Toy Fair 2011 - more fun than you can shake your stick it!

One event I look forward to each year is the 108th New York International Toy Fair. It is, by far, the biggest event of the year for the American toy industry. It's a huge event, which includes award dinners, events & a HUGE building filled to the rim with toy vendors booths. 

Now, when I say 'booths,' you might picture 4x8 tables with toys on them. It's such a wide range of people exhibiting. You have independent entrepreneurs who go out on a limb and are trying to sell their ideas to the toy buyers of the world. You also have tried and true toy companies displaying toys they've sold for years. You also have the mammoths of the toy world - Mattel, Melissa & Doug, etc that have massive booths that could qualify as events within themselves.

Take the Melissa & Doug booth. When I first started going to Toy Fair, they had a small booth downstairs at the Javits Center. (The Javits Center has two massive floors, the top floor generally have the bigger, more established toy companies while the downstairs has the 'up and coming' as well as the 'low and going' toy companies. Now, Melissa & Doug have the biggest booth at Toy Fair. They have a popular coat check (checking your coat at Javits costs $3 an article, M&D do it for free - even eschewing tips!). They also serve food through the day - pretzels, ice cream, beer, wine, etc. They used to serve breakfast and lunch until they determined many of the people enjoying the meals were competing toy companies! Their booth is guaranteed to be mobbed during the day as they roll out their new toys. One thing that sets Melissa & Doug apart from many other companies is their employees inhuman ability to stay chipper and friendly at all times...

Perhaps one of my, er, 'favorite' booths at Toy Fair was 'Ring Toss.' Here's a photo of the booth in all it's glory

Yup, that's it. A dude in a booth with an exercise machine, Snapple bottles and rings made of paper that he tossed onto the Snapple bottles. He was directly across the aisle from my friends at the YoYo Factory booth and YoYo Factory's Ben McPhee snapped that shot. Keep in mind these booths are wildly expensive. Later our hero reclined on his machine and did some pedaling:

We speculated where there was some kind of hidden camera there, that they were recording people for some tv show, but Googling 'Ring Toss' and 'Toy Fair' doesn't hit anything...so...ok

Full-sized LEGO Lightning McQueen. 325,000 bricks! 

Splish, splash, I was taking a bath in Diet Coke

We spent lots of time at the Lego booth on the first day - one of the incredible displays they featured was a full-size Lego version of Lightning McQueen - it has 325,000 pieces in it and weighs 3 tons! Cars 2 is coming out this year and promises to be a massive hit, so there were lots and lots of Cars 2 toys at Toy Fair.Another booth that had lots of attention was the 'Be Amazing Toys' booth. Several years ago, they came out with a kit that included a sleeve to affix on your Diet Coke bottle and also a pack of Mentos. The sleeve allows the Mentos to slide into the Diet Coke and create the insane fountain spraying out of the top of the Diet Coke bottle. You probably remember the viral video that was out a couple years ago. Anyhow, they've turned it on it's side this year (literally) and allowed you to turn the bottle and place wheels on it to create a 'Geyser Rocket Car.'
Now, when they came out with the Mentos/Diet Coke fountain kit several years ago, they created a cool display which had a 20 foot plastic tower that let them shoot off the Diet Coke in the building without creating an insane mess. It was always a popular display. This year, to showcase the new car, they created a enclosed track that let the car shoot along. In the fountain display, the displayer put the coke bottle inside the plexiglass tower and pulled a string that allowed the Mentos to fall into the Diet Coke bottle. This year, they decided to forego all that neatness and simply place a sucker, er...employee, inside a plexiglass room. Their demonstration always drew a crowd. The guy doing the demo called upon someone from the audience to remotely pull the string and let the Mentos into the Diet Coke....with our hero in the room. So...the audience member pulls the string and the poor guy gets drenched in Diet Coke. He's absolutely drenched from head to toe and standing barefoot in a couple inches of Diet Coke at the bottom of the room. Then the poor guy loads up the car and sends it careening down the track - all the while Diet Coke spraying him as it goes.

The Diet Coke and Mentos powered car shoots away from our hero. 

I took these pics at their booth - that's Emily, my wife, pulling the trigger on the poor sap. I tweeted from Toy Fair that this guy had the worst job at Toy Fair and got a response from Be Amazing Toys offering to allow me in the booth. I tweeted back that I'd do it, but never got a response. Probably for the best.

Ravensburger showed off the 'World's Largest Puzzle' which has more than 32,000 pieces and weighs a hefty 42 lbs!

Time for Spring Training at YoYo Joe's!

