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Beanie Babies: Reigning Toy Craze Champion · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, people. If you want to come see us live
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: next year, your very first chance to do it is
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: going to be Seattle, Washington on January twenty fourth at
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the Paramount Theater, isn't that right?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And then the following day, the very next day,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: we're going all the way down to Portland, Oregon for
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: another show on the twenty fifth at Revolution Hall. And
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: then after that, the very next day we're doing another show, Chuck.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, our annual trip to f Sketch Fest on
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: January twenty sixth. You can get tickets now. Just go
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to stuff youshould know dot com, click on the tour link,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and please please buy from official sellers from the venues.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Do not buy scalts tickets.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: All right, and everybody, we will see you in January.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: With bells on jingle bells.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're feeling fairly festive
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and this is Stuff you should Know. That's right, the
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: episode before the Christmas episode.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is become a I guess tradition to do
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a classic toy. When did we start that?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I'd say more custom than tradition. All right, I'm sorry, Christmas,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling contrary. It is definitely a tradition.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because you're about to shut it down for
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a month, so you don't care you're burning bridges exactly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I won't see you until like twenty twenty four.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like chuckle, forget anything that happens today.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: By then, I'm trying to think of what our first
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: toy one was. It was a handful of years ago.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I don't remember, but it was slinky maybe no, No,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I mean we've done toy ones, just not around Christmas.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of the first toy Christmas ey one.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I can't. I'm drawing a blank right now. So this
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: is like high quality podcasting doing right now.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, good pick this year.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah thanks. I don't know what made me think of
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: beanie Babies, but I did, and I think it turned
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: out to be a good one too, because it had
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with Christmas. Really, yeah, Christmas pops up
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: at one part. But it's a toy, and it's a
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: really interesting toy because Beanie Babies. For those of you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: who don't know, if you were born after the nineties
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: were probably well, i'll just say The Financial Times called
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: it potentially the greatest market bubble of all times. Yeah,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I mean that's really saying something, because there's been some
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: market bubbles, but the beanie baby craze of the mid
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: to late nineties probably topped them all. It was just
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: that crazy. I mean, we've talked about some crazy stuff
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that people have done for toys before, people elbowing one
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: another for a cabbage Patch kid. That's peanuts compared to
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: what people did for beanie babies.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't know anything about this either, because that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was sort of the end of college and then my
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: New York New Jersey years, and I just I knew
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that beanie babies were a thing, but I was not
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: participating in the economy in that way at that point.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So you didn't known a single one. Oh, of course
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: not I didn't either, No, I totally didn't. But the
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: thing is is we were in the minority in America,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: something like sixty two or sixty three percent owned at
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: least one beanie baby at the height of this bubble.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Think about that. That honestly was one of the most
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: shocking stats in this whole thing.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like six point three people out of every
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: ten people.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing when you're talking about a little kid's toy.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was the thing. It wasn't kids that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: fueled this craze. It was almost exclusively adults because the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: reason the market bubble grew was because there became this
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: idea that beanie babies were valuable, that they had an
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: inherent value greater than the face value that you would
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: pay for them at the retail store.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which was true for a while.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. We'll get into all that,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: but let's start from the beginning, shall we.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, you can't talk beanie babies without talking
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: about the gentleman who started it all. I do remember
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: seeing the letters t Y on beanie baby packaging, so
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I wasn't completely head in the sand, sure, but I
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: did not know that t Y was the guy's name.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: It was Ty Warner, who was born in the mid
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: nineteen forties in Lagrange, Chicago suburb Lagrange, Illinois, and he
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: had a pretty not great childhood. It seems like, is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that fair to say?
