Every Year’s Most Popular Toy Since 1969 Explained | Each and Every | WIRED

hi i'm chris bench chief curator at the strong National Museum of play in Rochester New York and this is every top toy for the last 50 years so how did we come up with this list of 50 it's based on twice that had biggest cultural impact the toys that changed the face of play and the toys that all of us remember most 1969 Snoopy astronaut it's the year that first person walked on the moon was something that so many Americans remember where they were iconic event in popular culture and who else really got into the astronaut business everybody's favorite comic strip beagle Snoopy Snoopy astronaut it was perfect for the American mood of the time 1970 the Nerf ball the Nerf ball was credited to ren Geyer a freelance toy designer the nerf Bob wasn't gonna be a plaything it was going to be a game originally it was going to be a Flintstones war of foam rocks game by one of the creators of twister well the folks at Milton Bradley hated the idea they passed on it Parker Brothers took up the concept and they tossed out the game but they kept the phone they thought it could be the first indoor ball that kids could toss around without making mom and dad irate that they were gonna break something the Nerf ball sold four million copies in its first year of really blistering pace nerf is huge right down to the present this is how we play 1971 wiebel don't fall down a proper rule makes weeble toys weebles wobble but they won't fall down the advertising tagline that made these little egg-shaped playing pieces characters so popular that year from romper room they have a counterweight in the bottom so you can pop them around and they will not fall over they're perfectly sized for toddlers hands they are ideal for playsets like this Wild West version and they came in so many variants ever since and have been popular toys for kids across the decades 1972 you know it all started with the Robbins family in Cincinnati Ohio Merle Robbins was barber his extended family loved playing the card game Crazy Eights but family members kept forgetting the rules of the game so he marked the instructions right on the cards eventually his family concluded that wouldn't it be great to have a customized set that included the rules odd the cards the result was the game uno it became a grassroots craze and by the time that 1972 came around uno was a hit 1973 skateboards skateboards have been around years before especially homemade versions they were credited to surfers who used them as an alternative for days when there wasn't any food served although they had a surge of popularity in the 1960s it wasn't until 1973 that skateboards really took off thanks to two big technological developments one was what were called Cadillac wheels they were composite wheels that were smoother faster rolling that any wheels that had come before and there was new specialized axles or trucks as they were called that were made especially for skateboards with both of those features skateboards could become more controllable suitable for tricks skateboards didn't receive TV advertising and what really sold skateboards was people seeing folks use them demonstrations competitions and watching the kinds of tricks watching the agility that they allowed you skateboards are part of our competitive culture right down to the present with iconic figures like Tony Hawk 1974 Dungeons & Dragons Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created Dungeons & Dragons they were big fans of war games and other simulation games and they took it in a new fantastic dimension inspired by things like the Lord of the Rings book series Dungeons & Dragons not only change tabletop gaming and Lord new adults into the world of games it gave you a framework it gave her characters it gave you a mode of play with those polyhedral dice and it allowed you to spin imaginative yarns with friends with family and to really take yourself to places that you've never gone before certainly not with a traditional board game it also influenced computer games because those multi-sided dice and the way that those controlled play were perfect for the kinds of randomization for all kinds of imaginative and role-playing and strategy games in online and on discs 1975 one of the most brilliant fad toys ever if you want to talk about making a million off of something that's essentially worthless this is what Gary Dahl did with the pet rock he was a marketing genius in taking rocks and packaging them in what were essentially miniature pet carriers a million were sold in the first year the tongue-in-cheek manual that came with a pet rock gave you instructions for how to housebreak it you could set it on newspaper and tell it to stay pet rocks were also wonderful at learning how to play dead and the manual gave you the necessary steps to do it it was hilarious 1976 The Bionic Woman and Cher why am i showing two dimensions of American womanhood for 1976 it's because there's such a great matchup the Bionic Woman was a TV spin-off of the series the Six Million Dollar Man in which Jaime Sommers was essentially a female superhero and if you love the Bionic Woman you could get the action figure essentially indistinguishable from a dog with beautiful clothes and styler bull hare he was sort of an interesting midpoint between Donna Reed