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Toys, Toycoons, and Toons
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18362 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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9 / 1990 |
2,518 Words |
| Author
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Nina Mehta
Nina Mehta is a free-lance book reviewer and writer. She lives
in New York. |
TOYLAND
The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry
Sidney Ladensohn Stern and Ted Schoenhaus
Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990
39 pp., $19.95, hardcover
THE STORY OF AMERICAN TOYS
From the Puritans to the Present
Richard O'Brien
New York: Abbeville Press, 1990
252 pp., $49.95, illustrated, hardcover
Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
You have desire to purchase
---Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
“He who dies with the most toys wins.” This may be the battle cry of sparring children, despots, and an occasional financier, but not of the toy industry. Experienced hands in the toy world know that most new products in this $12 billion-a-year industry will not survive more than a season or two on the shelves of toy stores.
Yet incredibly enough, a new startup company recently provided the No. 1 hit toy two Christmas seasons in a row. In 1985, its first year of business, Worlds of Wonder (WOW) produced a talking bear named Teddy Ruxpin. WOW reaped $8 million in profits on sales of $93 million. Sales tripled in WOW's second year, led by the success of Lazer Tag, a game in which opponents
... (1995 of 15340 Characters)
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