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah? From everything I've heard.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a mother who suffered from mental illness
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: which was not treated, which is even worse, didn't have
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a great relationship with his dad. His parents got divorced
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: when he was in his thirties, but he went to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: college at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where he learned his
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: love of treading the boards.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, kalam theater, right exactly. But he did. He
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: got into acting, and it kind of either he was
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: already like a theater kid at heart, or it turned
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: him into a theater kid because he ended up taking
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: that that way of living or that way of looking
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: at the world or being in the world with him
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: essentially for the rest of his life.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed fairly flamboyant.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: He was flamboyant. There's a really oft sighted story about
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: him showing up when he became a salesman for the
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: toy company that his father worked for. He would show
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: up to these sales calls in a Rolls Royce wearing
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a floor length fur coat and a cane and a hat. Amazing,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: essentially like Kramer when he accidentally's wearing the Technicolor dream
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: coat and ends up with that big Jamir Kui hat Niccain. Yeah,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that's essentially what Ty Warner showed up to these sales
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: meetings looking like in the early sixties, and apparently it
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: worked because he said that his premise was if he
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: showed up to a sales meeting looking like that, people
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: would say, I want to see what's in that guy's briefcase?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or do.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: You Yeah, it depends on the kind of party you're
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: in for.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a really good salesperson. Apparently he thought
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of himself though, and in nineteen eighty he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: worked for this company, I guess what, for like eighteen years,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: because he got the job in nineteen sixty two, So
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: that's a nice long run. But at least the way
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: his former boss told it, guy named Harold Nazamian, who
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: was the CEO, basically accused him of moonlighting on the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: company and using their you know, sales list in his
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: personal personal relationships with people as a salesperson to sell
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: his own stuff while he was working right as a
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: sales manager for this company, and so he got fired.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, on those sales calls he would be like, yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I've got these great dacin products, but also I want
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: to show you these too, So he was not only
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: using company contexts. He was using company time too. It's
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: about as bad a thing you can do as a salesman, essentially.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it wasn't long after that that the beanie
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: baby came along.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: No, that was so it was nineteen eighty when he
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: lost the job. He apparently moved to Rome. He went
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: to go visit some friends and ended up living there
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: for a few years. And when he came back, he
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: was inspired to keep going in the toy industry. I
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: guess it kind of got under his skin and he'd
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: seen some toy cats there in Rome, he said, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: he was inspired to create not beanie babies at first,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: but his first plush toys, which was a line of
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: cats laying down, pretty fluffy. They looked they were fully stuffed,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: which is a big difference between them and beanie babies.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And then for every cat there was a Himalayan version
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: of it. And they were pretty cute little cats. But
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: the thing that he did that I think really kind
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: of helped sell these things because they were like a
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: modest successive scene. It described as that he gave them
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: names they were in They weren't just some stuffed cat.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: This was Smoky, this was Peaches. Like these cats were individuals.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: They had an identity, and that made them that much
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: more lovable.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they were larger, they were about seventeen inches.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: They larger than beanie babies would be. They would cost
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: more than beanie babies at twenty bucks. And like you said,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they were stuffed, but not stuffed with the you know
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: kind of the genius of the I don't know about genius.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: That's probably stretching that word. Sure, let's just say the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: fairly smart thing that he did with beanie babies was
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: he stuffed them with beads like like a what's it called, yeah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: pretty much, and didn't overstuff it so you could move
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: them around and pose them and they could, you know,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: droop over your shoulder and stuff like that, not like
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a regular sort of fully stuffed whatever. They stuffed those
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: things with whatever weird chemical stuffing.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, like the little styrofoam pellets or the syrofoam fiber
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: that's kind of like a yeah, fibers.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those are those are the cheapest ones
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that you would get as like a prize at an
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: amusement park. Yes, that literal styrofoam balls.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Right, And that was a big that was a big
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: deal about his Beanie Babies because they were high quality.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: They were very well made from the outset. He was
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: all up the bottom of the South Korean manufacturers he
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: had partnered with to make these things. He was really
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: involved in the design and manufacturing process. So these were
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: really high quality dolls. But he made a very conscious
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to decision to sell Beanie Babies at five bucks a pop,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: which he said that mark that was the kids could
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: typically buy that with their allowance money, because as we'll
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: forget multiple times throughout this episode, these were originally meant
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: for kids to buy the Beanie Babies were. So that
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: was a really big deal because he came out he
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: was one of the first people to come out with
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: a high quality toy at a price point of something
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: you would get at like the County Fair something as
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: a prize, but instead it was a good quality plush toy.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so this was nineteen ninety three for
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the actual launch of the Beanie Baby, which launched with
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Brownie the bear yep and Pinchers the Lobster, and like
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a Cabbage Patch kid, it came with a date of birth.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: He used the name like he you know, originally did
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: with those fully stuffed cats or kiddies. I guess fully
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: stuffed cat sounds gross.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It's like a traduction.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Including the date of birth. And then also another key
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was this little short poem and their little heart shaped
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: tag turned out to be a bit of marketing genius.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: It was just just an extra little something to make
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it different to appeal to a kid, because you gotta
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: even if it ended up being a thing that adults
