Toyology

Pink in the Dock

Great story in the Telegraph today about the "Pinkification" of Toys and how two parents have set up a campaign to boycott ELC for their over concentration of pink stuff for girls, finding pink cash tills, washing machines and globes particularly offensive.. Do girls not like pink? Do these girls not like pink? Are they right to be making such a fuss? Should we put aput a blanket ban on the colour pink? Do let us know your thoughts.

LEGO on the lookout for a Builder

Open auditions will be taking place in Manchester to find a LEGO fanatic who can turn their hobby into hard cash. The job will involve developing new features at the centre as well as maintaining existing ones, upon arrival at the open audtiions there'll be millions of bricks and applicants will first have to make an animal in 15 minutes. Get past stage one then you're next challenge is creating a famous face from the collection of bricks, if reckon you're up to to the challenge email register@legolanddiscoverycentre.com

Secret Santa goes Global

Fire, Wheel, sliced bread, Global Secret Santa - Yup, we're that impressed that such a head-slappingly simple idea was not ours or indeed has not been done before. So what if it is a commercial ruse to shift a ton of stock, the sheer joy of receiving something from a far flung land, or indeed closer to home,from a complete stranger has us all here at Toyology Towers trying to decide how many we'll send. The idea is simple, choose a product from Bungee Bird feeders to Chocolate Ants, flying monkeys to giant microbes, pen a few words to accompany your gift and its done  -All you have to do now is await your package from the postie,finding out who and where its from is almost as exciting as the gift itself. The cost of this potentialy record breaking activity, a paltry £9 - What are you waiting for the FIREBOX elves are waiting.

Hamleys under the Hammer?

A once in a lifetime offer appeared on the Hamleys website yesterday afternoon, for almost an hour the website was placed on sale for the credit crunch busting amount of just £18, thats right, for less than twenty quid you were offered control of the world's leading toy shops online empire. This wasn't any kind of fire sale by the owners but a glitch apparently down to an expired domain name, which could have left them losing thousands of pounds in sales.

Retailers association picks their Hot Dozen for this Yule

The TRA represents over 75% of the Uk Toy Industry and has a decent idea whats going to be flying off the shelves at any given season. Its Xmas picks for 209 comprise amixed bacg of stuff that all steps in at under £50, most we agree with, a couple we're at a loss to explain : 

Bakugan Battle Pack, Spin Master (£19.99)
Battle Strikers starter Set, Mega Brands (£9.99)
Ben 10 Alien Force Kevins DX Action Cruiser, Bandai (£29.99)
Bendaroos Mega Pack, Spin Master ( £19.99)

GO GO Pets Hamsters, Character Options (£9.99)
GX Racers Tightrope Terror, Flair  (£22.99)
Kidizoom Multimedia Digital Camera, V-Tech (£49.99)
Lego Games Minotaurus, Lego (£17.99)
Monopoly City, Hasbro (£24.99)
Princess Peppa’s Palace, Character Options (£39.99)

More Luck, Strategy and Logic from LEGO

We thought it appropriate to allow you to digest one new batch of board games before unleashing another, splitting them into two posts may well have resulted in you already making a purchase and now, with this final four, compelled to invest in another, we think you'll be thanking us though. A couple for the younger board gamers are Magikus (£7.99) and Monster Four (£9.99), the first is a race around the set to collect four ingredients for a magic potion, whilst of course others plot to steal or swap your stuff with a magic bat! the latter is a simple enough sounding game, make a line of four monster characters but the Giant Spider constantly conspires to wipe you out.

Illuminated LEGO

A new range of LED illuminated toys are set to be ready for the shelves this Xmas, Recreation and IQ have joined forces to bring us a range of half dozen lights. From a mini keyring LEGO man with light tucked away under his foot so by moving his poseable limb you'll direct the light to an eight inch LEGO Brick lantern containing four LED's to give 360 degree light.

Woolies is back

Making its return in an online only capacity the retailer now stocks over 1/2 million bits on its all new website and of course toys feature heavily as does the ressurected Pic N Mix. The new click n mix online sweet shop has already proved a huge hit today for its user freindliness, get yourself over there and fill up your stripey paper bags right away.

Dinky Toy under the hammer

 

This Dinky Austin A40 apears to be the only one of its kind in the "Omnisport" livery, the Ecuadorian General Store never took up an order to make more so this light blue van could make over £10k tomorow as it goes up or auction. The auction house Wallis and Wallis have received plenty of interest for the car which was bouht from a man who worked in central America back in the fifties....Feeling flush then head over to the Auctioneers website.

Seventies Toy set for silver screen

 

Superhero Stretch Armstrong, the lycra short wearing 70's favourite, is set to star in his own film due on screen in April 2009. Imagine Entertainment and Hasbro have a six year strategic partnership in place to exploit the toy giants brands, this selection is a slight shock! There are some heavyweight names behind the film however such as Brian Grazer, producer of Apollo 13 and the screenwriter of Bruce Almighty, Steve Oedekerk is doing the screenplay.

Via Toynewsmag