Housewives of the 1950's and someone who was kick-ass like Linda Hamilton and the Terminator movies at that same time Sonny and Cher were big in variety shows at that moment share with her Bob Mackie gowns was the essence of elegance they represent steps forward in feminism and the Bionic Woman she was the heroine of her own TV series 1977 Star Wars action figures the toy that revolutionized not only the toy industry but the world of entertainment Kenner took a contract to make toys for a little science fiction movie that no one thought was going to do any business and they were so wrong they were glad to be wrong but they were in trouble because this summer movie release that became the blockbuster to bust them off really cried out for action figures what was Kenner to do they did the cleverest marketing technique of selling gift certificates so many kids that holiday season found rap gift certificates for their Star Wars action figures because Kenner couldn't get the figures made fast enough these little action figures and all the collateral vehicles and accessories proved that movies could make more money by licensing their toy products than they could actually selling tickets at the box office 1978 Simon Simon was a breakthrough idea from Ralph Baer creator of the video game concept Ralph was out to create a really simple to learn toy he was constrained by what microchips were available on the market and he was limited to cheap microchips sort of the last previous generation that were affordable for use and toys and all I could handle were four different notes Simon has set up intersection of tabletop gaming and electronic play and it's something that we're doing right up to the present 1979 the Atari 2600 wasn't the first home videogame system that was the Magnavox Odyssey it may not have even been the best in lots of people's opinions but it was the Atari 2600 that broke through into so many American's homes and taught them that playing games on your TV was a thing a thing that people hadn't really considered useful the Atari 2600 had a price point that was appealing to people it also was the game system that allowed them to play the games they'd become familiar with at arcades games like pac-man and space invaders tired of spending all those quarters now you could play it at home 1980 rubik's cubes fastest-selling puzzle ever it was a creation of a hungarian architecture and design professor named Erno Rubik he was trapped behind the iron curtain in Hungary in a communist environment where he came up with this great idea but he really couldn't make money off of it wasn't until his idea was brought to the west by ideal toy company to the US rebranded from being the magic cube to rubik's cube and suddenly everybody had to have one at one point three of the top ten paperback bestsellers on the New York Times list were all about how to solve the Rubik's Cube because everyone wanted to know the secret and if you couldn't figure out the secret people sold you sets of stickers you could paste over those grand bold sides and make it look like you had figured out your Rubik's Cube 1981 he-man and Masters of the Universe Mattel was looking for a way to duplicate the success of Star Wars action figures with little plastic characters and they essentially took a concept of their own the Big Jim action figure and bumped him up and made he-man into an absolutely absurd physical shape and they a come t-man and the rest of his Masters of the Universe with an entire backstory that they provided in comic book form so that you knew all the characters you knew that he man and Skeletor up against each other in eternal combat he-man was by no means the first property to make that sort of leap between different forms of media those kinds of things have been going on since the 1890s but he was really one of the ones that crystallized it for our own era in the last 50 years 1982 Care Bears and My Little Pony so what was so special about Care Bears Care Bears were all about emotions they were about kindness they were about loving characteristics they were cultivating the best kinds of behavior and emotions it was something that parents liked to train their children in and they made them appealing and heartwarming in a way that other toys weren't I think what makes Care Bear so appealing is their sweet nature YK Man My Little Pony was a transmedia sort of property that took a series originally of six pastel horse figures with their anthropomorphised faces and their long silky Mane's and Tails and turned them into a media juggernaut with TV series with movies with ancillary products and really produce expanding an equine universe with horses that were sort of crossed with dolls the Barbie variations that sell best are ones that have the most hair so Rapunzel Barbie is one of the best-selling ones ever if you love horses what could be better than a horse that has a styler baleen and tail that you can comb wash and have fun with in that kind of stylist designer way my little pony has gone through numerous resurgence 'as perhaps least predictable in 1982 is that there would be guys known as bronies who are fans of My Little Pony in the present that is something that no one could have ever foreseen 1983 Cabbage Patch Kids in the late 1970s Xavier Roberts was creating art sculptures essentially dolls that he called the little