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: try to collect because you know, they thought it was valuable,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: it never would have gotten there if he hadn't have
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: made a toay that kids really loved to begin with.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Right Also, I mean he wasn't the first to do that.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: This was a good ten years after the Cabbage Patch
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: kids and their adoption papers and all that stuff. But
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: it's still it is a good marketing technique for sure,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: and it did work. But the thing that made beanie
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: babies really kind of take off was multifold. Part of
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: it was his marketing scheme. He had a really brilliant
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: idea which was only certain kinds of stores could carry
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: beanie babies, and you actually had to be a licensed
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: beanie baby retailer to sell beanie babies legally or legitimately
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and those stores were like Hallmark stores, locally owned gift stores,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: hospital gift shops, like small stores. So that right off
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the bat canceled any chance of anyone I saw it
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: described it going into like a big box store, like
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: a wal Mart or something and seeing a bargain bin
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of beanie babies just lumped together for fifty percent off.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So the fact that that didn't that possibility didn't exist,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: someone couldn't see that automatically made it. They were just
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: higher status than they otherwise would have been. Because he
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: made enough to sell to huge retailers like that, he
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: decided deliberately not to do that for that reason.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, super smart. I mean, if you can create a
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: scarcity and the illusion that what you're peddling is like
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: limited and collectible, yeah, then you're going to do pretty well.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And that's what he did. But not only by limiting
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the amount of stores that could be sold in, but
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: he also limited the number of toys that these stores
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: could even buy. Like that Hallmark store once they you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: really talk took off, couldn't be like, hey, we're going
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to dedicate half our store to these things now because
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: they're selling like hotcakes. So he would dole them out
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in limited numbers to the stores, and each of those
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: stores only had certain products, like you know, you might
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: have Spot the Dog and Squealer the Pig at one store,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: or Chocolate the Moose and Flash the Dolphin at another.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And that creates a situation then where kids are like,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I got a you know, like completing the collection as
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: a classic kid's toy scam.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: For sure, Yeah, by all the exactly. And so you
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: would have to go around town to multiple stores in
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: your town to get the ones that were available, and
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: because they were allowed to only buy limited amounts, frequently
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: those things were sold out. So the idea that these
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: things were scarce collector's items was manufactured out of the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: gate by Ty Warner in his marketing skit. I almost
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: said scam, but scheme, I think is a better way
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: to put.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The other big thing is that this coincided with
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the rise of the Internet. There's a great scene in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the movie. There's a movie that's out now, I think
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: an Apple original called The Beanie Bubble.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen it. Did you watch it now?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: The reviews aren't kind. I may watch it because I
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: love Zach Galifanakis, who plays Ty Warner and Elizabeth banks
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Is in the movie is a sort of a thinly
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: veiled version of his former business partner and and romantic partner,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I think Patricia Roach. But in the movie, in the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: trailer I saw today, Zach said, because you know, they
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: started a website and there were you know, an early
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: website in those years, Yeah, Zach Galifant or I guess
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: ty Warner says we broke the Internet things about it
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was a pretty good line because the Internet was so
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: new over him, just like I guess you know there's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a thing.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently. So he had an employee named Lena Trevetti,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: and she was a coder, and this is like nineteen
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: ninety three ninety four, and she convinced Ty Warner to
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: create a beanie Baby's website because they were getting calls
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: and letters and stuff like that from people saying like
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: this is my checklist? Is this accurate? Am I missing
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: any And they thought, well, let's just put like a
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: central place where all of the beanie babies can be listed,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: and it can be a place where everybody who likes
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: beanie babies can come and like learn and get excited
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: about beanie babies and buy beanie babies because starting in
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, they started selling beanie babies on this website,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and that was the same year that Amazon and eBay launched,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: so they were one of the first e commerce sites
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: on the internet.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, which is amazing. The movie has a character
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: named Maya, who was again a thinly veiled version of
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Lena Trevetti, which I'm curious why they didn't just use
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: their real names.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: They touted this as loosely based on Zach Bissonette's book
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and that some of it was fictitious, I think to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: keep from getting sued. I get the impression that Ky
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Warner is not shy about suing people well.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Which is interesting because he played Ty Warner in the movie. Like,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that's the only name that wasn't changed.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know why they did it, but they
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: definitely did it well.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Judging from the trailer, it seems that both the Bank's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: character and the Maya character are kind of One of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the threads of the movies, as it was seemingly in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: real life, was that there were at least a couple
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of women in the organization that had a lot to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: do with their growth in the sort of story is
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that he never gave them enough credit, and that seems
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to play out in the movie.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he like if you read any like corporate
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: write ups, like press releases or the very rare interviews
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: he's given, like it sounds like the whole thing was
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: just him, just him, And in part it was largely
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: him because he owned the company from the outset, always has.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: He's never sold one share, he didn't take it public.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It's been a privately owned company by him one hundred
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: percent as far as I know from the outset. So
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: he definitely, you know, really was the driving force in this,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: but he had help that is largely unacknowledged publicly. That
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: it's a good thing that Zach Bisonette came along, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: also the people who made that the movie based on
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Zach Bisonett's book to kind of shine a spotlight on
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the other people of this, particularly women who helped him. Yeah,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Zach and Zach, that's right, the two Zach's on the
