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I'm Chris Byrne, I'm an independent toy analyst and historian.
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I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.
0:09
This is Toy Support at Addie915 says, why are they called teddy bears?
0:16
Like, is it short for Theodore or what?
0:17
Actually, the teddy bear is named for Theodore Roosevelt.
0:20
And in 1905, Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a baby bear on a hunting trip.
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It was turned into a cartoon.
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Morris Michtom of the Ideal Toy Company saw that.
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He wrote to Teddy Roosevelt and said, "Can I make that teddy bear?"
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And that's how the teddy bear came along.
0:42
Now, that's not the only story, because Steiff, which is a German plush company, also said that they made teddy bears at the same time.
0:44
So that's one of those historic conflicts, but at the end of the day, the teddy bear is still named for Theodore Roosevelt.
0:55
At Mtagney says, "Just seen a commercial of a toy that pooped.
0:55
How do toy makers come up with these dumb ideas?"
0:57
There is millions of dollars that's been made with poop toys over the years, whether it's a Magic Toilet where the poop disappears or it's a pooping dog.
1:05
This is comedy if you're 3 years old, consistent with the Freudian anal stage as children are discovering their bodies.
1:13
So for example, when Baby Alive first came out, Baby Alive was designed to replicate a real child.
1:21
We'd seen Tiny Tears that cried.
1:28
We'd seen Betsy Wetsy that wet, but suddenly there was a mechanism that allowed the doll to have solid food put in and it came out into the diaper.
1:30
So for a child, that was really important because they were understanding their bodies at the time, but they also got to nurture in the way that they were being nurtured in changing the babies.
1:41
It's a very short road from that to dogs that poop, to monkeys that poop, to kangaroos that poop, and poop is funny.
1:48
At Keith L wants to know how different do prototypes usually end up being from final product?
1:54
Usually, when people are developing toys, they start with two different models: a looks like model, which is often done today with 3D printing, and a works like model, which is a mechanism.
2:05
So when those two things move together, very often that's used as the basis for the manufacturing.
2:10
So the prototype may go through many different iterations and revisions as you're getting to the final product, but when you get a final prototype, that's almost the complete toy.
2:20
At Keegan Tindle asks, for ages 18 and up, how do they decide that for toys?
2:25
Are they giving it to younger and younger kids until something really bad happens?
2:29
No, there are elaborate testing mechanisms that happen for kids of all different ages, and because of the way children's bodies develop, you can have a mechanism that measures the size of a child's air pipe, and then when it gets to eight and up, there's also the cognitive development.
2:45
There is the 'is my child intellectually ready for this?'
2:48
And so it's a real good guideline, but definitely for younger kids, you want to pay attention to those age gradings for what kids can do and what's most safe.
2:56
At Toby Teac wants to know, how can you use math to design a toy?
3:00
Toy design is almost all engineering, so it's almost all math, and you need to figure out the tolerances of plastic, and that's chemistry and physics put together.
3:09
So you really need to understand the different levels of math so that you can engineer a toy effectively, so it'll stand up under pressure, it'll pass safety regulations, and of course, it'll be fun.
3:22
At The 71 Legacy says, "Do kids still play with action figures?"
3:24
Yes, they do.
3:27
Action figures are huge.
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This is one of the most iconic action figures of all time.
3:32
This is Optimus Prime from Hasbro.
3:39
The term action figure was actually coined when Hasbro introduced G.I. Joe, and one of the things they brought G.I. Joe to market for was to be a boy toy that competed with Barbie, which by 1964 was doing pretty well.
3:47
So any toy really targeting largely a boy audience based on a TV show, or that is a figure, or that's a doll, is called an action figure.
4:01
But then there's also the concept of the "cadal."
4:03
These are adults who are still collecting action figures.
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They're the ones who are driving toy lines like McFarlane.
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They're the ones who are insisting on much more detail in the Marvel or DC action figures.
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So yes, action figures are still a big part of the toy industry and a big part of people's lives.
4:12
At Lizzy Bob Bizy says, "Who is Rubik and why do we have his cube?"
4:12
In the 1970s, Ernő Rubik designed Rubik's Cube as a way of helping to teach math.
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What was unique about it is the mechanism inside that allows the cube to turn in different directions on different planes very easily and fluidly.
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Rubik's Cube also became kind of synonymous with intelligence.
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A kid who could solve Rubik's Cube and could solve it fast, or could solve it with their feet, was really considered a genius.
4:48
It's become a phenomenon within the context of brain puzzles throughout the years, and there have been many other Rubik's puzzles that have come through the years.