people and you didn't buy one of his little people you adopted one with a unique face a unique name and it was a really appealing concept but it was something that got a groundswell movement behind it he couldn't keep up with the demand so eventually he licensed the concept to a Coleco maker of electronic toys that said that they would be able to take his concept use their manufacturing prowess to create really customized dolls so that they weren't all the same on the Shelf different hair color eye color skin tone each had its own name each still had adoption papers renamed as the Cabbage Patch Kids they were the sensation of 1983 adopting was a different concept for a doll it gave you a different sort of investment that you weren't just paying a price at the checkout counter you were getting an individual doll for you know nursery for the Cabbage Patch Kids all under lock and key of course the media loved the idea of Cabbage Patch Kids and even more once the craze took off and parents were brawling in parking lots to get the last examples of Cabbage Patch Kids at the store that everyone wanted to have that story and the more the story ran the more people wanted Cabbage Patch Kids it was something that really boosted the sales of Cabbage Patch Kids to the stratosphere 1984 Trivial Pursuit board games had been on a decline trend ever since the advent of television in the 1950s but that all changed with the 1981 introduction of Trivial Pursuit a trivia game that captivated grownups in a way that games haven't previously it's here Big Bird it's there it's everywhere by 1984 the year were recognizing there were parties everywhere everyone wanted to play everyone wanted to win Trivial Pursuit was a hit 1985 Teddy Ruxpin he seems so incredibly advanced at the time by inserting a cassette in his back you could make Teddy a character made children's stories to your kids it made him so engaging it made him perfect night time conclusion to a child's day even though he cost a massive $69.99 in 1985 he was the best-selling toy of the year Teddy combined two things one was technology of the time he seemed very up to date for his moment but he also helped promote literacy with reading something that so many parents want to encourage in their kids 1986 laser tag it was such a great competition for all the sorts of gunplay that have occurred over the years this finally let you prove that you had actually hit your opponent not with a laser but with infrared beams so that your opponent knew that they'd been hit and that you had succeeded now critics of the time felt that it was encouraging violence and gunplay but other folks said this was just a ongoing way of competitive action that it was more tagged than killing people it generated so much success not only for the laser tag product but by starting laser tag emporiums and venues across the nation that and their successors of paintball and other kinds of grown up and big kid play are popular right down to today 1987 Jenga classic tower top wind game dexterity to the empty that anyone can play with enough strategy and a steady enough hand to actually maneuver the blocks out of the tower and set them on top English woman Leslie Scott had played a block toppling towering game when she was growing up in Africa when she went home as a grown up to England she took this concept with her it was a hit at parties it took us a while for it to lift off but eventually in Canada in the u.s. it became a massive hit and eventually went back to Europe as the sensation now Jenga is all over the world in so many variations 1988 the Nintendo Entertainment System 1983 Nintendo introduced a Famicom a system that was popular throughout Asia that they rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES for the North American market and in 1988 it was the go-to system for people in the US and Beyond because it had the best games it had Donkey Kong Super Mario Brothers The Legend of Zelda it became the standard of its time and for many years to come 1989 the Nintendo Gameboy all the power and excitement of Nintendo right in the palm of your hand if you loved the NES in 1988 chances are that you wanted to take your gaming portable and Nintendo was out to do that with the Gameboy it was a way that you could play your games anywhere you wanted to go and rather than having specialized games that only allowed you to play football or baseball the cartridges for the Gameboy allowed you to have a multitude of game what's needed a Game Boy it's a personal game playing system with over 200 puzzle action and sports game to choose from it was simple it was clear it was efficiently designed it allowed to have head-to-head competition and the Game Boy became the standard gaming in terms of mobile play the legacy of the Game Boy shows up in all of our pockets and purses today as we play games on our smartphones maybe even play Tetris 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 1980s Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird work out to create a satirical comic book that was making fun of superheroes so they created a bunch of mutant turtles who lived in sewers were named after Renaissance artists and thought that their tongue-in-cheek comic book would be the end of it all what they couldn't realize was that it would go on to become its own media juggernaut and lined of all