We have started receiving our shipments from orders we places at the 2010 New York International Toy Fair. Among the first of them? Kaskey Kids action figures. Baseball Guys, Football Guys and Soccer Guys. Each set comes with enough players to field two teams, plus a playmat and more.

Play Ball!

Toy Fair 2010

We're headed off to the 2010 New York International Toy Fair tomorrow. While in New York, we'll be checking out hundreds of booths with thousands of toys. It's always a blast digging through the new toys to find ones we think will be winners each year.
We're also headed to the ASTRA (American Specialty Toy Retailing Association) party Sunday night as well as the annual YoYo Nation Happy Hour on Monday night.
Check out my tweets from ToyFair by following my Twitter feed at twitter.com/yoyojoe or for general tweets from Toy Fair, look for the hash tag #toyfairNY.

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #1!

So, if you've been following along, this is the number one item we've gotten since Toy Fair. And, it should be little surprise to those who've been following the blog - it's the EcoAquarium with the uber-cool little African Dwarf Frogs. These guys are so cool (how cool are they?) - they're so cool, we put ice in their tanks to warm them up! (Groan).
The kit comes with two African Dwarf Frogs, a live bamboo plant, a snail to clean up the frogs...er....waste, a scenic rock (good for hiding behind), scenic gravel and 'living' gravel. The living gravel acts as a filter, the bamboo helps oxygenate the water - it's a real little ecosystem!
Really, these are awesome, and they sell awesome as well. They were our #1 best selling item of March! And, we enjoy staring at them all day - see our previous post on them for details of their 'vogueing' habits.

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #2

No, I didn't forget about this list. Well....actually, I did. But, it's back! In all it's glory, just in time for #2 - Mic-o-Mic Construction toys/Models.

These little plastic toys come in a bunch of parts - you put them together and then you can play with them. They come in different sizes and price points. Plus, the models themselves are pretty cool looking - there's an old fashioned roadster car, a panel truck, a helicopter, a motorcyle with sidecar and others.

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #3

3 - Tracksters - They're sorta like Webkinz, only for cars. You buy the Hot Wheels sized die cast cars, but that's only half the story. You get a code with each car to enter online to get your car activated. Once you have your car, you can race it, hop it up (with codes from packs of cards sold separately), give it a new paint job. Not your daddy's Hot Wheels. It's sorta like a toy and video game all wrapped into one!

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #4

#4 - Miyim Soft Toys - Not only are these plush toys awesomely soft and lovable, they're organic & won't break your budget.
For the past two years at Toy Fair, I've seen lots of toys that are jumping on the renewable, organic & recycling bandwagon. Alas, these features usually come at a price, it's just a part of the industry that needs to grow more for prices to come down. We were thrilled to find miYim organic toys at this year's Toy Fair, as they fit the bill as far as quality and price.
Consider the "Baby Fred Plush Monkey" on the left. It's 9 inches tall, made from soft organic cotton, colored with non-toxic dyes and chemical free. He comes wearing a white hemp jacket, and it's only $22.99. It even comes in a recycled box that makes for great gift-giving.
The Bunny Lovie Blankie (right) is 10x10 and is also made from the organic cotton material and dyed with non-toxic dyes. It's only $15.99.
All their items are appropriate for all ages

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #5

5 - The Dripstik - This is one of those 'now, why didn't I think of that?' items. It's just a plastic handle with two sides. One side holds a popsicle stick, the other will hold an ice cream cone. Both sides have a drip catching moat around the handle. You know, sometimes when you're (um...your child) is eating an ice cream cone and it starts dripping? Yea, it's for that. Toldya

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far - #6

6 - Hex Bugs - Little robotic bugs at little prices. The smallest of the 'bugs' has antenna that act as a guide - when it bumps into the wall, it turns around and heads in a different direction. There's also a little crab that automatically seeks dark places (emo crab?) and a remote control 'worm' that spins and walks at your command. They run from $10.99 - $22.99.

Wanna geek it out? They seem to be popular targets for people to modify. Don't believe me, search for 'Hex Bug' on youtube or check out this blog posting of a hack to your HexBug to add a PCI board to it.

Check this Toy Directory video from Toy Fair:

Watch Video

8 Best toys that YoYo Joe's got at/since Toy Fair...so far

7 - Woodstock instruments.

At YoYo Joe's, we pride ourselves that we try to listen to our customers. So, when a customer came in sometime in January looking for a decent quality kids guitar, we made note. We have carried a guitar that is not too expensive, but wooden and works. It did have a couple issues - the strings had a hard time staying tight. Really, it is made more for a child to pretend to play guitar, but if you're gonna buy a guitar for your child, why not get make it playable?

