95 Fun Facts About 90s Toys

Which 1995 Nintendo system displayed its games only in red and black?

The Virtual Boy flopped so fast that Nintendo dropped it in Japan within six months of its 1995 launch.

The name Tamagotchi combines the Japanese word for 'egg' with which English word?

Watch is the English half of the name, and Tamagotchi's success soon drew rival virtual pets such as Giga Pets.

Tamagotchi's two creators won a tongue-in-cheek 1997 Ig Nobel Prize in which field?

The Economics prize honoured Tamagotchi's creators "for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets."

Which 1997 keychain pet was Tamagotchi's battling counterpart for boys?

Digimon soon spread from keychains to video games such as Digimon World, released in 1999.

Which company created the Furby?

Tiger Electronics' Furby was so scarce at Christmas 1998 that resellers got hundreds for one.

What is the name of the language a brand-new Furby speaks?

Furbish came first: each Furby was programmed to swap in more English words over time, so it seemed to be learning to talk.

Which console grew from a failed Super Nintendo CD add-on?

The PlayStation deal collapsed in public: a day after Sony unveiled the add-on at CES 1991, Nintendo announced a rival deal with Philips.

Which US agency banned Furbies from its property in 1999 over recording fears?

The NSA memo lumped Furbies in with recording equipment, warning that the toys might repeat classified conversations they overheard.

In which US city did Beanie Babies first go on sale, in January 1994?

Chicago shops got the first Beanie Babies, and their maker sold only through small toy and gift stores, a limit on supply that fed the craze.

Who created Beanie Babies?

Ty Warner's toys made him a billionaire, but in 2014 he was sentenced to probation for hiding money in a secret Swiss bank account.

What are Beanie Babies stuffed with instead of conventional soft filling?

Plastic pellets were packed loosely, so the understuffed animals could move and be posed like real ones.

Which animal was Pinchers, one of the nine original Beanie Babies?

Pinchers the lobster was one of the first nine Beanie Babies, and once the maker began 'retiring' designs in 1996, collectors paid inflated prices for older ones.

At the height of the craze, Beanie Babies made up about a tenth of all sales on which website?

Collectors flipped Beanies on eBay for far more than retail, and rare retired designs fetched thousands of dollars.

Which toy company produced the original Tickle Me Elmo?

Tyco's giggling toy was nearly Tickle Me Taz, based on the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, before it became Elmo.

What animal was Tickles, the prototype toy that became Tickle Me Elmo?

Inventors Ron Dubren and Greg Hyman pitched the giggling monkey, and the toy company liked the tech but not the animal.

Which 1990 cheat cartridge did Nintendo fight in court, and lose?

Game Genie survived Nintendo's lawsuit because the court held that its changes vanished once it was unplugged, and a derivative work must be permanent.

Which talk show host showed Tickle Me Elmo on air in October 1996, boosting demand?

Peak demand and the stock shortages did not hit until nearly two months after her segment.

The name Pogs comes from a brand of what?

POG juice, a passionfruit-orange-guava blend, came with bottle caps that children were already using to play the game.

In Pogs, what is the heavier piece you throw onto the stack called?

Players hurl a slammer onto the stack and keep the caps that flip, which is why some schools banned the game as a form of gambling.

The 1990s Pogs craze spread across the US from which state?

Hawaii children had played the game since at least the 1930s, long before its 1990s revival.

Which engineer invented the Super Soaker?

Lonnie Johnson, an engineer working on heat-pump designs, got the idea when a homemade nozzle shot a spray of water across his bathroom.

What was the Super Soaker originally called when it went on sale in 1990?

The Power Drencher was renamed the Super Soaker in 1991 after design changes and a remarketing campaign, and it became a huge seller.

Which company originally sold the Super Soaker in 1990?

Larami took on the Super Soaker after its inventor, unable to afford production, had struggled to find a toy company partner.

Which English company first put Polly Pocket on shelves in 1989?

Bluebird Toys' founder, Torquil Norman, later spent his toy fortune rescuing London's derelict Roundhouse arts venue.

Which miniature toy line, marketed mainly to boys, came from the same British maker as Polly Pocket?

Mighty Max and Polly Pocket came from one British toymaker, whose miniature lines drove its meteoric growth in the early 1990s.

What feature did the 1990s Skip-It add to the ball on the end of its hoop?

Nickelodeon ads drilled the counter into a generation of kids, and the patent was filed by future Marvel boss Avi Arad.

The Talkboy recorder began as a prop in which 1992 film?

Writer John Hughes asked for the prop, and the retail version only took off after the voice changer was added in 1993.

What was the boy-targeted spin-off of Sky Dancers called?

