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SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: What Makes a Must-Have Christmas Toy? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Happy Holidays, everybody. This is Chuck here with one of
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: our episodes for our Stuff you Should Know Well Days
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of Christmas Toys playlist. We decided to put this together
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that'd be a fun little holiday idea to kind of
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: gather up some of our toy centric episodes and release
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: them this December or all packaged uff. So here we
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: are with I think this is the first one, either
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the first or the second one on the list, and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the episode title is what makes I must have Christmas
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: toy If you want to know, listen in and find out.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Happy Holidays, everybody.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of Iheartradios
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: How Stuff Works.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: there's Charles w Chuck, Brian over there, there's Jerry over there,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: and this is Stuff.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: You Should Know Early Christmas Edish.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're kicking it off fairly.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Like the rest of the retail world, do you.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah? Man, this year you could find Halloween, Thanksgiving
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: and Christmas stuff in stores at the same time, like
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: it was just the most normal thing in the world. Yeah,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: but you don't follow me on Twitter, and you should.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not on Twitter.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what I'm saying. You should get on Twitter
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: to follow me.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: No, thank you.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: But at seven thirty in the morning on November one,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: the day after Halloween, I tweeted Merry Christmas. I got
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of hate back for it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you like Twitter?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Do you just poke people like that?
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Pretty much, just troll I gotcha. Yeah, well that
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: was my plug for Twitter. Oh yeah, yeah, here we go.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: So let's see back in nineteen eighty three, Chuck, you
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: were twelve, okay, I was seven. You didn't have a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: cabbage Patch kid, did you.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a story there if you really want to know.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I think you've told it before, but let's have it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Well, we bought my sister one of the very first
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: little people is what they were called before they were
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: cabbage patch kids, right in Helen, Georgia, when they were
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: handmade by Xavier Roberts, who I recently learned stole that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: idea from a woman and took it as his own
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and made millions of dollars off of her idea. Yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I mean I wanted to do maybe we'll do a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: short stuff about that. I wanted to do a full
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: length episode.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: But we I mean We definitely talked about that, because
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: I think we have talked about like must have toys
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: of the past, and maybe last year's or the year
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: before is Christmas edition.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we had she got this doll. Its name
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: was Chuck, which was kind of funny because that's my name.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: That's so funny.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And it was a big deal. I think it was
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: like the number seventy something or eighty something made and
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: now it's worth a lot of money.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Does she still have it?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Huh? Oh, that's great. And We'll finish with Cabbage Patch
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Kids and then I'll take issue with you.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: So go ahead, Okay, I know what you're gonna take
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: issue with.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Oh I don't know if you do know, so let.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Me let me start, all right. So, back in nineteen
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: eighty three, Cabbage Patch Kids were like the must have
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: toy of the Christmas season for sure, and from what
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I can tell, they were the first must have Christmas toy. Ever.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Now that's not to say there weren't extraordinarily popular toys
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: at around Christmas time before nineteen eighty three. Star Wars
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: very famously offered their early Bird Certificate package, which was
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: basically an empty box that said at some point in
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: the future, you will get Star Wars figures instead of
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: this empty box.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: One of the great great marketing gems of all time.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was a thing all the way back
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty two. Mister potato Head was a hot
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: toy that year. Robert the Robot was a hot toy
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty four. And when you say hot toys,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: it's tough to overstate that like Robert the Robot had
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: T shirts in the fifties. I didn't even know people
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: wore T shirts in the fifties. Yeah, he was in
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: a movie like these were big deal toys. But my
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: premise is this, this is my thesis. Okay, this is
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: my own so I'll take the hit if it's wrong. Sure,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: But that in just the same way that there were
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: hit movies like The Godfather or like Ben hur before
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Jaws came along. There wasn't such a thing as the
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: summer blockbuster until Jaws came along and made the summer
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: blockbuster a thing. There wasn't such a thing as the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: must have toy of Christmas until the Cabbage Patch Kid
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: came along and made that a thing. Okay, so what
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: issue are you going to take? I can't take it
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: any longer. You're driving me crazy.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it was. I don't think it
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: was Cabbage Patch Kids that was the must have toy,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the first must have toy. That's what I take issue with.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Well it was the first Well.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I'm just speaking from my
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: own life fan, and I definitely think Star Wars counts
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: because if you can sell an empty box to a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: kid for Christmas, then that's pretty strong position as a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: must have thing. And by the way, if you're listening,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the reason they sold empty boxes is because they didn't
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: know Star Wars was going to be a big thing,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So Kenner didn't have as many of these made in
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the run up to the film release pre Christmas. So
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: they got caught with their pants down and they realized
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that there was a big demand, a huge demand. Okay,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: they sold like forty million of.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: These, No, forty million boxes, I'm trying to yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: I don't know forty million Star Wars toys Okay at
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: that inside of a year, So.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And did you know that you can even buy these
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: empty box kits on eBay.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Now, oh yeah, I'm sure.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I saw one listed for fifteen hundred bucks.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I'm not at all surprised.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And then, just very quickly, I also want to point
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: out that the biggest, most in demand toy of my
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: young life was the Atari pac Man cartridge. Oh boy,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: that was in nineteen eighty two. Okay, that sold seven
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: million cartridges.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, great, great, the numbers don't lie. That's a big,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: big number, seven million, forty million. You can toss big
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: numbers out all day long. But let me ask you this, okay,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: for that empty box of Star Wars, for that Atari
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: pac Man cartridge, did a woman have her leg broken
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: because a crowd trying to get their hands on those
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: things turn violent? Or before you answer, in addition to that,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: did a department store manager in Charleston, West Virginia have
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: to arm himself with a baseball bat to defend himself
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: from his very customers who are trying to get to
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the Star Wars empty box or the Atari cartridge? I
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: would guess that the answers.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: No, Well, I think human behaviors have changed over the years.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: From nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty three.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I guarantee you I could find one violent incident
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: about the Atari cartridge.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: I'll bet you couldn't.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, there wasn't then, because there was, they
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: met the demand.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, so that's a big part of it too, right,
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: so there have been Let's just move on from this.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: The cabbage Patch cabbage Patch kids if not worthy first,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: which they were?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Did you have one?
