1. What is an anamorphoscope? An-a-morph-o-sis — from the Greek ana (again) and morphe (form) — means to re-form something. Anamorphic pictures are actually re-formed twice. First, normal pictures are stretched into unrecognizable squiggles and swirls. Then, a curved mirror — an anamorphoscope — magically "decodes" these mysterious squiggles and swirls, and restores their reflection to normal.
2. How does it work? Anamorphosis is cool optical physics, but hard to describe without higher mathematics. Instead, imagine you were turned into a weird alien. When the "alien you" looks into a wavy fun house mirror, what reflects back is the "perfect, original you!"
3. When were anamorphoscopes invented? Anamorphoscopes were invented in China and brought to Italy in the 16th century about the time Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci were mastering 3-D and discovering slant anamorphosis.
4. What happened to anamorphoscopes? Slant anamorphosis became the tool of spies and political artists to conceal dangerous messages. Anamorphoscopes became the "ooh and aah" amusement in Europe and Asia for the next 300 years. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, few artists were left who could construct the difficult distortions and the new art of photography was exciting imaginations. Today, thanks to computers, anamorphic art and photography have combined in film and TV special effects and in all OOZ & OZ Mirror-aculous toys and games.
5. How did OOZ & OZ learn about anamorphoscopes? A tiny anamorphoscope was on display at Harvard University, where OOZ & OZ founder, Myrna Hoffman, was a free lance graphic artist. Hoffman was utterly captivated by the concept. After years of international research Hoffman figured out how to construct the distortions, and then she drew cartoon morphs for her daughter's seventh birthday party. In l990, Hoffman had a software program created to morph any image.
6. How did the company get its name? Hoffman listened to kids' and grown-ups' reactions — universal "oohs" and "aahs". | 