Dragon Flyz got its own cartoon series, made with Gaumont, just as its creators also turned Sky Dancers into a TV show.

What happens on screen when a Giga Pet dies?

The average pet lasted about two weeks; testers found girls named theirs first while boys went straight to discipline.

Which game was bundled with the Game Boy in North America and Europe?

Nintendo planned to bundle Super Mario Land until Henk Rogers argued Tetris would sell the Game Boy far beyond traditional gamers.

Which Nintendo designer led the team behind the Game Boy?

Gunpei Yokoi favoured cheap, mature technology, which is why the Game Boy chose a monochrome screen and long battery life over colour.

Which magazine named the Nintendo 64 its 1996 'Machine of the Year'?

Time's 1996 Machine of the Year story said the Nintendo 64 had done to video gaming what the Boeing 707 did to air travel.

Which company made Micro Machines, the tiny vehicles with the fast-talking TV pitchman?

Galoob's Micro Machines grew into about half its business as the company recovered from losing almost $25 million in 1987.

K'Nex inventor Joel Glickman got the idea while playing with what at a wedding?

The rod-and-connector system reached Toys R Us in October 1992 and is still made in Hatfield, Pennsylvania.

Lego Mindstorms grew out of research at which university?

Lego Mindstorms grew from MIT Media Lab work pairing Lego with programming, and it was named after Seymour Papert's 1980 book Mindstorms.

What was the programmable brick in the first Lego Mindstorms kit called?

Adult hobbyists soon reverse-engineered the RCX brick's firmware and shared their own versions online.

The Koosh ball was named after what?

Scott Stillinger was teaching his kids to catch when he created the Koosh, named after the sound it made landing in his hand.

Which company introduced the original Littlest Pet Shop figures in 1992?

The first animals had magnets or moving parts and were aimed at kids who could not have real pets.

Which company first published the snapping-jaw game Crocodile Dentist in 1990?

Early versions had players pull the sore tooth with plastic pliers; pressing the teeth came later for younger kids.

Which company first published the Pokémon Trading Card Game in the United States?

After Wizards of the Coast brought the cards to North America, Pokémon card tournaments sprang up where players battled it out.

Which toy giant bought the Pokémon cards' US publisher in 1999?

Hasbro's purchase also brought it the role-playing game D&D, whose publisher TSR the card company had bought in 1997.

Who created Magic: The Gathering, released in 1993?

Richard Garfield was a maths PhD student trying to sell a board game when Peter Adkison urged him to design a portable card game instead.

Which company produced the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers toy line?

Bandai made the toys, and the show's success let Haim Saban build the Fox Family channel, which he sold to Disney in 2001.

Which company made the Street Sharks action figures promoted by the cartoon?

The show was retitled Dino Vengers Featuring Street Sharks in 1996 when a dinosaur team was added.

Troll dolls, which boomed again in the 1990s, were created by a woodcutter from which country?

Thomas Dam, a fisherman and woodcutter in Denmark, carved the first troll from wood as a gift for his daughter, inspired by Scandinavian folklore.

Which Toy Story character's action figures ran short one Christmas because Thinkway Toys could not meet demand?

Buzz Lightyear figures came from a small Canadian firm, because many manufacturers thought toys for the first CGI film were too risky. Disney's own licensing chief admitted she had underestimated him.

Which doll brand's 1990s Snacktime line was withdrawn after its motorized mouths chewed on children's hair and fingers?

Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime dolls were built to chew plastic snacks with a pair of one-way rollers. The line was withdrawn in January 1997 after a deal with safety regulators.

In 1993, the Barbie Liberation Organization swapped talking Barbies' voice boxes with those of which action figure?

G.I. Joe figures went back on store shelves with Barbie's voice, and the Barbies with his. The pranksters altered a reported 300 to 500 dolls to mock gender stereotypes.

Which school subject did 1992's Teen Talk Barbie call tough, drawing protests from educators?

Math class was the complaint, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics argued that it discouraged girls. The phrase was dropped from later dolls, and owners were offered an exchange.

Which Little Tikes ride-on outsold the Honda Accord and the Ford Taurus in the United States in 1991?

Cozy Coupe sales reached 500,000 a year by 1991, more than America's most popular real cars. Its designer had once worked at Chrysler.

Which Sega mascot's 1991 debut replaced Altered Beast as the pack-in title for American Genesis consoles?

Sonic was born from an in-house Sega contest to create a rival to Mario. Bundled with the console, his first game sold over 15 million copies.

Which fast-food chain recalled its Poké Ball toy containers in 1999 after an infant suffocated?

Burger King gave out the balls with toys tied to Pokémon: The First Movie. Pulled apart, each half was the right size to seal over a small child's nose and mouth.