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, Weberdino, you had a cabbage Patch kid. Yeah.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I ended up taking his head off and giving him
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: a mohawk as I grew older.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But because and not to be not to be too
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: like gender binary here, but I didn't know a lot
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: of boys that wanted the cabbage Patch kid.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: What I've always broken the mold, chuck.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Well, sure, no, there's nothing wrong with it. I grew
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: up with William wants a doll on free to be
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: um me, so I get it. But that's why I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: just don't know. I think it must have Christmas toy
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: would be one that everybody wants.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as far as I knew, everybody wanted a cabbage
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Patch kid.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll just put this one to bed.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Like a cabbage Patch kid with a mohawk that you adopted. Yep,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: so right, well, that was a big thing. Like there
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: was there were some hallmarks to the idea of a
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: must have toy that were surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids. Violence
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: is one, right, There was a lot of buzz that
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: was picked up by the media and one of the
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: ways that that was generated was by I think Kalco,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: who owned Cabbage Patch Kids at the time, sent these
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: dolls directly to reporters. That was a big one, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: the fact that there was not enough supply to meet
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: the demand. These things kind of came together to make
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Cabbage Patch Kids and must have Christmas toy and this
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: has been carried on as a tradition ever since then,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Ever since that very very first time in nineteen eighty
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: three with Cabbage Patch Kids. There were Nintendo's that dominated
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: back in nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine, and nineteen
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: ninety three years in a row, Nintendo had three different
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: products that were like the must have Christmas toy.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that first game console, Huge Dude, the Game
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Boy Huger it felt like. And then of course in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety possibly the best game gaming system of all
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: time if you look at just relative to the time,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo console. I don't know.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Man. N sixty four was pretty great with GoldenEye.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Oh god. N sixty four was great.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with GoldenEye. I mean like it would have been,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: you know, fine on its own, but the fact that
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: GoldenEye existed was the thing that made N sixty four to.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Me, that game blew my mind.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It was great, especially the Battle Royale where you
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: could play your friends. Oh man, that was fun.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we called it hunt and Chase.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I used to get so mad. Yeah in those like
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: that's the only time I ever got mad playing video games,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: because I don't do that thing where you play online
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and you can, you know, you can exact revenge on people.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So I did not take it well when my friends
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: snuck up behind me and shot me in the head.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that was always a bummer. What about Tickle Meomo?
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: That was a big one, thanks to Rosie O'Donnell.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I was a little old for that. Oh really, that
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was in my mid twenties.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: I had one.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well you were in high school.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Not really, yeah, this was nineteen ninety six. This is
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: post high school even, But this was such a craze
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: that there was that characteristic violence where a Walmart employee
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: was trampled while he was trying to restock the display
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: late at night, I believe. But he had a pulled hamstring,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: injuries to his back, his jaw, his knee, a broken rib,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: a concussion, and it continues on like, I haven't read
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: about any violence from hatche moles, but from twenty sixteen
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: to twenty eighteen, they were the, if not one of
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: the top must have toys of the year.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Hatch a moles how come?
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Because you have to put in a in a dish
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: or a bowl that you eat out of, and you
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: have to leave it there and leave it there and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: leave it there, and then it hatches into a garbage toy.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: Real. Oh so my experience is that it's they're pretty,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: They're good.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, So you like your hatcheml Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Why are you talking? Is it like animatronic?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Huh?
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Is it animatronic?
