Word: toying
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...toy business has changed dramatically since the time when Gepetto-like craftsmen turned out spinning tops, dolls and sleds. The onetime humble toymakers have evolved into giant fantasy factories that are battling for the hearts and attention of America's children with marching armies of curious and sometimes fearsome characters. This year the two largest U.S. manufacturers, Hasbro and Mattel, expect to ring up more than $1 billion each in revenues for the first time ever. Total retail toy sales grew 20% last year, thanks to a healthy economy and the excitement stirred by such blockbuster products as Coleco...
Here's some crucial Christmas advice, kids: Don't let Mom and Dad sneak off to the toy stores until they've done their homework. It's a jungle out there, full of Thundercats and Sectaurs, Pound Puppies and Glo Worms, GoBots and Transformers--in short, no place for the innocent. What could be more embarrassing than to have the old folks, however well intentioned, come home with the wrong stuff! Remember what happened when you sent them shopping for video games a few years ago, and they returned with an Etch-A-Sketch? What they need is at least...
...realize that I used to play with a lot of really stupid stuff when I was age four and up, but I am surprised how much the basic theory of toy design has changed since I was a tot. Most of what I found in this eight-page advertisement was merely frivolous, but occasionally there occurred such lapses in judgment that I was forced to wonder who was more mature: the toy designers and marketers (ostensibly adults) or the toy users (presumably kids...
...biggest change in toy design theory since my sandbox days seems to be the downfall of the traditional board game. Gone are such dinosaurs as "Operation!" "Tiddly-Winks" and "Chutes and Ladders." Child World promotes only a few games, like "Scrabble," "Parcheesi" and "Trouble"; the first two are presented both in traditional form and in "deluxe editions." The yuppie fave "Scrabble Deluxe" features raised spaces which lock the letters in place, presumably so that your $1000 Lhasa Apso does not meander by and mess up the game. As much as I can tell, "Deluxe Parcheesi" appears to be a contradiction...
...lieu of board games, today's child is barraged with a whole assortment of dolls and plastic toy figures. Usually these synthetic creatures come in a group, as in the case of the "Snugglebumms," a close-knit and multi-colored familial unit comprised of: "Momma Brightly," "Papa Gently," "Princess Snugglelina," "Snugglebumm's Kids" and "Tuggles" with omnipresent flower cart...