sorts of toys that became hit with kids who loved the irreverent humor who loved the pizza eating teenage characters that they could relate to in a way that Batman Superman spider-man really didn't resonate 1991 the Super Soaker Lonnie Johnson was working for NASA trying to develop a water-cooled device for a spacecraft and he developed a technique that he was pressurizing water and sprayed it all over his bathroom thought you know this is not gonna work for my project but it would make a great plaything a Super Soaker took water play to a whole new dimension kids and adults loved it super soakers went from basic versions like the one I'm holding to once where the water capacity was so big he wore it in a backpack 1992 Super NES the successor to the Nintendo Entertainment System brought new capacity to gaming with a 16-bit system that allowed more opportunities for higher grade graphics faster play and one of the things that's different in video game systems than some other playthings that technology keeps advancing prices keep coming down for computer chips allowing greater and greater capability so if you're a fan of a particular series of games you want to have the latest version the slickest gameplay and that's what systems like the Super NES allowed you to do 1993 Barney Barney conveyed so many positive messages on his PBS series a purple Tyrannosaurus Rex was anything but the Jurassic Park dinosaur he was unscary dinosaur who represented really kindly qualities he was perfect for toddlers and early preschoolers he may have driven parents crazy but he was one that was a hit with the kids and Barney became a cultural icon in his purple dinosaur nests and his friends across the PBS time frame 1994 Mighty Morphin Power Ranger another transmedia property that became a successful TV series which generated successful toys which generated all kinds of other licensed products along the way the teen heroes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with their color coded gear were ones that were big hits with American kids and they were so much the flavor of the month that they were the must-have toy for the holidays in 1994-1995 beanie babies this was marketing par excellence to turn soft toys full of little pellets into a collectible juggernaut that dominated gifts stores everywhere the beanie babies were predicated on a perception of scarcity that these were limited-edition toys with their in-ear tags that made them extra appealing allowed people to buy them as investments they thought and to create praises when they thought that their favorite characters were about to be retired and they better grab them now 1996 Tickle Me Elmo I was giving everybody that giggling it's Tickle Me Elmo there had been soft electronic toys previously but Elmo was really more advanced than someone like Teddy Ruxpin his simulation of laughing and uncontrollable joy from being tickled was tremendously appealing and when he was demonstrated on TV shows like the Rosie O'Donnell show he helped create a marketing craze and parents everywhere competed to get their Tickle Me Elmo he was the must-have toy of the holidays for 1996 and he has persisted as the most identifiable character from Sesame Street right down to the present the legacy of Tickle Me Elmo is that more and more we expect even soft cuddly toys to come with electronic component or online linkage that means that it's not just a physical thing it's something that has greater capacity for play and simulation than ever before 1997 tamagotchi if you weren't quite ready to keep a cat or dog or even a hamster Tamagotchi virtual pet might be just the solution for you you could have a keychain size tech to look after to care for and to identify with it was a digital virtual pet something miniaturized in a way that hadn't been seen or popularized before if you didn't do it right skull icon showed up at the bottom of your screen that you were doing it wrong and you could perhaps pull the fat out of the fire and make sure that your Tamagotchi didn't expire but it was a lesson both in marketing digital play and it was a lesson in pet care giving that loads of people found popular for years to come 1998 Furby Tiger electronics set out to create a media craze for their interactive talking jabbering cat Furby and they did a brilliant job of it from its introduction on The Today Show more than six weeks before they were ever available in stores the media picked up on this interactive learning capable toy in fact it was such a phenomenon for its learning capacity that the National Security Administration in Washington banned Furbies from his offices lest they pick up on state spy secrets and share them with nefarious forces 1999 Pokemon car [Music] if you love the video games your shirt loves the trading card game that it's spun off that let you collect your Pokemon compete with your friends in the three-dimensional world pokemon cards were so successful that they generated tournaments where people could watch competitions and compete themselves it is an entire industry and an entertainment force in its own right mm the razor scooter scooters have been around certainly since the early part of the 20th century but the razor scooter was slicker looking it was more compact was foldable so you could carry it with you when you didn't want to ride the razor scooter allowed