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about hatchamles.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's okay. So I don't know anything about the dish.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I just my experience is from my niece, and I
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: don't remember any dish.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, this isn't the Are we talking about two
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: different things? This is the thing you put in water.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, electrocute yourself when you touch it.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, maybe I'm thinking of something else.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: This is like an animatronic thing that hatches from an egg,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: but like you have to like teach it and train
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: it and raise it and give it attention and everything.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: It's a bit like the tamagochi, but like an animatronic pet.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, I got you. Now, I'm thinking of the thing
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that you It's an egg that you put in water
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and after a few days it hatches into a garbage toy.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's that's not this. Hatch mules are much different.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: So there's this tradition of a must have Christmas toy
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: and you can find all you want about them every
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: year because they're everywhere all the time, and the media
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: reports on this kind of stuff, and they're on TV,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and there's ads, and there's like social media stuff. Now,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: but there's like a really big question that doesn't have
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of press associated with it, and certainly no
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: studies or anything that I could find. But there's a question, Chuck, like,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: how does a toy become a must have Christmas toy?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Well, let's take a break and we'll get to the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: bottom of it. Right after this.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: That was quite a set up, I think so. So
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: back in the day when you were shopping for Christmas,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: if you were a kid or a parent, it didn't matter.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: You knew exactly what to do. You knew exactly how
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: to do it. There was no frills, no nothing. It
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: was all just holiday joy and the goodness of the
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Christmas holiday season.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: That's right, That is correct. And you learned what you
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: wanted if you were a kid from two things, Saturday
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Morning cartoon commercials and whatever your catalog was. The Seers
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: wish book is certainly one service. Merchandise catalog was another
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: big one for us.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a Montgomery Wards catalog.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. And you put this together and you
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: introduced me to a website called wishbook Web that might
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: as well be called time suck dot com.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's pretty great, isn't.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: It, Because someone has gone through and scanned Is it
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: just Sars wishbooks?
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: No, No, it's Sears, J. C. Penny and Montgomery war right,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And then I think there's the occasional what store is
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: that here or there?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Right? They have scanned these entire wishbooks up to nineteen
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: ninety six.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Which from everyone knows is the cutoff day for nostalgia.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: That's right from the earliest days of nineteen thirty three.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And boy, let me tell you, dude, and I know
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you know this because you've done it. If you go
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: through and spend a few minutes clicking through these things
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: in the years where you were like six to twelve
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: waves of nostalgia wash over you like John Hodgman would
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: succumb to these waves. Yeah, I know, it's amazing. I
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: remember some specific pictures I remembered the I mean the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: NFL section alone brought tears to my eyes and I
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: forgot how much they hyped football back then.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: You just can't stop crying.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It was crazy that the clothes, the alarm clocks, the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: clock radios, the tech section. It was just it was
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: off the charts for me looking through this, I almost
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: did nothing else today.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know it is. Wishbook web is pretty awesome.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Like somebody went through and scanned every single page of
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: these gods several hundred pages each, catalogs for decades worth
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: of catalogs. Is it is God's work?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And just to get laughs by like seeing the two
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: four year olds posing in bathrobes, it's really, really funny.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Right, one's got like a pipe that blows us.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Like, God, this is just amazing. What a great website.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: So wishbook web is kind of preserved how you used
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: to figure out what you wanted for Christmas, which was
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: you go through these wishbooks or these catalogs or whatever,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: and then you tell your parents, who dog ear them,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: maybe drop some hints. It was the correct way. The
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: twenty first century has a kind of an updated version
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: of that, but it still kind of follows the same
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: general contours right where there are lists still and like catalogs,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: but now it's not just department stores that have like
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: the market cornered on them. Like that's actually kind of
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: gone away. It's very tough to find a department store catalog.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I believe Myers still does that. I think they're kind
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: of like a Midwestern Target. Oh really yeah, and they
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: have a toy catalog that they put out still, I
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: believe to this year.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Well now you get the restoration hardware Christmas.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Right or ikiya. Yeah, but they but there's lists everywhere,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: and it seems like every retailer has one or all
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: the major retailers have one, and depending on where it's
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: coming from, it's some are more trustworthy or above the boards,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: or or objective than others when saying like these are
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: the must have toys, right, Like, on one end of
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: the spectrum, you have like third party websites and publications
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: and organizations like the Spruce, Her Toy Insider, Her Toys, Tots,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Pets and more, and they actually evaluate the toys when
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: they make their lists.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean these it's just different now. And I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: don't think it's nostalgia like thinking things were better back then,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: but it was it seemed easier and better to let
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a kid sift through of catalog and pick out stuff. Then.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I guess what are you supposed to do today, like
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: sit down with your kid at one of these websites
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and at look at the top twenty hot toys and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: say what do you want? Like, I don't know how
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: it works these days.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe instead of like dog earing the pages,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: you send your parents' links.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you do, actually you know. Yeah, But I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: mean if your kids are too young to be on
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the internet, I'm not sure how to do it. Because
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I could hand my four year old a catalog and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: say pick out some stuff, it'd be great. But I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: not going to say, hey, just log onto the spruce
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and go scroll down and see you find something you like?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Right, stay out of their parents section. What do I mean?