Which 1998 party board game was first sold through Amazon and Starbucks, an unusual route for a game back then?

Cranium asks teams to draw, act, whistle and sculpt answers out of purple clay, on top of answering trivia questions.

Which historical doll line from Pleasant Company introduced Addy Walker, its first Black character, in 1993?

American Girl launched Addy with six books vetted by Black historians, and they sold over a million copies within a year.

Which classic drawing toy got a sales boost from a 12-second quick-draw duel with Woody in 1995's Toy Story?

Etch A Sketch's maker had to run its production line overtime after the cameo. A return in Toy Story 2 later lifted sales by 20 percent.

Which cartoon heroes' Playmates action figures, made since 1988, sold about $1.1 billion in four years?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures interested only one toymaker at first, a little-known California company. It produced around 400 different figures between 1988 and 1997.

In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the heroes' colossal assault vehicles lock together to form which giant humanoid robot?

Megazord was the Rangers' answer whenever a monster grew to giant size, which nearly all of them did. The show and its large toy line generated $1 billion in revenue by 1995.

Which Pokémon's cards from the trading card game's first release became the most desired, one later fetching $336,000?

Charizard cards shot up in price among collectors and retailers almost at once. Logan Paul even wore one around his neck to his fight with Floyd Mayweather.

Which Sega console, launched in North America in September 1999, was the first with a built-in modem for online play?

Dreamcast owners could go online years before that was normal on a console, and the machine is often called ahead of its time. It reached American stores priced at $199.

Which pop group's fashion dolls sold over 11 million across the Christmas seasons of 1997 and 1998?

Spice Girls dolls became the most popular celebrity dolls ever made. Ginger's wore her Union Jack dress, and its platforms were modelled on her real pair.

Which children's footwear, built from metal in the 1950s, came back in plastic as a Nickelodeon product?

Moon Shoes gained closed sides and bungee-style springs in the Nickelodeon version, a safety improvement on the open metal originals.

Which Barbie companion's 1993 Earring Magic edition, in a lavender mesh shirt, became that doll's all-time top seller?

Ken also wore a purple vest and an earring in his left ear, and gay men bought the doll in record numbers. Its makers said the demand took them by surprise.

Which classic toy, whose Duncan version entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999, enjoyed a boom in the late 1990s?

Yo-yo design had leapt forward in 1990, when the SB-2 became the first successful ball-bearing model.

Which 1984 film's creature Gizmo was sold as an interactive talking toy built in the style of the Furby?

Gremlins was one of several film tie-ins for the craze toy of 1998, alongside an interactive Yoda and an interactive E.T.

In the board game Don't Wake Daddy, players creep past a sleeping father on a midnight trip to which appliance?

Refrigerator raiders who land on a noise space must press the alarm clock beside Daddy's bed and hope that he stays asleep.

Which toy brand, born as a foam ball that was safe for indoor play, released the first foam dart blaster in 1992?

Nerf began when a Minnesota games inventor pitched an indoor game to Parker Brothers, and the publisher threw out everything except the foam ball.

What sticky kitchen ingredient fills Stretch Armstrong, the stretchy strongman reissued by Cap Toys in the 1990s?

Corn syrup inside a latex skin lets the figure hold a stretch briefly before shrinking back. The 1990s reissue added a stretchy dachshund sidekick called Fetch Armstrong.

Which film saga's action figures returned to toy stores in 1995 after a ten-year break in production?

Star Wars toys had paid off before: figure sales and other licensing deals let George Lucas finance the next two films of the original trilogy.

Which early-1990s fad was invented by Wisconsin teacher Stuart Anders and banned by several schools after injuries?

Slap bracelets hide a strip of springy stainless steel under the fabric, so they curl around a wrist when slapped. Knockoffs made with thinner steel could cut the wearer.

The Furby, a must-have toy after its October 1998 launch, is described as resembling which kind of bird?

Owl-like looks sold well: more than 40 million Furbies were bought during the toy's first three years of production.

Which German board game by Klaus Teuber, first published in 1995, has players trade resources to settle an island?

Catan was trimmed down from a much bigger design about exploring a new land. The ideas left over went into two of its designer's later games.

Which electronics giant's AIBO robot dog went on sale in June 1999 and sold out online within 20 minutes?

Sony chose a name that doubles as the Japanese word for pal or partner, and also stands for Artificial Intelligence Robot.

Which 1960s toy oven kit did New York company ToyMax bring back in 1992 after more than a decade off shelves?

Creepy Crawlers let children pour liquid Plasti-Goop into bug-shaped metal molds and bake it into rubbery critters.

Which pocket voice recorder from Yes! Entertainment was pitched in the mid-1990s as a cheaper rival to the Talkboy?

