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What Makes a Must-Have Christmas Toy? · Stuff You Should Know

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