Beanie Babies

Beanie Babies

Sizzle the Bear, one of many teddy bear varieties of Beanie Babies
Type Stuffed toy
Inventor (Ty Warner)
Company Ty Inc.[1]
Availability 1993–1999, 2000–present

Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed animals, made by Ty Warner Inc., which was later renamed as Ty Inc. in November 1991. Each toy is stuffed with plastic pellets (or "beans") rather than conventional stuffing (see PVC and PE), giving Beanie Babies a flexible feel. In a rare interview Warner said "The whole idea was it looked real because it moved."[2] During the latter half of the 1990s the toy emerged as a major fad.[3]

History

Nine original Beanie Babies were launched in 1993: Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Dolphin, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the Bear (later renamed "Cubbie"), and Pinchers the Lobster (with some tag errors with "Punchers"). They were not in factory production until 1994.[4][5] Sales were slow at first to the point that by 1995 many retailers either refused to buy the products in the bundles TY offered them while others outright refused to buy them in any form [6] The popularity soon grew however. first starting locally in Chicago before growing into a national craze.[6]

In 1996, Ty Inc. released a new product called Teenie Beanies, a miniature offshoot of the original Beanie Babies line. They were sold alongside McDonalds Happy Meals to celebrate that product's 17th anniversary.[2]

Ty, Inc. stopped producing the product in December 1999, but consumer demand led them to reconsider.[2] Production restarted in 2000 with a Beanie Baby named "The Beginning."

In early 2008, Ty released a new version of Beanie Babies was called Beanie Babies 2.0. The purchase of a Beanie Baby 2.0 provided its owner with a code to access a Beanie Babies interactive website. The website is no longer able to be seen, as it shut down.

Collectibility

Beanie Babies began to emerge as popular collectibles in late 1995, and became a hot toy.[7] The company's strategy of deliberate scarcity, producing each new design in limited quantity, restricting individual store shipments to limited numbers of each design and regularly retiring designs, created a huge secondary market for the toys and increased their popularity and value as a collectible.[2]

Ty systematically retired various designs, and many people assumed that all "retired" designs would rise in value the way that early retirees had. The craze lasted through 1999 and slowly declined after the Ty company announced that they would no longer be making Beanie Babies and made a bear called "The End".[8] Some time after the original announcement that the company would stop production, Ty asked the public to vote on whether the product should continue; fans and collectors voted "overwhelmingly" to keep the toys on the market.[2]

At its height of popularity people would flip Beanies at as much as 1,000% on Ebay [9] Indeed, at the height, Beanies made up 10% of Ebay's sales.[10] Some collectors insured their purchases for a price in the thousands[9] In an extreme case a murder was committed because of the dolls.[9]

Warner was keenly aware that the Beanie Babies bubble could burst and eventually started forcing retailers receiving the latest Beanies to also stock other products lines by his company. None of these lines did as well as Beanie Babies although they kept the company alive after the fad ended and eventually some became successful in their own right.[9]

Design

Beanie Babies are deliberately under stuffed. This led to a criticism that the toys looked "cheap" [11] however this set them apart from most stuff animals on the market which couldn't be posed easily.[11] Ty Warner has said that this understuffing method made the toys look "real" [11]

Another important design element is that of the tag. Since the beginning, Beanie Babies have included two tags for identification: a heart-shaped "swing tag" at the top, and a fabric "tush tag" at the bottom. Both tags have been redesigned completely over time. Between 1994 and 1996, the swing tags had "To" and "From" blanks in them for use as gifts. Starting in early 1996, the tags include four-line poems related to the Beanie Baby, and a date of birth for the toy. The poem and birthday concept was created by Lina Trivedi who is credited as authoring the poems on the first 136 poems that were introduced to the marketplace.[12][13][14]

It was not uncommon for Beanie Babies to be accidentally shipped out with incorrect or misspelled tags, which sometimes increased the toy's value. On occasion, the poems, birth dates and even the names have been changed on certain Beanie Babies.[15]

Notable Beanie Babies

Main article: List of Beanie Babies

Garcia the bear

Garcia the bear was released in January 1996 and retired in May 1997. He is a tie-dyed bear that seems to be a tribute to Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, designed by Nicholas Scarborough. A group of differently colored dancing bears, originally artwork from the back of an album cover, was one of the band's many iconic images. The guitarist and the bear share a birthday, but the bear was supposedly "born" the date that Jerry died (August 9, 1995). The fast retirement for this Beanie Baby was due to an alleged lawsuit that the Garcia family filed against the Ty company, claiming that the name "Garcia" was used without permission from the family. In cooperation with the lawsuit, Garcia was retired and a similar bear named Peace was released. Peace has a peace sign, while Garcia does not.

The bright colors on Garcia the bear made him one of the most popular Beanie Baby styles.[16]

Princess the bear

Diana, Princess of Wales died on August 31, 1997. Warner announced the Beanie Baby Princess on October 29, 1997 in honor of Princess Diana.[17] Warner said that all proceeds would be donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. The Princess Diana Beanie Baby was sent to vendors to distribute in the second week of December 1997. Some vendors had to wait until February 1998. Only 12 Beanie Baby Princesses were released to each vendor initially, but this changed due to strong demand.

