Most Popular Toys of the 1990s!

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Today we're going to be discussing the most popular toys of the 1990s. The 1990s had some insanely popular toys. We're talking some that had mass hysteria on Black Friday and throughout the Christmas season, the likes of which have not been matched since Cabbage Patch in 1983. However, in this video we will not be discussing all of the toys that were popular in the 1990s. For instance, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out in 1989. That particular toy is discussed in my 1980s decade video. By this decade of the 1990s, there were a lot of toys that were popular that were from previous decades. So if you do not see the toy that you played with, there's a good chance it's in one of my videos from the 1940s to the 1980s, each with its own decade of toys to discuss and show. But in today's video, we'll discuss some of the popular toys of the 1990s. I hope you enjoy this, sit back, relax, and let's reminisce together. The Super Soaker brought water gun fights to a whole new level. It was originally called the Power Drencher and went on sale in 1990. It was rebranded as the Super Soaker in 1991. Once the TV advertisements hit the air, it resulted in millions sold and the product remained popular for years. Imitations came out on the market, but most people still called them Super Soakers, although they definitely were not. The toy was invented by a former Air Force and NASA engineer named Lonnie Johnson. He tinkered with it and tried to get it going for years before he finally found the company, Laramie, who showed interest in it in 1989. He made some additional improvements and then it was released the following year. Today it is produced by Hasbro under the Nerf brand and has generated more than a billion dollars in sales. The Littlest Pet Shop is a toy franchise and cartoon series owned by Hasbro. It was originally produced by Kenner starting in 1992 followed by the animated series in 1995. The tiny toys had certain actions such as a movable part which were sold in sets. Most of the toys included magnets or had simple mechanisms such as flapping wings. Perhaps one of the biggest toys of the 1990s was the Power Rangers. They came on the air as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in 1993. This live action series was part of the Fox Kids programming block. It was an instant hit and became sort of a 1990s pop culture phenomenon with a huge array of merchandise. Everything you could think of was Power Rangers. Folders, sheets, video games, comics, films, curtains, shirts, pajamas, and toys. The action figures were an instant success as was anything else that had Power Rangers on it. For a while it seemed like Power Rangers ruled the world. The Power Rangers began with Sabin Entertainment in 1993 and then moved to Walt Disney Company from 2002 to 2010. Most recently Hasbro has picked up the entertainment and merchandising franchise. Overall the franchise has generated billions and billions of dollars in toy sales. If you were a kid in the 90s then you certainly know who the Power Rangers are. Bop It Toys are a line of audio games. A player follows a series of commands issued through voice recordings played by the toy. The original game would only allow bopping or pressing a button, twisting a lever, or pulling a handle. As the player progresses the pace of the game increases. The max score of the original game was 100. The game was based on concepts originally patented by Dan Klitzner and was released in 1996. The game quickly caught on and there have been several versions since. Now the toy has multiple inputs including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheels, and flickable switches. The max score on the more modern ones is 200. Pokemon is a collectible card game based on the Pokemon franchise by Nintendo. It was first published in October of 1996 by Media Factory in Japan. In the U.S. it was initially published by Wizards of the Roast. Eventually Nintendo transferred the rights of the Pokemon Company which has published the game ever since June of 2003. The cards have become highly collectible and some of them have sold anywhere from a couple hundred thousand dollars to over a million dollars. It really just depends on what it is and what the condition of those cards are. So if you have any of these cards from the 1990s you may want to take a look at them because you may want to sell them depending on the value. Most people just seem to collect the cards but there is a game aspect to them. Some people even enjoy entering competitions in tournaments. Tamagotchi which means egg watch in Japanese is a handheld digital pet that was created in Japan. It was released by Bandai on November 23rd 1996 in Japan and on May 1st 1997 in the rest of the world. The digital pet toy quickly became one of the biggest fads of the late 1990s. Since its release more than 80 million units have been sold. They are basically small egg shaped handheld video games with three buttons. The object of the little toy is to take care of the virtual pet that dwells inside. The creature goes through several stages of growth which is dependent on the level of care provided by the player. The background on the creatures is interesting. They are all small alien creatures that deposit an egg here on earth to see what life is like. Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys that were created by an American businessman named H. Ty Warner who founded Ty Inc in 1986. The Beanie Babies we all came to know were created in 1993 and became a major fad. They also became highly collectible by the late 1990s. They have been called the world's first internet sensation which sort of started in 1995. The toys came in many forms but were mostly animals that were stuffed with plastic pellets rather than beans like the name seems to suggest. The company made limited quantities and restricted individual store shipments which made the demand to collect them even higher. Ty also retired certain designs which increased their popularity and value. The craze lasted through the 1990s and some people were paying insane amounts for rare Beanie Babies. At the same time people also had to worry about counterfeit ones being sold. Eventually the bubble burst on the market although some people are still convinced of the rare valuable Beanie Babies. The company has moved on selling different stuffed animals but has no trouble at all with sales. GoGo's Crazy Bones were a small collectible figurine that became a popular fad in the 1990s. They are produced by a Spanish company named Magic Box International and PPI Worldwide Group the sole distributor in North America. They were inspired by a children's game played in ancient Greece and Rome in which they used sheep knuckles. That game is known as Tabas. It is reminiscent of Marbles and Jax. Crazy Bones is a modern version played with characters molded from plastic. There are hundreds of characters in total and they have become collectible over the years. Within a couple years of the release the company had some high profile partners such as McDonald's who included them in Happy Meals. That led to revenues growing to nearly 17 million. The current distributor of GoGo's Crazy Bones in the United States and Canada is Johnic Distribution North America. Betty