Ant Farm Creator’s Lowly Workers Still Pull Their Weight in a High-Tech World

Milton Levine took the pledge years ago: “I will not kill an ant,” he says reverently. “They put my three kids through college.”

At a time when scientists were splitting atoms and building rockets, Levine harnessed the power of the harvester ant; and with his brains and their brawn, he built an empire based on sand and plastic.

His Uncle Milton Ant Farm rocked the novelty world when it was launched in 1956, and since then more than 20 million units have sold. “I expected it to last two seasons like most toys do,” said Levine. “But the ant farm today is as stable as the Barbie Doll.”

The resolutely low-tech toy has held its own in a high-tech world of slick computer games and short attention spans, with an average of 30,000 ant farms--and 900,000 ants--sold every month.

“That’s pretty solid,” said Sean McGowan, analyst for PlayDate, a marketing firm that tracks toy and game sales for retailers nationwide. “If Milton Bradley has a game that sells 100,000 units a year, that’s considered a good seller. If it sells a million, that’s considered great.”

Whether the ant farm thrives because of nostalgic parents who owned them as kids or because they’re a “primitive society you can keep in your room,” McGowan says, “Uncle Milton is the kind of success story that makes people go out and invent things.”

Levine’s inspiration came at a Fourth of July picnic in Studio City, in a moment that would lead a hawker of cheap novelties to become a millionaire toy mogul.

There in the yard, ants were building small towers, lugging cookie crumbs 20 times their size and rapping each other’s heads to pass on messages. There were undertaker ants stashing the bodies of dead co-workers, and ants forming bridges so others could cross cracks in the earth.

“When I was a kid, I used to go to my uncle’s farm and put ants in a jar and watch them cavort,” recalled Levine, 88, of Culver City. “Then we saw a bunch of ants in the corner of the house in Studio City and I said we should make an antarium.”

An antarium? He reconsidered, calling it an ant farm instead.

A son of Russian immigrants, Levine grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father ran a chain of dry-cleaning stores, charging 24 cents to wash, press and fold an item of clothing. It was a business lesson Milton would later perfect: giving customers a lot for little money.

Levine was managing a furniture store when World War II broke out. He was drafted into the Army and served in England, France and Germany. After the war, Levine read a newsletter that said the path to riches lay in bobby pins or plastic toys, both in short supply.

He and his brother-in-law went into business. They discovered a Pennsylvania company that made the prizes for Cracker Jack boxes and began buying them wholesale and selling them by mail.

For a dollar, a kid could get 100 plastic soldiers, circus animals, cowboys or Indians. The toys, dime-thin and undeniably cheap, came inside paper “footlockers,” tents and corrals.

“We got so many orders, you wouldn’t believe it,” said Levine, a wiry man with twinkling eyes and a high-pitched cackle. “I’d go to the bank with 1,000 one-dollar bills!”

After a few years, he stuffed a suitcase with money and drove his family to Los Angeles, where he sold sprinklers, toy trains and children’s records. There were also potato-firing “spud guns” and dwarf trees, which he now admits would take “about 100 years to grow.”

His “shrunken heads” were a huge hit. Greenie beanies--hats that grew real grass on top--bombed.

“I thought that item would sell 800 million copies,” he said, still baffled by its failure. “They were like one of those Chia pets. I called the Beatles’ manager to see if they would wear them.” (They said no.)

His miniature sea horse corral also tanked when the animals arrived belly-up in the homes of children nationwide.

He tried his luck with balloons, writing a book on how to twist them into animal shapes. And he penned the forward to a book called “How to Turn Junk Into Fun and Profit.”

With the ant farm, he hit pay dirt.

Aside from the ants, the first models had some bugs in the system. Toxic glue vapors killed some ants; others climbed out. Modifications were made. Red harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex californicus, were obtained in the Mojave Desert by a collector who was paid a penny per ant.

While the city ants Levine had been using knocked off at dusk and lazed around till morning, the new desert ants toiled night and day. And the harvesters’ slippery feet meant they couldn’t crawl out.

Orders poured in. Levine appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show.” He made an “executive” ant farm of mahogany and glass for Dick Clark.

Money flooded in. Levine bought out his partner for $150,000 and moved his family from the Fairfax District to upscale Ladera Heights.

Levine, who never attended college, gave lectures, wrote chatty books about ants and made appearances on “The Shari Lewis Show.” “I spoke to Lamb Chop for a half an hour about ants,” he said. “I felt like an idiot.”

He quickly became known as the “Ant Guy.” To ward off any “Ant Milton” jokes, he dubbed himself “Uncle Milton.”

His son Steven, then about 10, was planted in the audiences of the “Bozo the Clown” show and other children’s shows. The hosts would spot him in the middle row holding an ant farm and invite him to stand up and talk about it.

“I would usually flub my lines, but it gave us a lot of exposure,” recalled Steven, now 49 and running the family business in Westlake Village.

In 1970, the elder Levine wrote “Ant Facts and Fantasies,” in which he discussed the politics of the colonies. “This writer is of the opinion that ants are truly Socialist,” he wrote. “After all, their life is truly a communal one.”

The multimillion-dollar company Levine founded now has a product line that features butterflies, frogs and dozens of new science toys. Its ants are still gathered from secret locations in the California and Utah deserts, with collectors still paid a little more than a penny per ant. The sand has been replaced with volcanic soil, lighter and easier to tunnel through, and formulas are being developed to extend an ant’s two- or three-month captive lifespan. Once $1.98, the ant farms now cost $10.99.

The genial hucksterism of the elder Levine has given way to corporate marketing strategies and talk of product placement and demographics.

“We started out as a novelty, but over the years went into science and nature. We are now in the ‘edu-tainment’ business,” said Frank Adler, vice president for sales and worldwide marketing for Uncle Milton Industries, which employs about 30 people and has its own research and development department. “A good toy must have the ‘wow’ factor. It’s not just shipping live animals, it’s putting them in the right context.”

Spinoffs include the Ant Farm Village, with an ant-sized town square, and “Xtreme Ants,” featuring “antrageous skate loop” and a tiny rock-climbing wall. Talks are underway with Louisiana turtle farmers to bring back tiny green turtles taken off the market years ago because some carried salmonella.

Of course, selling animals as toys makes some folks antsy.

“Ants are sentient beings, like we are, and have a right to life like we do, and they shouldn’t be shown the level of disrespect the producers of ant farms show them,” said Stephanie Boyles, a wildlife biologist with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “We can learn about ants without having an ant farm. Kids end up getting tired of them and they perish.”

Perhaps, but that hasn’t hurt demand, which peaks annually around Christmas with about 100,000 orders a month.

Ants arrive every Monday, packed 30 to a tube. The tubes are placed in envelopes with booklets, water droppers and food, and sent to customers who have already bought the farm.

“It’s a small business and everyone works together,” said Steven Levine, watching assembly line workers inspect ants and fill orders. “They do what it takes to get the job done, just like the ants.”

Customer letters adorn the offices. A girl writes that she won a school science competition with her ant farm. Another pleads, “Please send me some more, as my ants have all passed.”

Uncle Milton calls “two or three times a day” just to check on things, and occasionally pops in. “I go up there and raise hell,” he cracked. “I say this thing or that thing won’t sell. Everything I hate sells like crazy.”

And he still quotes Solomon, who said, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.”

Levine has considered her ways.

“Perseverance is the secret of success, and procrastination is the secret of failure,” he said. “Ants work day and night, they look out for the common good and never procrastinate. ... Humanity can learn a lot from the ant.”