Toys On The Brain

Archive for the ‘Toy News’ Category

If you’re looking for deals this holiday season, you’re probably thinking you should head over to one of the many KB Toy stores near you that are closing. Well, you’d be… wrong. Yes, everything is on sale. Yes, they have a lot of stuff to sell off before they close. No, their prices aren’t very good. When you start out with prices significantly higher than other stores, 30% off only brings you down to around the same price as those other stores, and maybe a bit more.

So, while you might find a decent deal here or there, you won’t be able to return anything (their No Return policy is already in effect), and who knows where any of your money is actually going. My advice? Head over to Target or WalMart or one of the other big boxes when you find a good deal and get your dream toy there rather than rooting around in the overcrowded, understaffed, overpriced KB Toys (it’s a real wonder they went bankrupt, huh?)

As an aside, the KB Toys website doesn’t feature any of the sales that their stores do. Now that’s what I call logical. Not.

Newly unveiled for this holiday season, Amazon has put together a rather interesting little tool that might just help you decide what to get for your little (or not-so-little) one. Basically, it’s a fairly extensive list of some of the most popular toys this year, separated by age or price and featuring short videos of the toys in action. While the controls are a little irritating, the videos themselves can actually be fairly interesting. And while you could undoubtedly find the videos on each manufacturer’s website, this way they’re all together in one spot and you don’t have to travel all over the web to gather the information you want.

I will say that you probably only want to venture onto Amazon’s Toy List if you have broadband - it doesn’t seem like something that would be very much fun to wait for on dialup. Not that anything is fun to wait for on dialup, of course, but this is one of those things that would just be… excruciating.

• Amazon’s Toy List

Well, I guess I was right when I said that the economy would definitely affect the toy industry. One of the first signs came today in the form of Mattel announcing the imminent loss of 1000 of its workforce. They blame a combination of higher production costs and lower consumer spending for the move.

My guess? It’s not the last we’ll see of announcements like this. The focus on high-ticket toys this holiday season is really going to come back and bite the toy companies in their butts. But in the long run, it will probably be good for us - fire sales on the way!

• Original Layoff Article from Yahoo

‘Tis the season… for toy catalogs to flood your house! I don’t know about you, but the number of expensive toys in this year’s catalogs seems pretty darn high, especially considering our economy, dare I say it, SUCKS. Spike up there is a good example - he retails for $140. True, he walks, makes noises, throws stuff, but when it comes down to choosing between Spike and paying the electric bill, I’m pretty sure (and desperately hope) most of us would choose electricity.

So, is the economy going to affect the toy industry? I’d have to go with a resounding YES. Most of these toys were produced before the economy hit the skids, and few of the companies are going to be able to scramble and get out large quantities of cheaper toys in time for the holiday season. What’s annoying is that you know the companies are going to do everything in their power to sell as many of these high-ticket items as they can, which means directly marketing them to kids. What does that mean to you? Whiny, obnoxious kids whose crestfallen faces on Christmas morning will haunt you.

So, what can you do about all of this? I have one very simple proposal: celebrate Christmas (or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you’d like) a month later. Once these companies realize that they need to lower prices or go under, there should be some awesome post-holiday sales. Just tell Billy that Santa couldn’t make his mortgage payments and had to put up the sleigh as collateral. In today’s world, he should understand just fine.

As painful as it is to admit for those of us who owned them back in the 80s, Cabbage Patch Kids are now 25 years old (oh god, I feel old). To celebrate, the company is re-releasing the original dolls.

Each one comes with “a Commemorative Certificate that has been personally hand signed by Xavier Roberts, the Creator of the Cabbage Patch Kids” and the buyer can choose to have a personalized “adoption certificate” if they order through the Cabbage Patch website.

It looks like people are already trying to recreate the Great Cabbage Patch Panic of 1986 by buying early and then trying to jack up the price on eBay and Amazon. I saw several for over $100. To avoid that insanity, buy directly from the website, where they retail for about $40 ($3 extra for the personalized certificate). Thankfully, I took quite good care of my dolls (with the exception of a tragically misguided event involving scissors and long, luxurious fake hair), so I don’t need to buy replacements to relive my childhood - I can just go in my mom’s attic and be there in an instant. For those of you not so lucky, get some before they run out!

• Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary Website

Buy Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary Dolls Online:

• at Amazon.com