with its smooth rolling composite wheels for you to have a great ride and it became one of them must have toys of the holidays the razor scooter proves that even in an era of digital play there's still a great amount of Appeal for speeding along in the real world on a wheeled vehicle 2001 Bratz dolls Barbie had dominated the fashion doll segments for decades before the advent of brats who offered an entirely new look they had big heads twig-like limbs oversized kind of anime eyes and what also made them different was they were really multi-ethnic with names skin tones hair colors that represented more of the American population than ever before they had an appeal to a tween market who considered Barbies for babies and they really took fashion doll sense to a different level and really gave Barbie a run for her money people have said the Bratz are representative of the sluta fication of American dolls I'm a little more generous on Bratz I think they really hope give options for doll play 2002 they we blades are essentially a rebrand of an earlier toy from ideal battling tops that had been a success in the 60s or 70s they promoted all kinds of tournament play they were supported by an animated cartoon series that allowed you to see what was even more possible it's sort of cool to think that something that's been around for centuries if not thousands of years tops that are a persistent plaything can be updated and made appealing to a contemporary audience and people who want to play in a digital age 2003 Robosapien if Furby is a little too benign for you and you don't want a story from Teddy Ruxpin why not this massive robotic plaything that was a big hit of the year he had learning capacity he could dance he could fight he was something that really made you feel up-to-date by having this super-sized and super capacity robotic toy 2004 puppy surprise when you get one of these you aren't buying a puppy you're buying a mother dog who comes with unborn puppies inside and a Velcro slit across her belly that allows you to reveal the surprise number of puppies creepy or not I'll let you be the judge 2005 webcams like Cabbage Patch Kids webkinz inspired you to not just get a pet but to adopt it and webkinz came with internet connectivity this is part of a whole vanguard of playthings that weren't just a three-dimensional toy but they had an online component and a unique code that let you go on there and play with your friends interact with environments add to your virtual pet as well as your physical one going up against different ecosystems like Club Penguin also of the time webkinz were one of the most successful and they were a huge deal for kids everywhere in 2005 2006 the Nintendo leads Nintendo's fifth generation of consoles came with what was called the Wii mote that was gyroscopically controlled handheld controller that let you use it as you would a baseball bat or a tennis racket or as your bowling ball that you were sending down the lane it was so intuitive especially for adults who might not be familiar with other more complex controllers it made a huge inroad into the senior citizen market as well as the kid-friendly market and it really changed how people reacted to games that they could do it in a very natural way rather than just pressing buttons 2007 iPod Touch this Apple device wasn't just a music player it was a platform for gaming as well with its touch screen it allowed really intuitive play it let parents have confidence that they didn't have to buy a smartphone for their kids to play games or listen to music and it was the latest iteration and a successor to something like the Game Boy and with the kinds of capacity for touchscreen control that we assume is everywhere today 2008 the littlest petshop people have always loved miniatures and tiny things whether that's dollhouse furniture or charms on a bracelet and little playthings have that special appeal the littlest petshop with its huge cast of toy pets was an immediate sensation it was built on a 1990s toy with a similar concept and it has proven to be a successful franchise with great capacity for collectability and also for playsets like this immense one 2009 Zhu Zhu Pets meet mr. squiggles your electronic toy hamster one of the downfalls of hamsters and gerbils is that they tend to be nocturnal animals so they're asleep when kids are awake and vice versa Zhu Zhu Pets have none of that problem they also don't need to be cleaned up after and their electronic capabilities from they're cuddling version two they're exploring version they've got those two modes allowed them to be a hit of 2009 with all kinds of accessories so that you could have your entire crew of animatronic hamsters rolling around in balls and exploring their habit rails 2010 Monster High dolls inspired by the success of the Twilight series of books and films Mattel introduced a whole sequence of high school students who were monsters I'm holding Frankie Stein and there were multitudes of other of her friends and dates out there in the series they are definitely the unbar be from Mattel with their goth look they were ostensibly to prove that everyone needed to fit in and people could be varied looks and feels although critics pointed out that they were still stick thin and wearing short skirts and lots of eyeliner a little bit like they're competing Bratz 2011 Skylanders