Yak Bak could record just six seconds of sound, captured by holding down a button marked Say while a light glowed.

In which 1990 dress-up board game do players collect jewelry in their own color while avoiding the black ring?

Pretty Pretty Princess was created in 1989 by designer Elizabeth Pacza. Spaces on the board tell players to take a piece of jewelry, or to give one back.

Crazy Bones, a late-1990s playground fad, were inspired by an ancient Greek game played with which animal's bones?

Sheep knucklebones were the playing pieces for children in ancient Greece and Rome. The plastic revival began in Spain in 1996 and reached American playgrounds two years later.

Which talking-book learning toy reached stores in 1999 after three years of development?

LeapPad went on to be the top toy in speciality stores in both 2001 and 2002, with sales of $160 million in the first of those years.

Nintendo's 1998 Pokémon Pikachu gadget strapped to a belt and rewarded its owner with watts for doing what?

Walking earned one watt for every twenty steps the gadget counted, and watts bought presents for Pikachu. Unlike other pocket pets, it never needed feeding or cleaning up after.

Which 1998 toy plane line from Canada's Spin Master began as a British prototype that everyone else had rejected?

Air Hogs began with a prototype by two British inventors that ran on compressed air. The Sky Shark model was an immediate hit when it arrived in spring 1998.

Which Nintendo 64 controller add-on arrived in 1997 bundled with the game Star Fox 64?

Rumble Pak made the controller shake in time with the action on screen. It went on sale by itself two months after the bundle.

Before inventing the Super Soaker, its creator helped develop the nuclear power source for which mission to Jupiter?

Galileo was one of several space projects he worked on at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which he joined in 1979 after leaving the military.

When Thunderbirds' Tracy Island playset sold out in 1992, which BBC children's show taught viewers to build their own?

Blue Peter showed how to make the island from household waste in January 1993, after shoppers had queued overnight outside toy shops for the real thing.

Pokémon's creator Satoshi Tajiri based the monster-catching idea on which childhood hobby of his?

Bug collecting was a passion he shared with friends, who swapped their finds. Seeing two Game Boys joined by a link cable gave him the idea of trading creatures.

Comic artist Todd McFarlane founded a toy company in 1994 to make detailed figures of which antihero he created?

Spawn figures came first, and the company later added licensed lines that ran from The Simpsons to horror icons such as Freddy Krueger.

Which comics publisher's toy license did Toy Biz hold from 1990 to 2006, after starting with DC figures in 1989?

Marvel's parent company bought a stake in Toy Biz in 1993. The toymaker was later renamed Marvel Toys.

Which mid-1990s Transformers series and toy line pitted Maximals against Predacons in place of Autobots and Decepticons?

Beast Wars gave its robots the forms of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and even dinosaurs. Its television series ran until 1999.

Which 1993 murder-themed board game has players spring traps such as the chandelier to claim a mansion's inheritance?

13 Dead End Drive lets players move pawns that are not their own, nudging rivals onto trap spaces to knock them out of the will.

Which Australian horror board game, first sold as Nightmare in some countries, is played along to a video cassette?

Atmosfear sold its two millionth copy within two years of its 1991 launch. Players win by collecting six different coloured keystones and beating the host.

Which bendable doll from the Ohio Art Company, released in 1998, had restylable hair and swappable hands and feet?

Betty Spaghetty came with two best friends, Zoe and Hannah, and a younger sister. The line was brought back with a new look in 2007.

Brain Quest, the question-and-answer card decks for schoolchildren, was created by a company from which country?

France knew the cards as Les P'tits Incollables, made by the company Play Bac. Workman Publishing licensed the English version.

Which die-cast car brand released Monster in My Pocket, a line of small soft plastic monsters, in 1990?

Matchbox ran into an outcry from Hindu groups, because deities such as Ganesha and Hanuman were sold as monsters.

Which toy, popularized in the late 1990s by Big Time Toys, was renamed after a trademark suit over boxing robots?

Socker Boppers were first sold in the 1970s, when they ranked among the ten top toys of the day.

Which 1992 game about a biplane pilot swooping at chicken tokens won Germany's children's game of the year award?

Loopin' Louie players press a lever to bat the plane back into the air before it knocks their chickens into the canal.

Which line of sports-star action figures, first sold from 1988 to 2001, was conceived by former NFL player Pat McInally?

Starting Lineup grew from baseball, football and basketball stars to boxers, golfers and ice skaters. McInally had the idea while visiting a toy store.

The Koosh ball, patented in 1987, is made of filaments of which natural material radiating from a steel-bound core?

Rubber strands, about 2,000 to a ball, radiate from the core, and the toy has been sold in many colour combinations.