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: What do you do? You have a you literally have
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: a kid, Chuck, what do you do?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean we buy. We just buy
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: things that we think she might like.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: So there's like a whole world out there of like
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: lists and websites that show toys and stuff that she's
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: unaware of. Oh sure, oh wow, she's got a big
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: surprise ahead of her. I gets So that's great. I'm
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: excited for Actually.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean you definitely feel like you're sort
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of stabbing in the dark as to like, I mean,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a parent can go through and look at those lists,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but you know, kill me.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people are excited about that kind
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: of thing. They're like, good, this is yeah. I don't
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: have to like go to the store and stand there
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: and be like what are we getting here? You could
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: go to some website or USA Today or the Today
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Show or whoever is partnering with some of these trusted
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: sites like Toys, Tots, Pets and More or Toy Insider,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and like they kind of take a lot of the
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: US work out of you. They're basically saying, these are
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: what experts are saying your kid is going to want.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: If you go by this, you will score a home
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: run with your kid.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think my problem is I don't know what
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is bought and what is real reviews because as you
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: have dug up and I didn't even know this. Of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: course they do this. If you go on Amazon, they
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you know, you can spend two million bucks as a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: retailer to be on their you know, on their top
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: list or whatever.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: So okay, yes, what I saw though was that they
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: you spend that money to nominate them, to nominate your
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: toy for their consideration to include on the list.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, for a nomination.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know how the process works, but yeah, I saw.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I saw like the headline say you pay two million
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: for a slot, but if you read the finer print
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: and saying you pay two million for them to even
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: consider it, and then I guess I don't know how
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: they curate it. They actually kind of keep a close
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: lid on it. But it generated like one hundred and
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: twenty million dollars in revenue fram just to be on
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: their list of hot toys. For the year.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Walmart they charge ten grand a month per toy to
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: be on their Buyers Picks toy list, and like you
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: point out here, they Walmart starts their list in August,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and you've got to wonder, is that because they're making
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: ten grand.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: A pop right of the stuff per month?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They released there's in late August, before Labor Day even,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: and like this isn't like a, hey, we think these
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: toys are going to be hot this year. It's here's
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the hot list of holiday toys, and Target released theirs
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of September. I think Bullseye is the
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: name of their mascot dog mascot spuzz Mackenzie basically.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bully bulls.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: And I couldn't see if they charge for placement or
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: how they compile it or anything like that, which actually
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: makes me suspect that they don't, because there's plenty of
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: ink about Amazon and Walmart's lists and how they charge
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: for them, and the fact that there's no one for
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Target makes me think either they're really keeping a lid
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: on it or else they actually don't charge for that.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: But so there's kind of two lists where if you're
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: a parent not need to ask. Yeah, you need to
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: ask and dog people in camp people. You need to ask,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: where is this list coming from? And if it's coming
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: from a third party site, go look up the third
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: party site and they will tell you and they're like
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: about us section how they determine what toys or what
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: And if you really want to get that information, that's fine.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: But even if Amazon or Walmart or even if Target
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: charges for placement on their lists, just the very fact
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: that those things are on their list is going to
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: make them among the hot toys of the season. So
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: it's like a self fulfilling or self paying prophecy.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess anytime you look up something
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: on a major retailer website, those first few things are
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: sponsored and they say sponsored in little letters.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, sometimes they don't really hmm.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean sometimes it's kind of hard to discern
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: whether or not you're looking at the real top thing
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: or the sponsored thing.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Right, And I think, like with the gift lists in particular,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I don't believe that they say that these are sponsored.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's just like here's the hot list according
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to Amazon.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a bit about marketing in general around
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the holidays that you know, it's a science in a way,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and they have found out through science that happy people
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: buy more. You are not everyone's happy around the holidays,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: but they definitely as marketers, play on the idea that
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you are happier around the holidays, and so you should
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: be in the buying spirit. Definitely. When you're talking about kids,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: that is the case. They pummel children with ads. There
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: was one study here University of Hertfordshire counted one hundred
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: ads and a three hour Saturday morning kids slot Christmas.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Hundred one hundred and a three hour slot. That's a
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: lot of ads, it is. And then and of course,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: you know, children are on more than one screen these days,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: so they're also getting ads on you know, when they're
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: watching YouTube or whatever, or just on kids websites. There's
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: ads everywhere. I can't remember what episode we really kind
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: of dove into that advertising their children.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I think it was about advertising for children,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: like must have been. That was the sole, you know goal.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: So so the idea is that just the holiday season
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: itself puts most of us in a pretty good mood,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and advertisers say, oh well, if we release ads that
