2023 TOY HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Toys are not what they used to be when it comes to entertaining kids. If you check the History Channel’s recent series “The Toys That Built America” you’ll get a big tinge of nostalgia and realize those days feel long gone. So when the yearly Toy Hall of Fame announcement comes out it pulls up memories of staring endlessly at the Sear’s Christmas Catalog, circling toy pictures, and dog- earing pages for mom and dad and Santa. It’s a little easier nowadays that kids can go online and make up a wish list to share quickly with their family. I have to wonder how fun those lists are nowadays and what the Hall Of Fame might be inducting in the future.

The National Toy Hall of Fame announced its newest inductees.  Four of them this year . . .

1.  Baseball cards.  They’ve been around since the 1860s.

2.  Cabbage Patch Kids.  They debuted in 1982.

3.  Nerf.  The first Nerf product was a four-inch foam ball Parker Brothers sold in 1970.  They billed it as the “world’s first official INDOOR ball.”

4.  The Fisher-Price Corn Popper that toddlers push around.  It wasn’t actually nominated.  They inducted it as a bonus in honor of the Hall of Fame’s 25th anniversary. 

Nine other finalists didn’t get enough votes to make it in, including two toys that had a big year otherwise:  Ken dolls and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The other toys that didn’t make the cut are:  Battleship . . . Bingo . . . Bop-It . . . slime . . . Choose Your Own Adventure . . . Connect 4 . . . and the Little Tikes red car.

Last year’s inductees were:  Lite-Brite, spinning tops, and Masters of the Universe.