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Zach attack against Ty Warren's.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: The other thing that he did to sort of, you know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: drive this, I mean, I guess we can call it
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a fall scarcity, is he had he was very secret
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: about the company. He didn't want people outside the company knowing,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: like when they were going to launch a new kind
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: of toy, how many they were making. Right in nineteen
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: ninety five, he started retiring models that was huge and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: then adding other ones. And he would just all of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a sudden drop like, you know this Marty Moose, what
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: did I call him something?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: The moose, chocolate moose.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Chocolate Moose is gone, let's say. And if they're being
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: baby people out there, like, no, chocolate moose never left.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just using that as an example.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But they would just announce that on the website and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people are like, oh my god,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: they've retired the moose, and you know, people are driving
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: around and trying to find them in those stores before
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they're all gone.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a deliberate thing to do as well,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: to create the further scarcity, like legitimate scarcity. But apparently
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: he fell into that backwards or he stumbled into it,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: because we said that he was really involved in the design.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: After these things would launch, he would like, see one,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: be like that's too orange, I want it more red,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, I saw a pinchy the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: the lobster would be a much deeper red. Well, they'd
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: stop producing the orangish red one, and these beanie baby
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: collectors would go bonkers trying to find the other one.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: He started to notice that, and so he created real
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: scarcity by deliberately retiring some just out of the blue.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: People would go scramble to find them, and then retailers,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: most importantly, would start stockpiling everything that he had that
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: they could sell, say the orange pinchy.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He was also smart enough to realize that the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: cabbage Patch kids, like when that bubble burst, it just
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: kind of all went away, and so he would do
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: things like, hey, Hallmark, if you want to order these
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: beanie babies, you got to also order some of this
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: other stuff that I'm selling. It's not as nearly as popular,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but he tried to increase revenue sort of across the company.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't all in on the beanie baby, right.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I say we take a break and come back and
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: talk about how McDonald's factors into this. What do you think.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Mcwe lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: How about the one on border like disorder that are
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: under order? That one be warm, but it was so nice, Olearnest,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: why everybody listen.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: Up, stop stop stop Star Josh and shock.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: So shot.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. So we said, McDonald's factors into this, Like
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: any great American economic bubble story, McDonald's going to play
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: some role in it whatsoever, somehow, some way. And McDonald
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: is the one that basically said, if you are just
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: kind of out there on the margins and don't really
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: know what's going on in this beanie baby collector world
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: growing under your very nose, this McDonald's happy Meal promotion
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: is going to just blow the doors off of any
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: illusions that beanie babies are not a cultural force to
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: be reckoned with.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, over a couple of years, I think they had
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: two versions in ninety seven and ninety eight where they
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: there were hundreds of millions of teeny babies. These were
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: even smaller, obviously because it was, you know, to fit
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: into a happy meal.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, teeny beanies.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah what I say, teeny babies?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: It works too.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I like teeny babies.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I like teeny babies.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Too, teeny beanies. And you know, even if your thing
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: is already popular, all of a sudden, if hundreds of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: millions of these things are going out and happy meals
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and you know the most popular, you know, fast food
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: restaurant chain in the world, then it's gonna just skyrocket
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: this thing even further. And that's exactly what it did.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the nineteen ninety eight one, the second one that
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: they did where you could get teeny beanies in a
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: happy meal. The first weekend of that promotion, McDonald saw
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the highest increase in sales in its corporate history. It
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: had never sold more in any weekend in the history
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of McDonald's than it did at the beginning of that
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: second Beanie Babies promotion, and people were ordering as many
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: happy meals as they were allowed to order and telling
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the McDonald's workers just keep the food, I just want
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: the beanie babies. McDonald's had to set up rules like
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: individual franchises had their own rules. It was really patchwork
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: where you could say, get five happy meals per order
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: or per visit, and you had to have a two
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: hour waiting period in between visits. So people would like
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: just go for McDonald's and McDonald's and then just go
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: on like a circuit to get as many of the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: beanie babies as they possibly could. People were tackling like
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: delivery people showing up with the boxes of the new
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: beanie babies. That was nuts what people did just for
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: the McDonald's version of the beanie babies.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that McDonald's record. That even counts passing the Great
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: McRib Feast of ninety two, the previous record holder.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: The mcribs back right now, I saw, I've been meaning
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to go get one.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Talk about false scarcity, Yeah, same thing, for sure. I mean,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I mean they could put that on their menu at
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: any time, right, totally for sure.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: You know that the fat cats at McDonald's Corporate are
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: eating mcribs every day of the year.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the employee lounge is just stocked with them. Right.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: But all this that's going on, Chuck is underscores a
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: larger cultural thing, and that is that people are buying
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: these beanie babies not just because they think they're the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: cutest thing on two legs, but because it has become
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: largely widely accepted that they are a sound investment if
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: you want to diversify your portfolio, or more often was
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the case, make your entire portfolio just beanie babies.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know this was by the like you said,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the cabbage Patch kids had already come and gone. Everyone
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: has already known at this point about the you know,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Star Wars collectibles and baseball cards and trading cards. So
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the idea, I think there are certain people out there
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: after all those things happened that are always sort of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: looking for that next thing as a you know, sort