4:58
At Bar Stools says, "How is the Pet Rock ever a fad?"
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The thing about a fad is nobody sees it coming.
5:03
Nobody can predict a fad.
5:06
The thing about a Pet Rock was that it came at a specific time, at a specific point in our culture.
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It was the whimsical nature of the manual that came with it, which is, you could teach your rock to do tricks.
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So it just touched a nerve.
5:22
I think Johnny Carson had it on The Tonight Show, and it just became this running gag in the country, and that's how a fad is born.
6:01
At Hall 31 says, "Why were Beanie Babies popular?
6:01
I don't get it."
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I don't get it either, but they were.
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Beanie Babies were introduced in the '90s, but it was really when they came into the later '90s and the 2000s that it became collectible, and people really thought, as Ty Warner decided to discontinue some of the Beanie Babies, that they would grow in value.
6:01
So that Peanut the Blue Elephant would be worth $2,000.
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A $5.99 toy worth $2,000, that doesn't really happen very often, but that didn't stop people from believing it, and Beanie Babies created an entire industry around collecting them.
6:01
We've seen those kind of phenomenon in history, probably the biggest one was the Tulip Craze in the 17th century, when one tulip bulb would be worth what a family could make in a year.
6:16
So we really do see this as happening within human civilization from time to time: you get a craze, we don't know why it happens, it takes off, and then it dies.
6:26
At Withered BB Film says, "I will never understand how Transformer toys are designed, especially in such high numbers."
6:32
The really amazing thing about Transformers, I'm going to bring my friend Optimus back in here for this, these were originally made by Takara, and it was all about robots transforming.
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It was a very Japanese concept.
6:49
It's really an engineering tour de force when they do all of these, the different plastic pieces that fit together and fold up.
6:51
This one particularly is done with a process called injection molding.
6:54
So you have two halves of a mold, and literally what happens is when it's in the machine, liquid plastic is shot into the mold and it takes on the shapes you see here.
7:05
That's why precise molding is really important, and molds are very expensive.
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Molds also have a life cycle, so they have to keep redoing them, so it really is a way of getting the plastic into a shape.
7:16
But with Transformers, it's doubly hard because not only do you get into the shape, but it has to move in a specific way, and there's not a lot of room for mistakes in this.
7:23
At Chloe Sullivan PR says, "Imagine what kids' toys will be like in 50 years' time."
7:28
I don't think it's too difficult to imagine that because children don't change that much as a species.
7:36
We don't evolve quite that fast.
7:38
The toys will reflect things that are going on in the culture, but we'll still need the basics for developing eye-hand coordination, developing gross motor skills, interacting socially.
7:47
What's changed toys really in the last 40 years has been the evolution of chips.
7:47
So for example, the original Furby had the same chip in it that powered the Apple II computer.
7:47
As chips get more and more sophisticated, you're going to see the toys able to do more, and the big question in 2023 is how is AI going to impact toy design?
7:47
At Sank 64 says, "Whenever I watch Disney and see commercials for toys, I think all of these toys are plastic.
7:47
How are toy companies creating more sustainable toys or at least recyclable toys?"
7:47
The most sustainable toy is the one that never gets thrown out.
7:47
Something like LEGO is completely sustainable because it gets passed down from kid to kid.
7:47
However, there are a lot of experiments going on with toys made from sustainable materials.
8:34
There's a lot of wood coming in toys, and then because plastic is endemic to toys, you're also seeing things like less packaging, companies reducing the lights in their factories.
8:49
So it's highly, highly considered in toy companies right now, and they're looking to see what the next best practice is.
8:49
At Lonard Naut says, "Also, how does LEGO do quality control?
8:49
How is every single piece perfect and how do you never miss a piece from the set?"
8:49
It's amazing.
8:49
The thing about LEGO is that they have an entire company dedicated to just that, to quality control, to the kind of ABS plastic that they use, to the way in which the pieces fit together and stay together, to the way in which things are designed.
8:49
They have an entire model shop that tries these things out, and it really is their brand identity.
8:49
At Pae says, "I'm so interested in recalled toys.
8:49
It's so interesting, like I honestly kind of want that one rollerblade Barbie from 1993 where her skates literally have lighters in them so they spark when she moves."
9:37
You might want that and you might be able to find it, but it probably wasn't safe.
9:41
Toy recalls are actually rare because toys go through such comprehensive testing before they ever go to market.
9:48
But every once in a while, something comes through, there's a part that's not right, or there's different things that happened to it.