Spaghetti is a bendable rubber doll from the Ohio Art Company. She was portrayed as a fun loving teen who had two best friends Zoe and Hannah as well as her younger sister. Her rubbery hair used to let children make different hairstyles and she also had changeable hands, feet, shoes, etc. The doll was very popular in its release in 1998 and was discontinued in 2004 due to a weak market and strong competition. She has tried to make a comeback twice but has not had the same success as she enjoyed in the 1990s. Furby is an American electronic robotic toy that was originally released in 1998 by Tiger The toy is a creature of its own much like a gremlin but it resembles a hamster or owl like creature with big eyes. It was the must-have toy of 1998 following its release. For a while the toy was hard to get due to its popularity and in 1998 alone there were more than 1.8 million sold during the holiday season launch. In 1999 there were more than 14 million sold. The toy had its own language named Furbish but over time it would start to use English words and phrases that it learned from the owners. Furbies sold for $35 upon release but because of demand they were fetching as much as $300 in newspapers as people were trying to make a profit off of them. The short demand also led to parental arguments and battles in retail stores over any Furbies that were found. On January 13, 1999 the National Security Agency of the United States banned Furbies from entering NSA properties over fear and concerns that they might be used to record and repost classified information. This may sound ridiculous now but it really was a huge concern at the time. But as we all know now there are things much smaller that are capable of doing the exact same thing and more. Regardless, the Furby goes down in history as one of the most desired toys of all time. Tickle Me Elmo was a children's plush toy from Tyco Preschool. Elmo is a Muppet character from the children's television show Sesame Street. Whenever Elmo was squeezed he would shake, vibrate and then giggle. The toy was produced in the United States in 1996 and quickly became a fad during the Christmas season of that same year. The toy retailed for $28.99 but scalpers in newspapers and on the internet sold them for up to $1,500 by the end of 1996. The craze really hit on Black Friday and it was the toy every parent wanted to get for their young child. The shortage led to parents getting arrested for fighting over the doll. Some parents ran after delivery trucks seeking to get the doll as it entered the stores. There are reports of a doll in Denver fetching $7,100 and a charity raffle in Los Angeles that brought $18,500 for another Tickle Me Elmo. A clerk working at a Walmart in Canada was stampeded by a crowd of 300 people after they spotted him being handed a box of the toys. The clerk suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, broken rib and a concussion. By the end of December, one million Tickle Me Elmo's had been sold. Tickle Me Elmo was definitely one of the biggest desired toys of all time and it is up there with the Cabbage Patch dolls and Furbies. Pogs was a popular game of the 1990s. Originally it was a game played in Hawaii during the 1920s or 1930s. The pieces used were flat circular cardboard milk caps. Players make a stack of the caps and take turns to drum a heavier slammer object into it causing the caps to be disrupted. The cardboard milk caps became obsolete in the 1950s as manufacturers changed the packaging. Occasionally the dairies in Hawaii would distribute promotional milk caps though so children would still use them occasionally. The 1990s revival is credited to a Blossom Galbiso who was a teacher in Hawaii. She incorporated the game into her curriculum as a way of teaching math. Eventually the game spread and by early 1992, Stanpak Inc, a Canadian company, started producing more of these caps for Hawaii. The game then started surfacing on the west coast of the United States and by 1993, it was played throughout the world. The Canada Games Company got on board and reintroduced the caps as the Pog brand name in the 1990s. The fad peaked in the mid-1990s and by 1997 the fad had faded and the Canada Games Company went out of business. Buzz Lightyear is a main character in the Toy Story franchise. According to the movies, he is a Space Ranger superhero but he is also an action figure. He was introduced in 1995 as a 12-inch tall figure from Thinkway Toys. The toy experienced massive sales in the Christmas after the film's release in the United States and the United Kingdom. The company did not expect the toy to be so popular so demand was high and the product was short. Tim Allen was the voice of the original figure but later models featured a voice actor who sounds very similar to Allen. The figure has continued to be popular and has sold very well over the years. In 2008, NASA and Disney announced that the original figure would go into space and take part in an experiment on the International Space Station for six months. Talkboy is a line of handheld voice recorder and sound novelty toys manufactured by Tiger Electronics in the 1990s. It is now owned by Hasbro. It was originally conceived as a cassette recorder and player prop for the 1992 film Home Alone 2. The company released the toy in 1992 and it sold moderately but a voice-changing model in 1993 followed by the release of the movie on home video caused the toy sales to spike. The toy was an unexpected success and it sold out during the 1993 holiday season. It had continued success in subsequent holiday seasons and the Talk Girl released in 1995. Nintendo was a big hit in the 1980s and it was followed up by another popular system by the company in 1991 called Super Nintendo or Super NES. An additional system called the Nintendo 64 was also released in 1996 and the brand remained very popular much through the 90s and the gaming market. But the 1990s gave way to other video game systems. The Sega Genesis was released in August of 1989 but it really came on strong in the early 1990s. The handheld Game Gear came on strong and offered a color screen as opposed to the Game Boy's black and white screen. Sega also had some other game systems released in the 1990s that also found success but one of the big winning game systems of the 1990s outside of Nintendo was the Sony PlayStation. It was the first console of any type to ship over 100 million units and did so under a decade. It was first released on December 3rd 1994. There was a time when Sony was making some components for Nintendo but Nintendo broke off that relationship and decided to go with Philips. That decision was probably something they regretted later but at the time Sony wasn't even in the gaming industry. But once they did enter the gaming industry the popularity of the game system really spread because it had a lower price than Sega and Nintendo. The Sony PlayStation is still a popular console today with the subsequent models that have been released. So I hope you enjoyed this little video on the most popular toys of the 1990s. I hope it took you back a little bit to your childhood and helped you remember the great times that used to be of the 1990s. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you guys next time. [00:16:33] Speaker ?: Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.