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of alternative investment. If I can you know, buy fifty
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: beanie babies and put them in a box and just
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: sit on them and that'll put my kids through college
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: one day. Yeah, and that's you know a lot of
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: people did stuff like that. I think you mentioned eBay
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: had launched very soon afterward. They launched ninety five, and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, this is the other most staggering
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: set of the show to me, six percent of all
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of eBay was beanie baby sales.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that nuts. So the secondary market really did
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: grow up, and there really was like a huge market
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: for beanie babies that, say had been retired, and one
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: that you had bought for five dollars and kept in
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: the package you could sell for hundreds of dollars on
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: eBay legitimately in the mid to late nineties.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this really.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Was happening, like it wasn't like everybody was just hoping
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: beyond hope that their beanie babies were going to increase
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: in value. They were increasing value before their very eyes.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: So people who weren't sucked into it were like, this
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, And if there's
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: ever been an economic bubble, this is it. And yet
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: people were buying these things for like long term investing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: They were buying them hanging on to them for twenty
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: years or thirty years from now. The people who were
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: actually trading in the moment are the ones who might
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: have made money off of it. But that's pretty much
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the only people who.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Did, yeah, for sure. It also created a sort of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: an in this industry around it. You found some examples
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of people that made a lot of money just in
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the ancillary beanie baby market by doing things like writing
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: books about stuff. This woman, Peggy Gallagher, she was a paralegal.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: She made two hundred grand on a book that she
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: self published called the Beanie Baby Phenomenon, and then started
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: making I imagine a pretty good deal of money as
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: an official, well not official, but as just an experienced
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: beanie authenticator. Another woman named Mary Beth Sobaluski. She was
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: an IBM systems engineer, and she just made sort of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the go to list, like the bible basically of beanie
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: baby pricing and made a lot of money off that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and also started putting out a magazine. Yeah, was it
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a monthly.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was based around the price list, Like did
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: you ever collect or read Beckett's monthly for baseball cards.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: It's just a big.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Price I knew about it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's basically that, but for Beanie Babies it's called
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Mary Bethyebag World. They sold six hundred and fifty thousand
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: copies a month at its peak for six bucks a pop.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: So it's almost three million dollars a run per issue
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: for Beanie Babi's price guides. Right, but she really went
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: to town with it. It wasn't It wasn't you know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: just based on nothing. They she and her her assistance
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: like called dealers, beanie baby dealers to find out what
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: their prices were, what was selling really fast? They were right, right,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: they were following eBay prices like they were. It was
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: a legitimate Olivia Putt. It was the gold standard price
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: list for a reason. Yeah, you know, so and Mary
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Mary Beth Sobuleuski is another woman who was often overlooked
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: for the contributions she made to the beanie baby mania, because,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: in addition to creating the gold standard price list, she
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: was one of the original self described Chicago suburban soccer
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: moms who started trading beanie babies in first place, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: apparently their fervor in trading beanie babies in suburban Chicago
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: actually kicked off the national trend of collecting and trading
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: beanie babies, and they essentially created the secondary market. There's
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: an HBO documentary a couple of years ago, I think,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: called Beating Mania that really does a good job of
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: shining a light on them and their role and contribution
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: to the whole thing too.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: So we've had a documentary now, a feature.
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Film, yes, and Broadway Broadways next, and then James Mischer
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: is coming back to life to write an epic novel
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: about it.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: That'd be pretty amazing. Speaking of amazing, there are also
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: some amazing stories about just how kind of crazy things
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: got in many different ways, one of which is a
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine divorce case in Las Vegas where this
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: couple was divorcing and they had a lot of combined
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: assets in the of beanie babies that they thought, you know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: we're worth a lot, and they may have been worth
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of money their collection, and they there's a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: very great picture if you look it up on the internet,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: just type in, you know, like Vegas beanie baby divorced
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: couple and they brought all these beanie babies in on
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the floor and the judge said, like like choosing a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: team at recess, you just go one at a time
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and each of you pick out a beanie baby that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you're going to keep for yourself. And it's just a
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: very kind of funny looking photo.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It is until you read like some of the quotes
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: from the woman involved in the divorce case, the wife
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: who was like this, it was really you know, demoralizing
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: and degrading to have to be forced to do that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: She was really upset that the judge made her and
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: her ex husband do that, but it really, yes, she
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: was she was not happy about it at all. But
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: it was like the whole thing was worth five grand,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I think they said, But that was five grand at
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: the time, and people were speculating on beanie babies, so
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I think could have been worth a million dollars. That
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: pile of beanie babies, which is why they went to
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: the trouble of selecting them like that one at a time.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I guess everyone's entitled to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: their own opinion. It's her life. But degrading.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think she used the word degrading, but it was.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: It was along those lines I'm paraphrasing.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, I would have felt more silly unless you like
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: tied them both up and made them do it with
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: their mouth or something that's degrading. Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: No, when they picked a beanie baby, they had to
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: pick it up with their chin and hand it to
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: their ex to say whether it was okay, if they
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: kept or nothing, and then they had to hand it back
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: all without using their hands.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Right or that? What was the thing you do? Or
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you would pass something with your neck?
