In the end, they had a 7-inch tall tube featuring clear windows on each end, filled with a dark liquid and housing a pair of floating dice with responses on each side. When it was turned over, an answer to a question would be revealed.

In 1944, Carter filed a patent on the device and attached Bookman's name to the patent. Their revised creation was originally sold as "Syco-Seer: The Miracle Home Fortune Teller."

A few years later, the design was modified to save expenses and the toy re-marketed under the name "Syco-Slate: The Pocket Fortune-Teller." In 1946, the two men then formed a novelty company, led by Bookman and named Alabe Crafts, a merger of their names Abe and Alfred.

Before the patent was granted in '48, Carter died, and Bookman again modified the product, this time encasing it in an iridescent crystal ball, which attracted the attention of Chicago's Brunswick Billiards company. In 1950, that company commissioned the black and white ball design that continues today.

The Magic 8 Ball that we have known since then has basically contained a 20-sided polygon inside a hollow plastic ball, floating in a liquid-filled, 3-inch diameter tube. The liquid largely consists of dark blue ink and alcohol. The predictions, affirmative, negative or non-committal, appear on each triangular face of the polygon.

Revisions were made when Ideal Toys bought Alabe Crafts in 1971. Next, Tyco Toys bought the ball in ’87. Mattel owns it today and sells one million units a year (as of 2012).

In 2011, Time magazine named it one of the 100 All-Time greatest toys.

Need we say more? Sources point to no.

LINK: Read about other UC alumni toy-makers.