Twister was submitted to be patented by Charles F. Foley and Neil Rabens in 1966, but it did not become a success until Eva Gabor played it with Johnny Carson on television's Tonight Show on May 3, 1966.

However, in its success, Twister was also controversial. The company that produced the game, Milton Bradley, was accused by its competitors of selling "sex in a box". That accusation probably was because Twister is the first game to use human bodies as playing pieces.

Although Twister was patented by Charles F. Foley and Neil Rabens, sources also mention a man by the name of Reyn Guyer. He claimed to come up with the idea for Twister while working on a Johnson’s Shoe Polish promotion at his father’s design company.

It is said that Guyer originally called this new game idea Pretzel, but that Milton Bradley changed the name to Twister before they put it on the market. However, this claim that Reyn invented Twister is said to be false. According to the United States patent office, there is no link between Twister and the name Guyer.

Foley and Rabens are credited with the invention, and their names are the only names attached to the patent. Their only link to Guyer is that they were employees of his father’s company.

Twister has been played in tournaments all around the world since its debut in 1966. Annually, in Reykjavik, Iceland, a tournament is held for participants nationwide. The tournament is highly competitive and brings forth a strong sense of cultural identity.

Currently, Twister tournaments are used as a source of philanthropic events put on by college fraternities and sororities to raise money for a charitable cause. Many of these Greek tournaments are held annually, and are a good way to get involved with the community.

Some of the Greek organisations that partake in these tournaments include; Alpha Xi Delta of Cornell University, Tau Kappa Epsilon of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Sigma Nu at Villanova, Kappa Delta at Ball State University and Alpha Chi Omega at Missouri State University.

Twister is a prime example of how globalisation is able to influence culture, and how the different variations of the game reflect elements of cultural diversity. In an article by sociologists Ben Carrington, David L. Andrews, Steven J. Jackson and Zbigniew Mazur, they state, “…interpretations of the cultural impact of globalisation can be classified into two distinct theoretical camps: the economic and the cultural camps”. From an economic standpoint, Twister does not exclude any socioeconomic demographic, and has very little cultural resistance, seeing as it can be easily understood globally by all cultures.

Since its release, many active participants have tried and succeeded in setting records for the most contestants in a game, and the largest combined amount of Twister game mats.

As cited by the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest game of Twister included 4,699 square feet (436.6 m2) of mats that were combined together. The previous record for the largest game was played in the Netherlands in April of 2005 with 2,453 square feet (227.9 m2) of mats.

The record for the largest number of contestants in a game of Twister occurred in 1987 with 4,160 contestants tangling themselves at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.