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about. Oh okay, they did that,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: but with the beanie babies they selected.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, what did people used to pass that?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Like the orange? I think is what it was?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yea, yeah, that's right.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I can't remember.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: When you're a kid, it's I think the whole point
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: of that game was like, oh, look how close we
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: are exactly right.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: It was like Spin the Box, but with an orange
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: and necks and chance.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: In no bottle. There was a guy in California named
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Chris Robinson Senior. I don't think any relation to the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: other Chris Robinson, and he bought twenty thousand Beanie babies,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: not twenty thousand dollars worth, twenty thousand actual Beanie babies,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: spending one hundred grand or so. And he was one
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: of those guys that was like, this is going to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: put my five kids through college one day, and one
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: of his kids, Chris Junior of the Black Crows, I guess,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: made a documentary called Bankrupt by Beanies about, like, I
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: guess how dumb he thought his dad was for spending
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that much money, like emptying their bank account because he
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: thought it was a good investment.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's a very short documentary. It's like
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: eight to twelve minutes. I can't remember which one, and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: it's mostly it's just him interviewing his family members about
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: this period in their family's history and dumb. Yeah, it
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: was like the dad is definitely like, you know, it
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: was not a good idea, but he's still holding out
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: hope that you know, at some point sometime down the road.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they still have them, Like they're the background
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: in all of the the the shots, like the interviews.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: It's pretty it's cute. It's not like, you know, condemnation
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: or anything like that, but it's just it's it's worth
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the eight to twelve minutes that you'll spend watching it.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I think, all right, well let's go check that out.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: The Dad's like this, this documentary is very degrading, right,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I'm paraphrasing.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of cases. You know, there were
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: people indicted in court for counterfeiting these things, you know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: pos that were never delivered and distributors kept the money.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: The craze was so bad there was actual crime, like
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: people breaking in and stealing beanie babies. This one case
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of a seventy seven year old guy in Chicago named
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Ben Perry was charged with stealing close to thirteen hundred
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: beanie babies. There was a PI that found him, a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Tie incorporated private eye. In fact, they found him moving
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: stuff out of a storage locker, moving these toys in
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and out and I'm not sure like he said that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they weren't stolen yet he gave them up and donated
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: them to a charity like that seems very fishy to me.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: He apparently bought them for dirt cheap at a produce market,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: like a farmer's market, and he swore he didn't know
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: that they were stolen, even though they were in boxes
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: labeled tie like they were shipping boxes stolen out of
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: the warehouse. But he got off finally, but it became
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: clear to him that he didn't steal them, but that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: they were stolen. So he just you know, donated him
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: so he didn't get in trouble. No, But apparently he
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: loved all of the limelight that was cast on him
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: by the press during this the time that he was
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: in court as the beanie baby bandit. He apparently ate
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: it up so he got something.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: He's like, I'm going out in style exactly.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: There was another one is frequently linked to beanie babies,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: even though it's kind of a stretch if you start
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: to sketch beneath the surface. But a man named Jeffrey
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: White murdered another man, Harry Simmons, in West Virginia, supposedly
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: over a dispute over who owned some beanie babies, although
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: really what happened was Harry Simmons and Jeffrey White used
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to work together, and I think Jeffrey White was stealing
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: or loafing or something like that, and Harry Simmons got
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: him fired. So Jeffrey White, who had borrowed beanie babies
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: from him, hadn't given him back, killed Harry Simmons.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: We understand you've been loafing exactly?
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Is that true?
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Is that a crime?
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: If you got timed? Lean, you got time to clean son?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Oh man. Should we take a break on that note? Yeah? Sure,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: all right, We'll be right back and wrap up the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: story of the beanie Baby.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Lately, I've been learning some stock about in say you Minia,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: how about the one on borderline disorder that or chunder
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: order that one before?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: But it was so nice.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: I learned this why everybody listen up, shut joy stop
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: stop stop cocks final Josh and shock.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So shot.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: All right. We called this a bubble, like any sort
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of collectible or real estate bubble or financial bubble, because
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: they eventually burst. And the Beanie Baby really followed the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the I was about to say, rise and follow the Internet.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: The Internet clearly clearly never felt but the big dot
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: com boom was what helped the beanie baby along and
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: also helped kill it a little bit. Although you know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: beanie babies were bound to I think they were bound
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: to go away one way or another anytime it's something
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that's something like this.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety nine, the website said, or stop, we're
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: stopping the operation. We're not going to make any more
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of these at this point three hundred and twenty five
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: different beanie babies. At the end of the year. Some
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: people thought, no, this is we know that tie guy
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: by now, this is just a stunt to get people
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to buy more of his stuff. But it, you know,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: it kind of worked because enthusiast and collectors were like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: all right, this is our last chance to go and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: get what's out there to complete, to complete our collections.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Right. I didn't read the books ech Bisonette's book, but
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I bread a review of it that they mentioned. The
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: way that he puts it this was this was, in fact,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent a stunt to kind of juice the
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: beanie the Beaby, the Beanie baby market again. And it
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: did work, but in the short term, and he basically
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: says ty Warner killed his creation by carrying out this
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: stunt because on Christmas Eve. Here's where Christmas pops up,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: as we said at the beginning Christmas Eve nineteen ninety nine,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: right before the turn of the millennium, or no, I
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: guess that was a year later, he said. Ty Ty
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Warner announced on the website, I changed my mind. I'll
