nick Arcade games show, used by contestants to share how many points they would wager on challenges. The Magna Doodle also appeared on Friends, hung on the door of Joey and Chandler’s apartment. Messages and drawings regularly appeared on the toy, sometimes used as a plot point or to acknowledge current events (such as September 11, 2001) or even inside jokes among the show’s crew.