It was in 1948 that Herb Schaper, a mailman from Minneapolis, whittled the first Cootie out of wood. He meant it to be a fishing lure, but it attracted more attention from kids than fish. By the end of the year, he'd carved out 40,000 Cootie games by hand.

Three years later, 1.2 million Cooties had been made out of plastic, according to Hasbro, which owns the modern-day rights to Cootie.

Cootie is one of the world's simplest games, making it one of the first games that young children learn to play. Each player starts with a body, then by the roll of a die adds a head, antennae, mouth, eyes and six legs. First one to assemble a complete bug wins.

The first Cootie was very ant-like. It was later given a rounder, cuter appearance. All the Cooties in a game set were identical, except for color.

The new Cooties still come four to a box, but each has a different look. You can build a Cootie with in-line skates or high-top sneakers; with hair bows, big lips or funny teeth.

The new Cootie sells for about $7, is available at Kmart and Toys R Us stores and coming soon to Wal-Mart.

How popular is Cootie?

According to Hasbro, 50 million games have been sold. And it's the official mascot of the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C.