Decade the bear

Decade the bear

Decade the bear was made in honor of Beanie Babies' tenth anniversary. Decade bears were made in white, royal blue, red, purple, orange, hot pink, green, gold, brown, and light blue. Most Decade bears have silver sparkles on their bodies. It was made in 2003.

Tabasco the bull

Named after Tabasco sauce. The name was changed to "Snort" to avoid trademark infringement. Tabasco has all red "feet" while Snort has all white. The poem stayed the same.

Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant

Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant is one of the most notable of the Beanies. It first started production in 1995 as a royal blue color. Then, Ty noticed that the fabric coloring was wrong, and that it needed to be light blue, so they started the light blue version and stopped the royal blue. They made the royal blue until his retirement in 1999.[18]

Counterfeit Beanie Babies

Ty copyright infringement. Photograph submitted to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on first page of the appendix depicting Ty's Beanie Baby: "Squealer" (Top) and GMA's stuffed animal: "Preston the Pig" (Bottom)

Counterfeit Beanie Babies began to surface in 1997. Early on, cheap knock-offs and fakes of commons were widely available at discount prices.[19]

Cases

Authorities cracked down on counterfeit Beanie Babies in the late 1990s with some prosecuted for involvement in their commerce. In 1998, English authorities seized more than 6000 Princesses and Britannias.[20] In 1999, a Minnesota man was imprisoned, fined, and put on probation for involvement in smuggling counterfeit beanies.[21]

Media

During the wake of Beanie Babies' success, Beanie Baby-centric publications were issued. One of the largest was Mary Beth's Bean Bag World, a monthly magazine dedicated to Beanie Babies and competing plush toys. This magazine ran from 1997 to 2001.[22]

Licensed Beanies

In the late 2000s, Beanie Babies modeled after characters from popular children's franchises by Nickelodeon, DreamWorks and Paramount began appearing. These included characters from cartoons on the Nickelodeon television channel such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, as well as characters from DreamWorks Animation movies such as Shrek the Third and 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Beanie Babies have also been produced for characters from Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole and Guardians of Ga'Hoole book series. Recently Beanie Babies modeled after Disney characters have been created, including characters from the Disney Junior TV series Doc McStuffins.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Halbfinger, David M. (1999-03-12). "On the Trail of a Beanie Burglar". The New York Times.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Smith, Bryan (May 2014). "Behind the Beanie Babies: The Secret Life of Ty Warner". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  3. ↑ Chupka, Kevin. "Beanie Babies: Whatever happened to Millennials' favorite toy?". Yahoo! Finance. Yahoo. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  4. ↑ Amy Carr (August 14, 1997). "Those Beanies are still hot, and there's no sign of the frenze slowing down". Daily Herald. Punchers the red lobster. Originally introduced in 1993 at a toy fair, Punchers was redesigned in 1994 and renamed Pinchers.
  5. ↑ The Perfect Store: Inside eBay via Google Books
  6. 1 2 Bissonnette, Zach. "How A Blue Elephant Named Peanut Sparked The Beanie Baby Craze". Buzzfeed. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  7. ↑ "Ty Beanie Baby Beanies News". Aboutbeanies.com. Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  8. ↑ "Ty Beanie Baby Beanies News". Aboutbeanies.com. Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Berr, Johnathin. "How the Great Beanie Baby Bubble Went Bust". The Fiscal Times. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  10. ↑ VanderMey, Anne. "Lessons from the great Beanie Babies crash". Fortune. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 Symington, Steve. "3 Business Lessons From Ty Warner, the Beanie Babies Billionaire". Motleyfool. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  12. ↑ Wolkoff, Melanie (December 2000). "The Girl With The Midas Touch, What Lina Trivedi Touches Turns to Gold – Just Ask Ty Warner". Mary Beth's Bean Bag World (H&S Media Incorporated) 4 (3): 56–59. ISSN 1520-7005.
  13. ↑ Van West, Patricia E. (September 1999). "Lina Trivedi – The First Beanie Poet & Webmaster". Becky and Becky's Beanie Mania (Beanie Mania LLC) 2 (1): 42–43. ISSN 1099-4874.
  14. ↑ Bissonnette, Zac (March 2015). The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute. Penguin Books. p. 193. ISBN 1591846021.
  15. ↑ Dunne, Claudia; Sara Nelson (September 1998). "Tag Training 101". Mary Beth's Bean Bag World (H&S Media Incorporated) 1 (7): 20–28. ISSN 1097-0444.
  16. ↑ Peace Mania Magazine
  17. ↑ "SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1998: CRIME; A World Gone Beanie Mad!". The New York Times. 1998-07-05.
  18. ↑ http://www.buzzfeed.com/zacbissonnette/a-blue-elephant-named-peanut#.lnaZlMNzv
  19. ↑ Date, SUSAN DODGE (1998-01-09). "Chicago Sun-Times:: Search". Chicago Sun-Times.
  20. ↑ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-19416915.html
  21. ↑ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62458632.html
  22. ↑ "Want The 'Scoop' On The Beanie Industry For The Millennium?". PR Newswire. 1999-12-10. Retrieved 2009-05-18.

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