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: are holiday themed, we'll be able to kind of tap
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: into that goodwill and good mood and make you nostalgic
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: or feel good about things. And so by doing that,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: we'll be able to kind of tie our brand or
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: our product to that holiday, that holiday sensation, and you'll say, oh,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I do want to go buy that because it makes
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: me think of being a kid at Christmas time. That's
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: really basic stuff. I mean, like that's everywhere. You can't
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: get away from that in the holiday season. And there's
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: not even necessarily anything wrong with it. It's just it's
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: just basic marketing and advertising one oh one when it
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: comes to holiday advertising.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other thing we mentioned earlier in terms
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of marketing, and this is also marketing one on one
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is about scarcity.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: If you have a toy that there is a limited
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: amount of, that is when you're going to find people
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: trampling each other to get there, because people are motivated
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: by fear. And if you know that a toy is
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a must have and there aren't many of them and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: they're going on sale at a certain time, it is
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: frightening what a parent, some parents might do to secure
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that toy.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, so this is finally we've reached the key ingredient. Right,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: You've got lists of toys that are promoted and advertised
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: and maybe even show up with their own articles in
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the media. Then you have the fact that we're already
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: kind of primed to buy because it's the holiday season,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: we're in a good mood. But when you add that
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: scarcity marketing, it ramps it up to a totally different level.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: And when you have a must have toy that is
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: hard to find, like you said, people will do very crazy, violent,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: mean stuff to get it. And there's a lot of
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: reasons why even if you're not willing to like throw
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: an elbow to get a toy, you might still be
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: willing to camp out at four am waiting for you know,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: a twenty four hour retailer to restock their supply of
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: this so you can buy it. That's unusual behavior and
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: the reason why it all comes down to scarcity marketing
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: and the idea that we have a fear of missing out,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a fear of social embarrassment, a fear of our kids
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: not loving us as much as they could had we
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: gotten them this toy, and that all of these things,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: the scarcity marketing is the real driver that kind of
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: hypercharges must have toy frenzy.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not you know, just toys. You've seen
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: everything for You make a great point about Pappy van
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Winkle whiskey.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, I should say that's from marketing Land. A guy
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: named Jacob Bodsgar wrote an article on marketing Land where
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: he cited that, and the Disney Vault is really good examples.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Disney Vault, it's another great one. They were very
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: famous for not just saying like here's all the movies
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: we've ever made that you can buy on VHS, all
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in one big package. They would release them every every
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: now and then, and you know you had a limited
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: time to get them. And I wasn't really hipped all this,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: but my dad and his wife were way into the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Disney stuff, and you know they were adamant about making
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: sure they filled out the entire collection and really kept
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: up with when they were going to be released. And
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: what a big deal that was.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a big one. And Bodsgard makes a
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: point like by making them limited and available also only
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: for a limited time, with years sometimes a decade in
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: between times when you can buy these things, it create
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: it's this like frenzy to go buy them. And it
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: also makes them like a treasured part of that person's home,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can also fake out the public a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: little bit and mislead them on the scarcity. You might
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: have a lot of the stuff and just kind of
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: lead the public to believe, like, now you better go
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: get one right now because they may not be around
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: next week.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The people who made hatchimles spin Master. Hatche moles
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: were really hard to find in I think twenty sixteen,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: seventeen and eighteen, and spin Master was basically accused of
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: purposefully using scarcity marketing. And for their part, they said, hey,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: we were totally called off guard three years in a
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: row by the the you know, the popularity of hatche moles,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: and other people were like, that's that's bs. You can
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: totally ramp up production pretty fast. Another must have toy
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: was fingerlings. Remember them from like last year the year before.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: They were like little monkeys or sloths or dragons or
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: whatever that would hang on to your finger And they
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: were little finger sized robots that would like blink and
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: blow kisses and do all sorts of cute airf They weren't.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: They were cute instead of uncanny because they went kind.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Of the words finger sized robots together, so.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Right, they would cut your throat while you slept. But
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: they were caught unaware. Even though they really tried it
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: hard to make them hit through social media, they were
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: still surprised when it actually happened. But they ramped up production.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: They brought a third factory in China online. They went
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: from shipping via cargo boat to air transport to get
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: supplies here faster, and they were able to ramp up
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: and meet demand pretty quickly. So the idea that Hatchemll
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: just couldn't possibly do that really smelled to a lot
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: of people like they were purposefully using scarcity marketing.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Scarcity, I mean it's an interesting concept because you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: see it everywhere. You know, they have restaurants that you
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: know here in Atlanta, Homan and Finch had the Homan
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and Finch perg or that like one day a week,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: like we'll sell a hundred of them starting at ten
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: pm on this night and then everyone's like, oh my god,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: what is in that burger?
