If you’re a millennial, or a parent of one, you might remember these must-have toys that turned Christmas shopping upside-down.
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Desperate parents. Long lineups at stores. Fights and even stampedes. If you’re a millennial, or a parent of one, you might remember these must-have toys that turned Christmas shopping upside-down.
CABBAGE PATCH KIDS, 1983
A line of cloth dolls with plastic heads that looked nothing like other dolls on the market, Cabbage Patch Kids became insanely popular in the 1983 holiday season. Each one came with a name and birth certificate and was advertised as “adoptable,” adding to their appeal. Retailers couldn’t keep up with demand for the soft dolls, with stores besieged by long lineups of shoppers anxious to get them. Competition for the toy was so intense, fights and even riots were reported at some stores in North America. Some three million Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were sold that year.
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TRANSFORMERS, 1984
The line of robot action figures that morph into toy vehicles and more was the Christmas smash hit of 1984, launching a craze that would envelop the global toy market, last for decades and spin off into the entertainment world with comic books, television shows, video games and movies. Created in Japan in the early 1980s, the shape-shifting toys took off after American toy giant Hasbro bought the rights to the line and rebranded it as Transformers, according to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y. With a backstory developed by Marvel Comics, the toys soon went from must-have to iconic. Dust-ups over the limited supply broke out at some stores. The toy line, lauded for how it “feeds kids imaginations and fantasy play,” was inducted this year into the Strong museum’s National Toy Hall of Fame.
TICKLE ME ELMO, 1996
Based on the character Elmo from the Sesame Street children’s television series, Tickle Me Elmo was to Christmas in 1996 what toilet paper was to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic – highly coveted, but almost impossible to find. Retailers’ shelves were stripped bare. Many-a parent of that era will remember racing from store to store at the mere rumour they might find one of the Tyco plush toys that giggled, shook and vibrated when squeezed. In stark contrast to Elmo’s laugh, the toy’s scarcity inspired pre-dawn store lineups, reports of brawls between shoppers and jacked-up prices in the resale market by lucky buyers who cashed in on the craze. In Fredericton, N.B., a Walmart employee was taken to hospital for treatment after reportedly being trampled when hundreds of lined-up shoppers surged into the store.
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FURBY, 1998
A late entrant to the toy market in 1998, Furby was a Gremlin-like animatronic toy pet with big, blinking eyes, ears that wiggled and its own vocabulary. The plush toy spoke “Furbish” at first, then began speaking English with increased use. Just like Cabbage Patch dolls and Tickle Me Elmo, a buyers’ frenzy quickly erupted over the toy, whose late arrival to the market that year only made it tougher to find. Created by Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro, the Furby craze also brought huge lineups at stores. Headlines of the era recall people injured in fights over the critter and others knocked over in the crushes of shoppers anxious to lay their hands on the toy. One of the first toy crazes to hit the internet, Furby quickly made its way in the re-sale market to pioneering e-commerce platforms such as eBay.
NINTENDO Wii, 2006
Launched in November 2006, just in time for Christmas, Nintendo’s video game console sold out as soon as it hit stores in Canada, effectively guaranteeing pent-up demand for extra shipments. Selling for about $280 in Canada that year, the Japanese company’s new entrant in the gaming market took interactive play to a new level with a unique motion-sensing controller that duplicated players’ physical movements on the screen in the game they were playing. Broad marketing expanded the console’s appeal, making it a must-have not just for young gamers but also adults. Even seniors in retirement homes got in on the fun.
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