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: leave it up to you guys to vote whether we
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: should keep making Beanie babies or not. And in his credit,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: you had to pay fifty cents to vote, but each
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: fifty cent vote went to the Elizabeth Klaser Glazer Pediatric
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: AIDS Foundation, So that was something. But ninety one percent
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: of people said, yes, we want to keep Beanie Babies going.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Of course he did, yeah, and the company said, oh,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: well that's great. We just so happened to have a
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: whole new line of them ready to go. So here
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: you go, everybody, Beanie Babies for all. And it was
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: met with some craziness, but nothing like it used to be.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: And very shortly after that, the whole thing started to
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: fizzle out rather quickly.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed like the sort of the last hurrah.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Ty Warner saw the riding on
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: the wall and wanted one more sort of big sales crunch.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, if that's how we planned it, and then
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that was pretty smart because that's you know, that's what happened.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: They had a huge sales jump, even though brief they
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: sold about eight hundred million dollars in two thousand. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: mean that's seven years later. I think Beanie Babies lasted
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: a lot longer than I would have expected them to.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: It seems to me like it would have been like
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: a two year flash in the pan, but they were
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: around for a while.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I saw that they were still going until about two
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: thousand and two, so that's yeah, that's a good long
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: almost a decade of a craze, of a bubble. But
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: at the end of it all, people started to realize, like,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: oh wait a minute, everybody has these things. This clubby
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Bear that I had to pay for the privilege of
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: buying to be part of the club, everybody has that,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: or everyone has the Princess Die Beanie Baby bear, the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: special limited edition Beanie Baby they released in honor Princess
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Die after she died. They made it sound like this
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: was like the scarcest Beanie Baby yet there were there
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: was like a hundred million of them out there. So
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: people started to realize, like, these things aren't aren't scarce
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: at all. There's a glut of them, and these thousands
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: and thousands of dollars worth of beanie babies that I
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: have set aside are are worthless, and and that was
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: a huge blow to a lot of people. At the
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: same time, I think it was also freeing, because it's
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: you'll just come across stories of people who basically spent
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: all of their free time tracking down beanie babies. It
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: was an obsession that they couldn't quit, and so they were.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: They were out a bunch of money and time and
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: wasted years, but they were free finally when the market
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: finally crashed.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like bitcoin.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I've seen it very closely compared to bitcoin in at
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: least one article.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I know people who are sort of
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: obsessively hours and hours a day trading cryptocurrency, and it's
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: it seems exhausting to me.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: And it's the same thing. If you ever see a
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: bubble coming along, that's not a long term thing. If
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: something suddenly just jumps in value and it's shocking and
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: people are writing like crazy articles about it, buy it
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: and then sell it during that. Don't hang on to
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: it long term. Same thing with bitcoin, Like a lot
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: of people made a lot of money by buying bitcoin
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: cheap and then selling it at its peak. It's people
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: who hung on to it as a long term investment
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that are now like I lost my shirt, you know. Yeah,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: So it's the same thing with Beanie. But it's the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: same thing with any economic bubble. You have to know
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: when to get out of just the right time, or
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: you can sit on the sidelines to be like, you
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: guys are.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Chumps, right, Well, who certainly wasn't a chump was was
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Tie because he and I feel like I can just
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: call him Tie because that was so his brand and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: t y. Yeah, for sure, no one knows exactly what
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: kind of dough he made on these because, like you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: said earlier, he never you know, became a he never
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: launched an ipo and didn't have to disclose stuff publicly.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: But he is and was a man with some ego
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: because in nineteen ninety eight there were some questions about,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Beanie babies, did they really sell as much?
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Was it the top toy seller in the world, And
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: he himself took out a full page Wall Street Journal
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: ad saying that he made seven hundred million dollars in
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: profits in nineteen ninety seven alone, which is I don't
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: know if that number is true, but if it's seven
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: hundred million justin profits in one year, then that's remarkable.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: That would have made tie ink more profitable. Then hasbro
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: and Mattel together that year? This is just from everything
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: they sold exactly. Yeah, just in profits, right, that's what
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: that taking out that ad in Wall Street Journal is
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: what you'd call today a flex flex.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean he is still a legit billionaire.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: It's sort of gone up and down according to Forbes
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: as far as his net worth goes two thousand and two,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: supposedly at six billion two thousand and nine down to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: three point two twenty twenty three. Forbes says he's worth
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: about five point seven. But it's you know, he still
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: has that company, but he also diversified, got into real estate,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: notably as a hotelier, and he owns the I think
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: still closed Four Seasons hotel, New York.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Still closed. What's it closed for?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It depends on who you ask. I think he claimed
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it was renovations, but other people said it was a
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: dispute with the Four Seasons brand. But I think it's
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: supposed to reopen and sometime next year.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw he had a dispute with the Four
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Seasons brand over upkeep fees, like what he basically needed
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: to spend to keep the thing up to four season standards.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: I also saw that that was the first hotel to
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: open to first responders and doctors and nurses who were
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: working on the front lines of the COVID pandemic, so
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: that they had a place to stay they wouldn't have
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: to go home and infect their families, which I thought
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: was pretty cool.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess we can talk about that
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit in a broader sense because Warner is
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: someone who, like has has been notably charitable as far
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: as like front facing sort of putting stuff out there,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff like the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: when he donated, you know, the fifty cents for those
