50 Fun Facts About 90s Toys

Which Japanese toymaker launched the Tamagotchi in 1996?

The company had released the ill-fated Apple Pippin console just months earlier; the egg did rather better.

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

In Japan the name is sometimes written Tamagotch, without the final i, to match the original English spelling.

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

The citation dubbed Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita the father and mother of the toy.

How many buttons does a classic egg-shaped Tamagotchi have?

Those three buttons were enough to feed, clean and scold a pet through every stage of its short life.

Which company created the Furby?

Inventors Dave Hampton and Caleb Chung spent nine months building it after nine months of design work.

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

The toy gradually swaps those words for English, a trick designed to look like it is learning from its owner.

In which year did the Furby first go on sale?

Only 1.8 million shipped that first holiday season, then 14 million the following year.

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

The toy's owner replied that Furby had absolutely no ability to do any recording whatsoever.

Roughly how many Furbies sold during the toy's original three-year production run?

Its speech was translated into 17 languages, and it is often called the first successful home robot.

Who created Beanie Babies?

He founded Ty Inc. in 1986 and deliberately restricted supply to small gift shops to build scarcity.

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

The under-stuffing is what lets the animals flop and pose, and it is where the name comes from.

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

Some early tags misprinted the name as Punchers, which only made those versions more collectible.

At the height of the craze, what share of eBay's sales were Beanie Babies?

People flipped them for as much as ten times retail, earning the toys the title of the first Internet sensation.

Which fast-food chain sold miniature Teenie Beanies with its kids' meals?

The 1996 promotion marked the Happy Meal's 17th anniversary and caused its own round of shortages.

Which toy company produced the original Tickle Me Elmo?

The company only held the plastic-toy license for Sesame Street at first, so the project briefly became Tickle Me Taz.

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.

By the end of 1996, scalpers were reselling Tickle Me Elmo for up to how much?

The doll's official price was $28.99, and reports of violence over the limited supply made national news.

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 Hawaiian brand of what?

POG stood for passionfruit, orange and guava, and kids played with the drink's bottle caps before anyone sold the game.

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

Metal versions were banned in many games because they damaged the caps and gave the first player an unfair edge.

The 1990s Pogs revival is credited to a schoolteacher in which US state?

Blossom Galbiso used the caps in her fifth-grade math lessons in 1991 as a non-violent alternative to dodgeball.

Which engineer invented the Super Soaker?

He had the idea in 1985 while testing a refrigeration system and built the prototype from PVC pipe and a soda bottle.

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

The 1991 rename came with a TV campaign that sold two million water guns in a single season.

Which company originally sold the Super Soaker in 1990?

The inventor pitched it to the company's vice president at the New York Toy Fair, then sealed the deal in Philadelphia.

In which year was the original Bop It released?

Designer Bob Welch also provided the voice that barks the commands on that first version.

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

Mattel distributed the line in the early 1990s and bought both the brand and the company outright in 1998.

Roughly how tall were the original Polly Pocket figurines?

The compact-style cases snapped shut into a dollhouse, and the dolls folded in the middle to fit inside.

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.

Sky Dancers, the pull-string flying dolls, were recalled in 2000 after how many reported injuries?

Nearly 10 million were pulled; the foam wings had not prevented facial cuts and cases of temporary blindness.

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

The original dolls launched for Christmas 1994 and even spawned a 26-episode animated series in France.

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?

The puzzle pack-in pulled in adults who had never touched a Nintendo, and Pokémon kept the handheld alive a decade later.

Which Nintendo designer led the team behind the Game Boy?

His philosophy of using mature, cheap technology explains the monochrome screen and the marathon battery life.

How many controller ports did the Nintendo 64 have built in?

That made four-player GoldenEye and Mario Kart possible without an adapter, a big selling point against the PlayStation.

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

The citation said the console 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?

The line ran from 1987 through the 1990s and included Star Wars, Star Trek and Power Rangers sets.

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, launched in 1998, grew out of research at which university's Media Lab?

The yellow-and-black programmable brick was styled like construction equipment to appeal to 10-to-14-year-old boys.

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

Adult hobbyists reverse-engineered its firmware within weeks, and Lego briefly considered cease-and-desist letters.

The Koosh ball was named after what?

Scott Stillinger patented the 2,000-filament rubber ball in 1987, and the line later stretched to keyrings and yo-yos.

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.

What record does 1992's Totally Hair doll hold in its famous fashion-doll line?

Her 11.5-inch hair reached her toes, and more than ten million dolls sold worldwide.

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?

The Base Set landed on January 9, 1999, and 400,000 packs sold in under six weeks.

Which toy giant paid $325 million in 1999 for the Pokémon cards' US publisher?

The publisher had made more from Pokémon in a few years than from Magic: The Gathering in its first decade.

Who created Magic: The Gathering, released in 1993?

It was the first trading card game anyone had published, and by 2023 it had around fifty million players.

Which company produced the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers toy line?

Toys, tours and merchandise pushed the franchise past $1 billion in revenue by 1995.

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 carved them for his own children, and the brand eventually became DreamWorks' Trolls films.