We agreed, so we sought out a company with a decent kids guitar at Toy Fair. When we got to the Woodstock Percussion booth, we felt we found what we were looking for. It's a wooden guitar - a little bigger than our older one - it's 27 inches long. What I like about it is that the strings stay tight. You can really play it! You can actually listen to it being played here. And while it's more than our old guitar, it's still not terribly expensive.

Woodstock also makes other cool things, we especially like the mini chimalong, chimes that are easy for kids to play songs right out of the box.

Worst Toy at Toy Fair 2009

This is my third year to name the 'Worst Toy at Toy Fair.' Previous winners included Rubik's Revolution and the Carmen Electra stripper pole.

Actually, this was the second worst toy I saw at Toy Fair this year. The first was so offensive, I dared not even post it! So, this will have to do. New, from Outset Media, it's the Fart! game. Complete with cards marked with titles like 'Silent But Deadly,' 'Duvet Lifter,' 'Eggy Stinker,' and 'Pant Ripper.'

Look, I know that farting is natural. And it comes with a 99-track CD chock filled with fart sounds. And yes, it is the funniest thing in the world for boys aged 4-97, but come on, really? Do we need nicknames for specific kinds of farts? Do we really want to encourage farting and talking about farting with a group that doesn't even need a good excuse to talk farts? Hey, boys are gonna talk about farts, they're gonna fart, they're gonna giggle when you say the word 'fart,' - it's all good, but I do not wanna play a game called Fart! thank you very much.

Cool new toys - Playmobil Egyptian Pyramid

Each year, guys from the Mitchell's train department would head out to Nuremberg, Germany to see the train building. They'd stop by the massive Playmobil booth to pick up the latest German Playmobil catalog. Why? Because Playmobil would debut their newest toys in Europe, then roll them out in the US the next year. So, if I wanted a sneak peek at next year's Playmobil items, all I had to do was to get a copy of the German catalog and see what was new.

Now, with the magic of the internets, we don't need no stinking German catalog to see what's coming next year, we just point and click, baby!

All this is a lead up to introducing an upcoming theme for Playmobil in 2009 - the Egyptian Pyramid theme. I took a couple pictures of the pyramid. It is awesome looking, like all their toys. Rich in detail and with cool little features, I'm sure it will be a hit.

Who you callin' Ugly?

OK, I admit it. I'm somewhat of an Uglydoll fanboy now. As I've told you before, I was not a fan of the Uglydoll when I first saw them at Toy Fair. But, how things have changed. The little booth I first saw at Toy Fair keeps growing and the hype keeps getting bigger on these soft and comfy plush toys. As I mentioned last week, Ethan and I headed up to Comic Con last week but left before David Horvath, one of the creators of the Uglydolls, appeared. We grabbed a couple copies of his book, Bossy Bear, in hopes that I'd see him at Toy Fair. 

I kept stopping in at the Uglydoll booth to see if I could catch up with David, and finally, on the second day, I stopped in when he was there. He was kind enough to talk with me for a couple minutes about his blog, and then he signed one of the books for Ethan, one for YoYo Joe's and a Babo keychain. He also posed for a pic with Emily and I. 

One of the toys I expect to be in demand from Toy Fair was initially made available at Comic Con, but is now shipping to all retailers who ordered them. It's Uglydoll action figures! Packaged in a blind box! (For those not in the know, a 'blind box' is a marketing genius' way of saying 'you have no idea what you're getting so you will probably voluntarily purchase two of the same figures so we make more monkey, muhahaha') We'll have Uglydoll action figured in a couple weeks. 

Long live Uglydolls!

Cool toys at Toy Fair - HaPe Musical Quadrilla

One of the most popular things for people to play with in our store is the Quadrilla display. It's a cool wooden marble run toy that lets the marbles choose their own path down a circular tower of blocks. All day, we hear the plunk of marbles dropping into the display and rolling down the wooden channels.
HaPe showed off the newest incarnation of it's Quadrilla line at Toy Fair. This is the same basic system, but adds little metal plates where the marbles drop. The metal plates look like what would result if someone took apart a xylophone and placed the metal parts on a Quadrilla set. Each plate makes a different tone, so the marbles dropping down make a pleasant song that never repeats. It even seems like someone with a lot of time and imagination could actually write a song that could be played out by dropping marbles in a sequence.
It looks really fun!
This display was at their booth at Toy Fair, which Emily and I visited on Monday while they were celebrating their anniversary with champagne & cupcakes. It's a tough life, playing with toys and eating cupcakes, but someone's gotta do it, right? This display will not be available at stores, but we should have some kind of display showing it off when it becomes available.