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: People would line up to get the block. Yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Or this is a nice little tidbit here that you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: dug up about supermarket experiments.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's from an article from market Watch by Mark Elwood.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, on that one, it's amazing. Even putting up a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: sign for soup that says limit twelve per person will
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: make people be like, oh, I should I should probably
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: buy twelve of these, right for whatever reason, they might
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: stop making their chicken noodle soup.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Right or in this case, it was soup that was
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: on sale, so who knows what the price is going
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: to go back to.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: You know, well, that's true.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: So one of the other things that scarcity produces is
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: this idea that there are haves and have nots. Right,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: So if the idea that you're fearful of missing out
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: or fearful of your kid not loving you isn't enough,
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: there's a whole other cognitive bias of being a have not,
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: of being left on the cold, which I guess is
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: a fear of missing out. But there's also the benefit
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: of being a have where if you're talking about like
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: a fingerling, which is a fifteen dollars toy, but people
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: were crazy for those things that either last year or
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: the year before, like just about anybody can afford this
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: fifteen dollars toy. So even if you're like a have
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: not throughout the year, you're down on your luck, maybe
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: you're unemployed or you're underemployed, things just aren't going your way.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You could still camp out and wait for that late
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: night restocking the fingerlings and get your kid that toy,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and for that time you are a have, and maybe
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: even somebody with a much higher social status than you
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: couldn't get that fingerling, which makes it all the more sweet.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: And then let's also not forget. Like we said, this
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: is during the holiday season, so emotions like count extra
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: So to be a have when you're normally not during
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the holiday season because you gotta must have toy is
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: exponentially increased.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big deal because it's it. Even if
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: it's just emotionally equal for a brief period of time,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it can be a big deal for somebody. I say,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: we take our final break here and then we come
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: back and talk about the worst people toy flippers right
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: after this. All right, so I set up the worst
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: people are toy flippers. Obviously there's a lot of really
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: really bad people in the world. And I'm being somewhat highperbolic,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: but I do think somewhat the idea of buying, targeting
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and buying a lot of must have toys to sell
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: later for profit on eBay makes you a pretty rotten person. Yeah,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: go ahead and lay that judgment down.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Some people do. I reserve judgment for the ones who
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: do it professionally. I think if you are a person
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: who is just trying to augment your your own like
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: holiday expenses, and you are foreseeing a lack of supply
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: ahead of time, I say more power to you.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not into it. I feel the same way
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: about ticket scalpers.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly. I mean it's the same thing basically.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's buying up a bunch of things sometimes
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and this is completely gross and awful. Using bots, Yeah,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: that's the pits too, especially for con tickets, like when
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: bots buy up all the best concert.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Tickets, especially our tickets.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, I.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Think anybody uses bots on ours?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Well, probably not. But actually, stuff you should know is
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we've seen very few bad examples of people trying to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: overcharge for a sold out show. More times than not,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: it's a fellow listener that's like, hey, just come along,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you can sit next to me for face value, or
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I'll even give it to you.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that happens quite a bit. And yeah, I mean
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: there's only been a couple where somebody's like, you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: a million dollars and of course they didn't sell it. No,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: but yeah, we haven't run into that. Mostly the problem
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: is from ticket outlets just charging ridiculous fees on top
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: of our ticket price.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Well that makes us mad, and you all should know
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: we don't have control over that. No, we're the Eddie
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Vedder of podcasting.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: But if you ever find yourself in a situation where
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: you got shut out of a stuff, you should know
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: show and your option is to not go or to
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: pay like a ridiculous amount, just send us an email
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: put you on the list.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Oh god, Chuck, Wow, you just opened some floodgates.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's very few list spots, so it's not
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like you.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Know, right now, you just started a must have toy
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: frenzy for the list. Look of what you've done.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's get back to bots. These bots are so
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: savvy that they can they can buy out, they can
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: have hundreds of credit card numbers on file because sometimes
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: they'll have like a limit to how many things you
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: can buy. They are all these shortcuts and ways to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: bypass all of these safeguards put into effect, including captures.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: They will hire foreign workers to sit around and type
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: in the captures to get through security.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Which I mean, if there is anything that says holiday
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: spirit more than that, I can't think of it.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But these bots can can sometimes buy out something in
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the second that it goes up online for a regular
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: human being to say, oh, all right, they've released the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: tickets or the doll.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Gone, because they'll so what they'll do is they'll go
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: on to like retail websites and figure out what the
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: unique idea is for the product that they're looking for.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: That's the real art.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: It'll start right, it'll start monitoring that page because people
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: who build these pages will put them out and just
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: won't you know, kind of rely open the curtain for
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: hours ahead of time. So the bot will have the
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: page targeted and just keep refreshing it hundreds of times
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: a second until that sale goes live, and they will
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: have ordered scores of these things, or dozens or hundreds
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: whatever however many it can before you can even if
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: you're sitting there refreshing your browser, between the time it
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: takes to refresh your page, they will have wiped the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: place out using these bots, and then if you're truly sophisticated,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: you probably have another set of bots who take your
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: inventory and then put it up for sale at some
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: exorbitant price on Amazon or eBay or Craigslist or something
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the worst people.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: So like, you don't even have to do anything, you
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: just stick your bots on it.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I stand by it, even for the enterprising person
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: who I just I don't know. I don't have a
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: big problem with someone making money off of someone else's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: misfortune to not have been able to get that themselves.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think it makes someone scrappy or enterprising at all.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Hey man, that's that's fine.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll die on this hill.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's fine. So if you are one of those
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: people that Chuck hates and you want to be enterprising,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: there is an article written by Lisa Smith. It's Uninvestipedia