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: votes and stuff like that. Because he got in trouble
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: at one point for tax well not tax fraud, but
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: what do you call it? Tax evasion And as part
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: of his sentence, one of which was a couple of
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: years probation, five hundred hours of community service, and one
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars fine. On the criminal side, he paid
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: over fifty three million dollars in civil penalties. But part
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of the argument was like, hey, you know, as far
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: as this defense goes, like, this guy's really charitable. He's
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: donated millions of dollars to the Children's Hunger Fund and
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the Andre Agassy Foundation, and, like I said, a lot
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: of really public facing, like large donations. But prosecutors are like,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: that's a pittance of what this guy's worth, right, And
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: just because he gives a little bit of money and
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: makes a big deal about it, doesn't mean he didn't
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: break the law.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The judge in the case though, was like, yeah,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: he did, but again, I'm pretty impressed with his charitable work.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: So he got off easy. He could have gone to
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: prison for four years. Instead he got off with one
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars fine, five hundred hours of community service,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: and two years probation. And it was for just the
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: dumbest thing. He had a Swiss bank account that no
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: one knew about but him that had like one hundred
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: million dollars in it. This guy was a billionaire three
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: times over at his poorest point. There's just no reason
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: to have done that. And he did, and he got
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: caught doing it, and so he called it the greatest
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: mistake of his life. Besides besides that pumping dump scheme.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: At the turn of the millennium.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: So they kept making stuff stuff ease in fact as
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: a company. In two thousand and four, they started licensing
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: deals or getting involved with, you know, licensing other people's stuff,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: like Garfield and some Disney stuff. There was something called
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Beanie Booze that came out in two thousand and nine.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Those were kind of big that were Yeah, they did okay.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, nothing obviously went like the Beanie Baby, but
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: nothing ever has probably sure, but he still is out
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: there making money selling stuff, and he doesn't seem to
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: be slowing down. I think, how is he now seventy three?
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I think seventy nine years old?
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Seventy nine I was pretty close, give or take six years.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: But he's still trying to market himself and his toy company.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was a little dismissive of the movie.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Like everybody who's ever had a movie made about themselves,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they always say like, yeah, ten percent of that thing
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: is true. But I think they also secretly kind of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: liked that they've made a movie about them. Sah, sure
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that kind of.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Thing, right, for sure. There's that also, that secondary market
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: chuck is still around and people are trading on that,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: that myth that some people still have that beanie babies
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: are really valuable. And so if you go onto eBay
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: and start searching beanie babies, you'll find some for like
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: a dollar, some I think for less than a dollar,
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: and then you can turn around and find the exact
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: same ones for sale for twenty five thousand dollars or
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: sixty thousand dollars or something like that. And I was
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: reading a I think tie collector dot com article where
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: they were basically saying, like, we're pretty sure this is
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: either money laundering that's going on, or it's some sort
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of scam where these people are trying to beef up
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: like the the market value of these things or the
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: secondary market artificially, or it's just a straight up scam
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: where like you you pay them where they buy from
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: you and say, oh, I overpaid, pay me back in
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: a gift card, which is another thing in addition to
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: selling at the height of a bubble. Never do business
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: with somebody who demands to be paid in gift cards.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Something fishy is going on right there. That's my other
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: word of advice around this Christmas time?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is it not like a babysitter or something?
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even still, I'd be like, what's your angle, babysitter.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: The one thing that cracked me up, though, was that
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: when the movie came out and he kind of which
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: was just recently I think this summer or last summer
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: or whatever, he said. You know, I really wanted I
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: would have preferred somebody like Warren Batty or Daniel Slewis
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: to have played me.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, when this this was going on, he was
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: in his forties. Warren Batty is eighty nine years old.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's aged.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Daniel le Lewis is sixty six. They're not even close
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: in age. He's twenty six, twenty three years younger than
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Warren Batty. Like, this guy's all over the place.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Well, his thing with Daniel day Lewis is that he
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: really did beat somebody to death with a bowling pin once.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: So he thought Daniel day Lewis could really bring that
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: to life on screen like he did and there will
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: be blood. Oh boy, you got anything else?
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Have you forgotten all the mean things I've said to
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: you of this episode.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what you're talking about.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Great, well, since Chuck doesn't know what I'm talking about everybody,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: that means that it's time for listener mail.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: You know, we're going to forego listener mail this week.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It's late in the air, and we would just like
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: to remind everybody we're going to say our official Christmas
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: greetings on our Christmas episode. But we've got some great
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: live shows coming up next year. We're doing our Pacific
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Northwest Swing and as we do every year in Sea
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: almost every year in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco at
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: sketch Fest, and we went to some bigger theaters this
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: time in Seattle especially, so we would love to see
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: everybody and for you to fill those places up. Start
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four off right, just go to our website
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: stuff youshould Know dot com and click on the tour
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: page and buy tickets from legitimate sources. Please do not
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: go to scalper sites. You might think it's the real site,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: but if the tickets are more than like forty bucks
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: or something, then it's not a real site.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Or if they want to be paid in gift cards,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: not a real ticket seller.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: That's right. But we hope to see everybody in January
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: late Jane.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and in the meantime, everybody. If you want to
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: get in touch with us, you can send us an email,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 49:53
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