We totally stole this picture from the woot.com blog from Toy Fair.

Toy Fair - Day One

Yesterday was a long day. Emily and I went to a concert on Saturday night - which ended around 1 am. After we got home (around 2), we got a good 4 hours sleep before we woke up to head up to Toy Fair. Add in walking the Toy Fair floor for 9 hours, 2 hours of the ASTRA party....we were a bit tired. 

Anyhow, back to the Fair itself. To me, there was a noticeable lack of traffic in the aisles. There seem to be much less people at Toy Fair this year. The ASTRA Party With the Stars was a big change from last year, with much fewer people than last year - hopefully that's just an effect of cost-cutting, rather than less retailers being a part of the show. 

We decided recently to take part in a catalog program (YoYo Joe's catalogs!) and have specific items to get into our store that are included in the catalog. So, we have a lot of buying to do at Toy Fair. So we put in maybe 7 aisles yesterday (out of 40 ish?). We have a lot of work to do over the next two days! 

We saw lots of new toys that we'll be getting - some of the highlights include some awesome party games from Buffalo Games, the new musical Quadrilla from HaPe and the new Uglydoll action figures. We also ordered Bakugon and Tech Decks for the first time. 

Seriously creepy toy

Mattel is apparently pushing their new toy - the Mindflex - at Toy Fair. What is it?
Oh, just a way for you to telekinetically control the flight of a foam ball, that's all.
Check out this video for mind-controlled awesomeness.

Toy Fair Preview

One toy that's already garnered a lot of press is the Bernie Madoff action figure put out by a company called Modelworks. Outfitted in a devil's getup, I'm sure he'll be one of the toys that end up on national press coverage of the event.

The other theme that seems to be likely to recur with many vendors is the price of toys. Most companies that have announced any changes to their plan for new toys for 2009 talked about making sure that the less expensive toys are the main focus for production. Perhaps the big price toys won't be as represented at Toy Fair. With the status of the economy, price has become a more important factor for many people.

Toy Fair 2009 is Almost Here

Each year in February, I head up to New York for the New York International Toy Fair. It's held at the mega huge Jacob Javits Center (Comic-con was in about 1/4 of it last week). It's our chance to check out the upcoming toys for 2009 - to see what's new from companies we've dealt with and what's interesting from ones we haven't. Emily and I are heading up for the second year (at Mitchell's, I'd go alone) and it should be an interesting Toy Fair - what with the economy, the new toy safety laws and all.

We're headed to the ASTRA 'Party With the Stars' event on Sunday night. We went last year, and it was a great time. Nothing like walking around FAO Schwartz (closed to the general public) with a drink in your hand.

Hopefully, I will be posting from New York on cool new toys - if not from New York, then when I get back.

Green Toys

I have to say, these toys look pretty cool. They're from a company called Green Toys, Inc. The main ingredient in the production of these toys are recycled milk jugs. They're also made entirely in the United States.

According to their website, each pound of recycled milk jugs saves energy of the equivalent of 3000 AA batteries, saves enough electricity to power your TV set for three weeks or saves enough electricity to power your laptop for a month.

And they don't forget the packaging. The packaging is made of 100% recycled cardboard with no plastic and no annoying twist ties.

Are we ready for green toys? Members of ASTRA (The American Specialty Toy Retailer Association - we're a member!) voted the tea set (above) one of the top 20 toys at Toy Fair. My only hesitation is the price tag - the tea set will retail for about $35. Otherwise, I'm sold...

Four billion and counting...

Everyone had a pile of Hot Wheels when they were a kid. I know I did. I'd play with them on our oval shaped carpet in our family room. It was a braided rug, with different color 'lanes' on it, so it lent itself to car playing. A race would start out and would, inevitably, end up in a tragic 53 car pile-up with one car limping to the finish line. Ah....good times...

Anyhoo, Hot Wheels celebrated it's four billionth car at Toy Fair with the car seen on the left. What is it? Oh, just an 18-karat white gold car that's covered in blue, white and black diamonds. There are rubies for tail lights. The case for the car is covered with 40 diamonds!

The car is valued at around $140,000 and will be auctioned off for charity later this year.

"Since its introduction, Hot Wheels has revolutionized boys' toys and inspired automotive trends,” said Tim Kilpin, general manager and senior vice president, Boys and Entertainment, Mattel Brands.

"The historic activities we have planned are a fitting tribute to the brand's heritage and will allow us, and our fans, to celebrate this milestone year in true Hot Wheels style."

For a photo gallery of the making of a $140,000 Hot Wheel car, click here.