Do kids still play with toys? Yes, MY toys!

The other day, one of my sons asked a seemingly silly question: do kids still play with toys? 

At first, I thought the question was weird, but as he explained, with all the electronic games and online distractions available, do kids still want and use hands-on toys? The teachers in the room assured my son that they did, but that got me thinking about what kids played with. So, since I was in need of a blog topic and had absolutely nothing else to do, I went to a toy store to get an idea of what kids today play with. 

As it turns out, a great many of the most popular toys for kids are simply updated versions of the same toys I played with as a kid. 

The 1960s were the golden age of toys, the best of which will still be found under millions of Christmas/holiday trees. Etch-A-Sketch first came out in 1960; Easy Bake Oven in 1963; Creepy Crawlers and G.I. Joe in 1964; Spirograph in 1967; Lite Brite in 1968. They are all still around and selling. (I got a G.I. Joe for Christmas one year, which my brothers mocked by calling it Dolly Joe. But then, nobody mocked the same brother when he got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas!)

Then there are the toys that have become mini-industries on their own. Take Nerf, for example.

Nerf began as a simple foam rubber ball, first introduced in 1969. It was a smash hit, selling four million that year, remarkable for something that could not smash anything. It took another 10 years before somebody thought, ‘Hey, let’s take this sweet little toy and put it in a gun!’ Now, Nerf is a billion-dollar brand with a staggering arsenal of weapons, with names like Vortex and Firevision and Centurion Blaster. If the Russian army had Nerf guns, they would have beaten Ukraine months ago.

An original 1968 Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels came out in 1968 with 16 models. An estimated six billion have sold since, with about 130 new models released every year. It’s no longer just a toy, but a massively popular collector’s item, another way of saying grown men playing with toys.   

Tart Barbie

As the father of three boys, I never had to prowl the pink aisle for girls’ toys. But even today, the undisputed queen of toyland is Barbie, who made her debut in 1959 as an impossibly proportioned, kinda trampy looking chick. Today, Barbie is a pop culture – I hate this word, but here it is appropriate –  “icon”. There are more than 170 different Barbie dolls; Toys ‘Backwards R’ Us has 234 items for sale under the word Barbie. Next year, a Barbie movie will be released, with Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. I smell an Oscar!

How I remember Monopoly

When it comes to spinning money from one idea, nothing beats Monopoly. Since its first sale in 1935, Monopoly has spun off into hundreds – or by some counts, thousands – of variations. There’s a Britney Spears set,  a Law & Order version,  a Fortnite edition, a Schitt’s Creek game, even a Wakanda Forever set. Basically, if you’ve made any kind of pop culture impact, there’s a Monopoly version. I’m hoping that there will soon be a Donald Trump version, where all the spaces are ‘Go to Jail’.

Modern Monopoly

So to answer my initial question – yep, kids still play with toys, basically the same toys I played with (minus Barbie, although I did have a G.I. Joe). So Merry Christmas, kids and parents. Enjoy your Barbie Monopoly game with Hot Wheels characters.