Interesting Facts

A Star Wars toy cost £1.50 when it came out 35 years ago, and has sold at auction for £18,000. (Collector, Craig Stevens, from Croydon, bought the figure, which is of bounty hunter Boba Fett, still in its original packaging, for £50 in 1990. Before you go rummaging in your attic, the figure was in mint condition and in its original packaging.  In other words, no child had ever played with it.  Haven't these people seen Toy Story!) 

Play-doh was first manufactured to be used as a wallpaper cleaner. It was created by Noah McVicker of Cincinnati-based soap manufacturer Kutol Products. "Play-Doh" by Larry D. Moore © 2006 Larry D. Moore. Creative Commons 3.0 (It was a putty made of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil, formulated to remove soot and oily residue from wallpaper, but children at a nursery school in Cincinatti school had been using it as a modeling compound to make Christmas ornaments. McVicker's nephew, Joe McVicker, joined Kutol with the remit to save the company from bankruptcy; and saw the opportunity to completely remarket the product, and the rest, as they say, is history. The Toy Industry Association named Play-Doh in its "Century of Toys List" in 2003.  I do hope they gave that nursery school a free supply.)

Several shops selling toys in the UK have agreed to remove sexist labelling of girls' and boys' toys. (Following a campaign by a group called Let Toys Be Toys, a group of British parents who have been campaigning for a change in the way toys are marketed to boys and girls, Toys R Us, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Boots, The Entertainer and TK Maxx have all signed up. Toy manufacturer Lego, has also promised to review the way its toys are represented. As a child I was a bit of a tomboy; labelling and marketing never stopped me from playing with so called "boys" toys.)

Research from Washington and Lee University, in the US, suggests that dressing stereotypical girls toys - such as Barbie - in uniforms for stereotypically male fields - such as a firefighter or an astronaut - can influence whether girls view themselves as capable of working in those industries. (Firefighter and astronaut Barbie both exist.)

According to a survey carried out by Littlewoods.com, only 33% of parents in the UK read their child a bedtime story. (Some parents said that their children would much rather watch TV, play with toys or computer games, but 13 per cent blamed lack of time for not reading to them and 9 per cent said they were 'too stressed'. I was read to regularly, and it was part of my bedtime routine, in fact three quarters of the parents surveyed said they were read to every night of the week as children.)

Cluedo, the murder mystery game, is called Clue in North America. (It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England, and originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S. publisher Parker Brothers, and Waddingtons.)

Believe it or not, Kinder Surprise toys, Lego people, model soldiers, soft toys and toy cars are officially not ''citizens of Russia''. (This surprising announcement was made when a petition was presented to hold a protest rally with 100 Kinder Surprise toys, 100 Lego people, 20 model soldiers, 15 soft toys and 10 toy cars. In one of the best quotes this year, Andrei Lyapunov, a spokesman said, ''As you understand, toys, especially imported toys, are not only not citizens of Russia but they are not even people,'' 'Neither toys nor, for example, flags, plates or domestic appliances can take part in a meeting.'' Darn it! And there was me hoping to get all the neighbour's Hoovers round for the LEN AGM.) Source I've had a brilliant thought! They should set up a protest with matryoshka dolls. No one would dare deny their citizenship.

The Lego Show, which is being held at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, has sold more tickets to grown men than to families or kids. (Maybe they want to see the scale model of Westminster Abbey, complete with William and Kate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Queen etc. It is pretty amazing, but it was built by - adults.)

According to Mattel, around the world three Barbie dolls are sold every second. (That means 9 46,080,000, are sold each year, which makes $3.6 billion in annual sales.   In 1959, the year Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair, 300,000 dolls were sold.)

According to Google the top 12 toys for Christmas 2010 are: City Airport, Lego UK Fireman Sam Deluxe Fire Station Playerset Fur real Go Go Walking Pup, Hasbro Jet Pack Buzz Lightyear, Mattel UK Kidizoom VideoCam, VTech Monopoly Revolution, Hasbro Moon Dough Barn, Spinmaster Toys UK Nerf N Strike Stampede ECS, Hasbro Paper Jamz Guitar, Wow Wee Europe Pumpaloons, Drumond Park Sylvanian Families Caravan, Flair Zhu Zhu Grooming Salon, Character Options This was like reading gobbledygook to me.  What on earth are Pumpaloons?!)

Barbie has five sisters, called Skipper, Tutti, Stacie, Kelly and Krissy. (None of them have the ludicrous measurements that Barbie has. In fact poor old Barbie is under pressure. Bratz, a new style of doll based on street fashion, are now outselling the 44-year-old, who had been queen of dolls ever since sales were first monitored a decade ago.) Listen to this week's round up:- powered by ODEO