Does this sound familiar?
The holidays are over, and your children are bored with their latest toys - all of which are based on the latest TV shows and movies.
Mesmerized by television commercials, they had yearned for these plastic-and-electronic gizmos. But here they are: scraps on the toy heap.
What do the youngsters reach for instead? Maybe their old Brio )) wooden trains, or that Tinkertoy set that was passed down from older siblings. Legos, Barbie dolls, the Erector set, Lincoln Logs. Could it be the old Slinky fascinates?
If this has happened to you, rest assured you are not alone. Your children have demonstrated what child-development experts have long known - newer isn't necessarily better when it comes to toys.
As consumers once again flood toy stores in search of holiday gifts for their youngest relatives and friends, the smartest may be the ones who search for the familiar: the classic toys they played with as kids.
"Sometimes we get so caught up in the technology of today, we forget about the simple joys of playing with balloons or kites," says Dr. Stevanne Auerbach, author and toy-industry consultant. Kids get brainwashed by commercials. You need to get children back in touch with the old-fashioned."
Somebody must be listening to that advice, because toy retailers and manufacturers have already begun to see a much greater interest in the classics this year.
At Be Beep - A Toy Store, classic toys have become best sellers, says Jeff Franklin, owner of the stores in Severna Park and Annapolis. Old reliables like Brio trains and Playmobile play sets are enjoying a record year in sales at his stores.
"Parents are disappointed with the limited toys that are hyped on TV, and the child plays with [them] once or twice," says Franklin. "Classics have always been a substantial part of our business, but that part of our market is growing, too."
Sally Lesser, owner of Henry Bear's Park, a toy retailer in Cambridge, Mass., says parents have discovered that classic toys are a better value. Time-tested, the toys are certain to capture a child's imagination for years, she adds.
"Lights and sounds are helpful and fun - I can go for them - but the real value in play can usually be found in classic toys," says Lesser, who also serves as president of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association.
Whether it is baby boomer nostalgia or a backlash against the mass-market licensed products that still dominate toy sales, consumers are snapping up a variety of classic toys - some of which would be familiar to their great-grandparents.
Carol Wirth, director of the Timonium United Methodist Church nursery school, says it's easy to predict what her 180 pre-schoolers will want to play with every day: building blocks, kitchen toys, trucks, trains and puzzles - all toys that have been around for decades.
"My son is 10 and he still plays with Legos," she says. "Stick with the classics. These things are always popular."
At Chicago-based Radio Flyer Inc., two out of three of this season's top-selling wagons are old designs - the classic "Model 18" steel wagon and the "Town and Country," with the added wooden sides.
"Hot things come and go, but a Radio Flyer is something people can depend on," says Robert Basin, Radio Flyer's president and grandson of the 81-year-old company's founder. "It's a classic because it has intrinsic value."
In the northwest Pennsylvania town of Kane, Dick Bly restarted 10 years ago a classic toy company that went out of business in the mid-1960s. The company, named Holgate Toy, has seen steady growth each year since.
Doesn't sound familiar? Maybe you've heard of their maple wood creations: the Rocking Color Cone (a 1938 creation), the Bingo Bed (the peg bench created in 1934), or Jumbo Lacing Beads (a classic since 1948).
"Children are no different today than 60 years ago," says Bly. "They don't need the whistles and bells. They have imagination."
This year's holiday-buying season hasn't so far produced an overwhelming sales leader, a got-to-have-it toy on par with Tickle Me Elmo of two years ago or last year's Tamagotchi and Giga Pets. In this vacuum, classic toys are more apt to get noticed, says Alan Dorfman, president of Basic Fun Inc., a toy manufacturer in suburban Philadelphia.
Dorfman knows classic toys. In 1993, he started making miniature key-chain versions of popular classics like Colorforms, Monopoly and yo-yos. Business has been good. This year he expects to sell 10 million key chains.
"When in doubt, parents go back to the basics," he says. "They go to the proven item."
Classic toymakers say one characteristic that often distinguishes their products is simplicity of design. Another is that the toy was a best-seller - at least when first released - and then held on for 25 years or longer.
Exhibit A: Etch A Sketch, the mechanical drawing toy that was all the rage when it was first produced in 1960. Today, its sales are good enough to be described as "warm," but probably not "hot."
"Kids don't necessarily ask for us, but moms and grandmoms do," says Elena West, director of marketing at Ohio Art Co. in Bryan, Ohio, the toy's maker. "We have one of the simplest and most enjoyable toys. That's what makes it viable today."
Like some other classics, Etch A Sketch got a sales boost from the 1996 movie "Toy Story," in which it and a variety of other toys were the film's computer-animated stars. But for most, that was a temporary uptick.
More exciting for fans of classic toys is the public's rediscovery of the yo-yo, a classic if there ever was one. Duncan Yo-yo went bankrupt in 1965. But the product has inexplicably made a big comeback in the 1990s - thanks to Flambeau Products, which bought Duncan's brand name and still has the company's original plastic molds.