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: and it's called the Guide to reselling toys at Christmas
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: for extra money Oh God, which is very innocuous. Then
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: there's some tips actually that make a lot of sense.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: If you want to do this, Do you want to
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: go over them? Are you going to remain mute? You
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: can go over them so you could talk to parents
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: if you wanted to write, Chuck, Yeah, that's right, Josh.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Good idea there, Because they know what kids want. You
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: could talk to kids them, which makes sense. I mean,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: just go right to the horse's mouth. I've always said
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: the same thing, Josh. You can talk to Santa. I
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: thought this was pretty enterprising. Like imagine if you are
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: trying so what you're trying to do here is to
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: identify what toy you want to buy as early ahead
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: of time as possible, so that you can have identified
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: the hot season, the hot toy of the season, and
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: bought them before the demand really struck. So you talk
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: to mal Santa's, hang out in stores. You can talk
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: to cashiers, stock people, all that stuff, because not only
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: will they know what toy you need to look out for,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: they'll know when these new supplies are coming in. Maybe
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: slip them a Starbucks card or something like that with
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: ten bucks on it as a thank you, but be
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: sure to deduct that from your bottom line.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Sure bribery. De duck that bribery, right.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: And then you can actually hang out in chat rooms.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: There's entire websites that are dedicated to this kind of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: stuff that are you know that say like here's the
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: toys we're looking for. I spotted some at this you know,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Walmart or whatever. This this stock guy said that Walmart
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: replenishes home on Thursdays at ten. There's a lot of
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: stuff you can do if you really wanted to put
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: the leg work in.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Great or you could put all that energy into doing
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: something worthwhile.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Right, I know what you're talking about. This is the
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: like the Michael Larson approach to the holidays, the man
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: who got no whammies on pressure luck.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, I had no problem with him.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, this is virtually the same thing. It's not it's somebody.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Gave Michael Larson, wasn't There wasn't some father who didn't
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: have much money that you know, overpaid for a doll
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: to make his little girl happy at Christmas time. Michael
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Larson didn't do that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: Right, he would have, though, I'm sure of it.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: So that's what you can do if you want to
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: flip toys and ruin the holidays. As far as Chuck's concern,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: that's right, and that is that is a big part
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: of the competition of people who will go buy out stocks.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Like you're not really facing them nationwide unless you're talking
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: about people who release spots onto websites or whatever. But
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: they are out there and they do. They do actually
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: create competition and help drive that frenzy even further, because remember,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: what's behind must have toys of scarcity marketing, and if
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: there are people out there actively contributing to the scarcity,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: that's a big deal.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Here's what I want to hear from. I want to
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: hear from some women listeners who let's say you go
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: on a on a on a date from a dating
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: app and you sit down across from your date and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you're like, what do you do? And he goes, I'm
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a toy flipper, and she's like, what's that? He goes.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: You know, around Christmas time, I go out and I
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: buy like tons of toys that I know little kids
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: really really want, and then I mark them up so
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I can make a lot of money off their parents
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: who may not be able to afford it. You're right,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and just tell me how that day goes from there.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Can it? Does it have to be a man
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: and a woman? Can it just be anybody?
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: It can be anybody. But you know, I think the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: guy that does this is the guy that I just
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: did that voice.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: For, who's apparently from Jersey.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, they're all from New Jersey. Okay, and I love
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: New Jersey.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: So I feel like we've learned a lot here. Yeah,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: we've talked about, you know, how a toy becomes a
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: must have toy of a season usually has to do
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: with some sort of some combination of advertising and buzz
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: marketing as long or as well as scarcity. The flippers
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: get involved, I think, and I want to back this up, Chuck,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: there's not a lot of stuff out there on this.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: This all had to be brought together. This is kind
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: of one of those rare stuff you should know theses. Yeah,
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: about what makes a must have toy must have toy,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: But I think it's I think it holds up.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Should we talk about some of the big toys of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: this year?
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Yes, So those lists that are out there, this hell me.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Actually we put a bunch of well that's the point.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: That's we're trying to help you and all of the
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: toy flippers out there. So actually this is for all
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: the parents. This will help you get a drop on
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: the toy flippers because I guarantee there are very few
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: toy flippers listening to stuff you should.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Know now, Because we have good people in our audience.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: So all those lists that are out there now, we
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: kind of compiled and cross referenced them. A number of
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: them lists from Target, Toys, Tots, Pets, and more. That's
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: just one Amazon, the Today Show, Toy Insider, the Spruce
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Crazy Coupon Lady who had a post about toy flipping, Walmart,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: and New York Magazine. All of those lists we looked
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: at and we found ones that appeared on at least
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a couple if not more, And one of them, the
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: first one, appeared on basically every single list that we saw.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this one, the bloom doll. B lu me nothing
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: to do with the rested development, but it is this
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: is something that that my daughter might like. Apparently this
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: is another thing you add water to and it blooms.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: But this is I don't think it hatches from an egg.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I think this doll just like grows like a chia
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: pet mite.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Kind of, and like the hair that grows is I
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: can't tell. It looks like some sort of foam or
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: styrofoam or something, but it takes different shapes like pineapples
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: or cakes or something like that. And there's I think
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: twenty two different versions.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and thousand of them, I'll walk it up.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But they're also yeah, they're super affordable too, so
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: they're probably going to be the hot must have Christmas
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: toy of the year.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: As bloom Dolls hatchamulves are still around.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's one that's from How to Train Your
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Dragon Toothless Dragon. Yeah, the Baby Dragon. They have a
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: hatchamble version of him.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: What else Shirley Barbie's on the list.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Barbie has a dream plane whoa which I saw
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: in a couple of lists where yeah, it's a plane
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: for Barbie. There's like a snack cart and everything. Okay,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: comes with the dog that I guess lives on the plane.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: There's also Lol Surprise. Have you heard of that? No?