9:53
When I was working with CBS Toys, we had a creative playthings wooden gym.
10:01
The steps on the ladder were too close together, so if a child stuck their head in it, we never thought they would, it could actually get stuck.
10:01
So you recall that so you can fix that part and then reissue the toy.
10:01
At Chill Candace says, "The real question is how did Hasbro make so much money off a Potato Head?
10:01
That's crazy, who would have thought a potato would be a classic toy?"
10:21
LOL.
10:21
It was one of the first toys to be advertised on television.
10:24
Probably nobody.
10:26
In 1952, when it first came out, the original Mr. Potato Head just had the body, and on top of the body was a spike, and that spike you used to impale a real potato on and then you decorated it with eyes, nose, mouth, pipe.
10:39
It was something that if Captain Kangaroo had it on, it was going to be a phenomenon because at the time almost every kid in America was watching Captain Kangaroo, but it was really something that caught the imagination of kids.
10:39
At Blue Dragon 211 says, "I remember, but how many remember the Cabbage Patch doll chaos of 1983?"
10:39
Cabbage Patch dolls in 1983 became so popular because they really made that amazing transition that happens every once in a while when you go from a toy designed for kids to a cultural phenomenon.
10:39
By Xavier Roberts, they were original Appalachian artwork.
10:39
They were kind of inspired by apple dolls, and then when Kenner got them, they made them with plastic faces.
10:39
One of the things that made Cabbage Patch dolls unique was that you didn't own it, you adopted it, and each doll came with adoption papers that you had to fill out and send back into the toy company.
10:39
It was the scarcity and the fact that trying to find them that really drove the phenomenon.
10:39
So having it became as important as playing with it.
10:39
At J Hamlet wants to know, has any business ever taken advantage of rights licensing across every genre more effectively than Funko Pop?
10:39
It's startling just how deep they go.
10:39
That's absolutely true.
10:39
For somebody who might not be familiar with Funko Pop, they really came out of the whole urban vinyl movement, which started in Japan, and it was all about collectibles based on either anime figures or entertainment figures.
11:52
Funko Pop has a very unique look, it's got the larger head, the smaller body, and when you look at it, you know that's a Funko Pop.
12:10
That made it perfect for licensing, so you can interpret Mickey Mouse, you can interpret Harry Potter, you can interpret pretty much anything.
12:22
Cher if you want to, and the one thing it has in common is everybody knows it's Funko.
12:22
At Lily Bailey UK says, "Tell me how old you are by telling me your favorite toy fad."
12:33
Well, it's right here, it's Mr. Machine.
12:33
In 1960, this transformed the toy industry.
12:33
You could extensively take apart and put back together.
12:33
You wound him up, he was so popular every kid had to have him.
12:33
The whole appeal of taking apart Mr. Machine was that robots were very popular during the '50s and in popular entertainment.
12:33
The problem was kids would get it apart, they couldn't get it back together, and guess what, it didn't come with instructions to put it back together.
12:55
At DGN Mree says, "I wonder how toy collectors decide what to keep in box and what to unbox."
13:05
If you are hoping that your toy is going to appreciate in value, you're going to leave it in the box, and you're going to have to take care of that box too, because the state of the box does contribute to the value of the toy.
13:11
Every once in a while, you'll come across a mint inbox 1959 Barbie, and that's worth about $6,000 depending on where you get it.
13:22
But then I always ask, what happened to the child?
13:24
At Terry Bradshaw says, "Is there anyone here that collects McDonald's toys from the Happy Meal?
13:28
I'm sure it's worth something."
13:29
Collecting Happy Meal toys or any fast food toys is a huge subset of the toy industry.
13:35
You will find conventions, you will find collectors, you will find websites.
13:39
They really do have a value within that community.
13:43
I have two versions here of Woody that came with the Burger King meals in 1995 when it came out, and it was a phenomenon.
13:51
These are still very rare and highly collectible, and I'm not going to open them because that would diminish their value.
13:57
At JRN Merchant wants to know, how does one get into the toy industry, specifically toy design, asking for a friend?
14:03
I love this question because one of the things the toy industry needs desperately is more designers.
14:10
So there are two great programs, one at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and then one at Otis College of Design in Los Angeles.
14:19
Now, you don't necessarily need to go to college to be able to do this.
14:21
A lot of people have industrial design backgrounds, a lot of people have animation backgrounds, and really it's about team and bringing your unique skills to the table.
14:31
That's all the questions.
14:33
Hope you learned something fun about toys.
14:34
Until next time.