"I'm so glad they caught on again. I've been talking about them for 10 years," says Auerbach, author of "Dr. Toy's Smart Play: How to Raise a Child With High Play Quotient." "It's one of my absolute favorites."
Auerbach, who also writes a syndicated newspaper column about toys from her San Francisco home, says what turns a popular toy into a true classic is its ability to challenge a child developmentally.
A youngster might need his parents' help to play with Lincoln Logs at first. Later, he'll be able to build a cabin on his own. Perhaps months after that, he'll be able to use the interlocking logs to create bridges or other structures, Auerbach says.
Compare that to an action figure or video game tied in with a Saturday-morning TV show. Such toys call on children to play with them in a set way - imitating what they've seen on the tube - and that can get boring fast.
"You should look for durability and longevity in a toy," Auerbach says. "The toys that are hyped on TV usually don't have it."
Dr. Richard Chase, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, says the fact that classic toys address a child's developmental needs should put them high on holiday gift lists.
Even something seemingly as simple as a Slinky can instruct "restless young minds on how the world works through mechanical action," he says.
"Classics become classics because they are toys with complex and fulfilling play patterns," adds Chase, president of a New York consulting and toy-research firm, Child Growth and Development Corp.
"There's some unique quality in these products that have captured a child's imagination, their skill or their ability to feel good about themselves."
Chase says he senses that parents have a greater interest in classic toys, but he sees the movement as more an ocean ripple than a tidal wave. For the next six weeks, parents will still reach for the hot toys, but only a fraction of the toy industry's $22.5 billion in annual sales is expected to be spent on classics.
That's a shame, Chase says, because if parents were more discerning, the toy industry would probably be producing a better product.
"It's not the responsibility of the toy industry to bring people to a heightened understanding of how powerful play is as a medium of learning," he says. "What we need is a discriminating public."
An Expert Picks the Best:
Stevanne Auerbach, San Francisco-based author of a weekly syndicated column, "Dr. Toy," is a big fan of classic toys, but not all of them.
Barbie, the doll and American icon, is not on her list of recommended toys. Her complaint: Its unrealistic proportions (impossibly tiny waist and large chest) send the wrong message to young girls about their body image.
"Give me Raggedy Ann and Andy," she says.
Here's a sampling of her favorite classic toys and the age group for which they are recommended: (Complete lists for 1997 and 1998 are on her Web site: www.drtoy.com.)
Crayola Crayons (ages 3-11)
Jumbo Lacing Beads (2-4)
Lego FreeStyle Bucket (5-12)
Etch A Sketch (4-8)
Authors Card Game (8-12)
Ant Farm (6-12)
Erector Evolution II (8-12)
bTC Lionel Santa Fe Special Freight Set (8-12)
Brio Figure-8 set (3-7)
Measure UP! Cups (1-2)
Gazoobo (18 months-4 years)
Samantha Parkington doll (7-12)
Radio Flyer Classic Red Wagon (18 months-10 years)
Silly Putty (4-12)
Happy Accidents
The inventors of some of America's most popular classic toys have one thing in common: They had no idea what they were doing.
At least that's what David Hoffman discovered while researching his 1996 book, "Kid Stuff," a brief history of more than 40 classic toys from the Easy-Bake Oven to the Wiffle Ball and Monopoly.
"Nine times out of 10, it's just an accident," says Hoffman, a Southern California TV reporter and contributor to "Good Morning America." "Many of these were never even intended to be toys."
Take, for instance, Silly Putty, which was developed as a potential rubber substitute during World War II by a chemical engineer at General Electric. Only when the "bouncing putty" caught the attention of guests at New Haven, Conn., cocktail parties was it marketed as a novelty gift.
Then there was the marine engineer in Philadelphia who knocked a prototype spring off his desk and watched it walk end over end across the office floor. It wasn't meant as a toy - the spring was part of an instrument to measure horsepower on battleships - but the engineer was bright enough to see the possible new use.
In 1946, Richard James started his own company. More than a quarter-billion Slinkys later, it looks like a smart move.
"I don't think the '80s and '90s will produce classic toys the way the '50s and '60s did," says Hoffman. "That was a golden age."
Hoffman found other curious beginnings for classics. Lincoln Logs were invented by John Lloyd Wright (son of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright), who was inspired by the interlocking beams his father designed for Tokyo's Imperial Hotel. The Frisbee flying disc was named for the pie tins of the Frisbie Pie Co., which students at Yale University loved to toss around in the 1920s.
One characteristic classic toys are sure to have in common: Hoffman calls it the "wow factor." They caught on quickly once they were discovered and stayed popular.
"Everything that's hot today is gone tomorrow, but, meanwhile, Mr. Potato Head is 48 years old. Barbie is 40," says Hoffman, whose toy histories are being compiled by the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., into a traveling exhibit. "They just keep rolling along."
Pub Date: 11/15/98