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: I hadn't heard of it either until we started researching this.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: But they're like a whole brand, and a lot of these,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: including bloom Dolls and Lol Surprise, they tap into like
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: this whole trend of unboxing. Do you remember when we
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: talked about unboxing on YouTube where like people open toys.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because our good friend Joe Randazzo did his Lego
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Man unboxing videos that were right still to me. One
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of the funniest things I've ever seen.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, great plug by the way, but they they still
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: do that, like they're still unboxing. It's a huge trend
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: and that's worked its way into toys so lol. Surprise
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: is kind of based on that, and there's like a
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: whole line of dolls but they're like into like DJ
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: stuff and fashion and all that, but they also have Surprise.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: And there's also a kid named Ryan's World. I don't
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: think that's his last name, but that's his YouTube channel
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: and guarantee we talked about Ryan's World in that Unboxing
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Toys episode. But he's got all sorts of toys that
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: are out where you like, you just don't know what
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: you're getting when you open the thing. It's just surprise unboxing.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Weird sub genre on YouTube of unboxing or I remember
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: we talked about the one where the lady's hands would
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: just play with things.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the Yeah remember she was like Peppa Pie.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting. I'll sell you the one on
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the list though that I like that. I usually look
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: at the toys that I'm like, would I like to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: play this with my daughter? That's important. I can't be
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: bored out of my mind you know.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, good point.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: And this lego make your own movie kit looks pretty
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: cool to me.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was kind of heartened to see that on
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: on a couple of lists, you know, because it's like, this.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Is pop motion movies you can make.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's thoughtful, it's inventive. I love it. Yeah,
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: where it's it's yeah, there's They have a bunch of
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: different stages and backgrounds and props, including a banana. It's great.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: So you learn how to make Are you gonna get
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: get her?
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: That?
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: I think you should like a movie anytime, buddy. All right,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: can we make a flaming hoop out of a coat
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: hanger and do things with that too?
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Sure?
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Okay? And then the other one was the Fisher Price
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Linco moles, which are super cute, including the smooth move sloth.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm down with Fisher Price.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so huge, huge right now? Yeah, do you
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: remember Playmobile?
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Playmobile?
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Remember that they were like the vaguely European kind of
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: action people, but there was nothing like violent or military
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: about them. They would explore or.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I probably recognize them. I definitely know that name.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: You've seen it a million times right when you see
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: it y'all. I'll look it up and show it to
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: you later, but it's you'll see it and be like, yeah,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: of course, wait right there, sure, yeah, there you go.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was kind of a Fisher Price kid. But
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you know we still have some of that stuff that
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: our daughter plays with that we had when we were kids,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: like the barn and the boat, and you know, it holds.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Up, definitely does hold up. You got anything else?
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Got nothing else?
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: You're gonna go buy a bunch of toys and flip them.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else except for twenty thousand Hatchimles in
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: my garage.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Man. Here's the other thing, though, Chuck Like, you're taking
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: a risk because you got to predict what the must
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: have toys, and if you guess wrong, you got twenty
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: thousand hatchimles that nobody wants.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Boy, I'd love to see that happen in real life.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: I guarantee it happened. So just keep an her out,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: all right. If you want to know more about the
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: must have toys, there's basically nothing you can't know that
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: we haven't already told you. So just I guess go
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: get your kids some Christmas toys.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: That's right?
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: Is that a good way to sign off.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, Since I said, is this a good way to
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: sign off? Time for listener mail.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this from a teacher. We always
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: like to shout out our teachers and their students. Hey, guys,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: just sending one of what I'm sure is among infinite
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: thank yous that you receive as a teacher who regularly
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: references knowledge I gain from listening to your show in
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: my class. My students, unwittingly and I are eternally grateful
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: for your work. They give a hearty laugh whenever I
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: steal your characters. Tuktook the wise proto Homo sapien and
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: erg the folly prone genetic defect to elucid eight points
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: about the evolution of early humans. I knew you wouldn't
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: mind my poaching. That's so if you think, John.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: You'll be hearing from our lawyers.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: John, you're the toy flipper of teachers. Just kidding. The
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: reason I'm writing is to say I think you should
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: not be discouraged by any listener mail you receive telling
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you to keep your opinions to yourself. My favorite episodes
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: are the ones where either or both of you have
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: such strong feelings about the subject that you can't help
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: but go on a rant. Maybe it's just because I
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: agree with every rant, but I feel like it is
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: important to take a stand on issues that matter to
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you and admit that you're human beings with a real
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: stake in the game. Thanks again, I'll keep listening as
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: long as you keep podcasting. That is from John Lubushkin.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: So thank you, mister Lubushkin, and hello to your students
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: mister Lubushkin's class. Yeah, hi, guys, you've got a cool teacher.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he does some pretty cool He's doing God's work,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: teaching the next generation.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: I hope he doesn't work in a public school because
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: you're going to be like, you can't say God's work.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: If you want to get in touch with this like
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: mister Lubushkin did, or if you're a toy flipper who
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: has an argument against Chuck's argument, we want to hear
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: from you, bring it. You can go on to stuff
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: youshould Know dot com and check out our social links,
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: and you can also send us an email to Stuff
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How
• 49:03
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• 49:07
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