one of the most successful iterations of the category known as toys to life where three-dimensional playthings interact online via a portal that sends them into an online world Skylanders generated lots of different stories and characters and it was really proof that people wanted to play with three dimensions and online multiplayer games 2012 the Nintendo Wii U building on the success of the Wii the Wii U had much more advanced graphics capacity and it also had a new touch screen controller that allowed you to play games in multiple dimensions and to see them on that screen as well it was a carry on advance from the Wii and one that was a success in its own right and took things into greater processing speed and speed of gameplay 2013 techno the robotic puppy if you want more capacity than a Furby techno allows you to have a dog that can sing and dance can sleep can do tricks he also makes rude noises whether you like him to or not and he is just the latest in a series of advanced robotic playthings 2014 rainbow blue after techno the robotic puppy it's good to know that there's still an appeal to crafting playthings and jewelry for your friends using something as analog as a loom that weaves rubber bands together and rather than being a corporate product the rainbow loom was a creation of an individual entrepreneur and toy inventor and Detroit who initially made these in his home he washed the rubber bands in his bathtub with an oar to get the dust off of them and what he really tapped into was the lure of social play of creating gifts for your friends and family for turning something three-dimensional into something with added value that kind of art kit that kind of crashed project had an enormous amount of Appeal stores couldn't keep rainbow looms on the shelf they sold so rapidly and it won four different category the toy of the Year awards 2015 the bb-8 robotic toy the breakout droid in that year Star Wars movie the force awakens was undoubtedly bb-8 the adorable snowman shaped droid and everybody wanted one for home this version for spiro was amazingly advanced used gyroscopic controls to move bb-8 around your home through various tricks the best part of bb-8 is he looks so much like the one in the movies he's not just like action figure of r2d2 he looks and functions the way the droid in the movies does it was what everybody wanted and it was a perfect match for the continuing demand of Star Wars fans even 40 years after the initial movie that they still can't get enough Star Wars and especially the robotic characters 2016 Hatcher moles the start of what is now called the blind box kind of toy where you don't know what you're getting inside Hatcher moles were so alluring because you bought an egg you didn't know what stuffed toy was living inside of that we had to warm them up with your hands so that they would hatch and peck their way out it was a thrill of unboxing as umpteen videos have shown on YouTube ever since and Hatcher moles was the must-have holiday toy of 2016 and continues in different iterations to show that surprises and eggs are so alluring to kids and grownups everywhere 2017 lol surprise carrying on from the success of the hatch moles lol surprise took that same concept not knowing what was inside the package and turned it into its own separate product this one is lol surprise under wraps they're kind of like mummies and you don't know what's gonna be lurking inside of this they have a reasonable price point so that they're smaller than camels and you could get lots of them in your quest to get all the surprises that are out there 2018 fingerlings fingerlings cling to your fingers that's where they get their name and they're the perfect culmination of all the trends that we've been seeing through so many of these toys connectability learning capacity microchips that enable them to have so many tricks as well as still having a 3-dimensional item that you can cuddle and care for fingerlings really in some ways are no surprise they're really a way of pulling so many threads that we've been seeing develop across the history of toys and really represent the way the miniature technology and our expectations of digital reality come together in a three-dimensional plaything that sets the stage for what's going to come next we don't yet know what's going to be the hot toy for 2019 but based on what we've been seeing you can be pretty confident that it's gonna have some cuteness factor it may have some prized qualities interactivity and online connect ability all mashed together in a way that is compelling for kids and grown-ups today that's every top toy from the last 50 years I hope you learned something along the way and I can't wait to see what the next 50 years hold

Channel: WIRED

Views: 817,236

Keywords: holiday, toys, christmas toys, toy expert, popular toys, most popular toys, toy expert explains toy trends, most popular fads, toy fads, toy crazes, best selling toys, best selling toys ever, most popular toys ever, biggest toys ever, top toys, biggest toys of all time, popular christmas toys, popular holiday gifts, gift guides, furby, star wars action figures, tamagotchi, beanie babies, bratz doll, fingerlings, beyblades, nintendo wii, big toys, cabbage patch kids, wired

Id: ebZ4aqB7hiE

Length: 40min 17sec (2417 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019