Once again, it is time to see what sort of stuff you might or might not see on the shelves of your local toy store to feature the likenesses of Kermit, Big Bird, Elmo, Gobo Fraggle, Fozzie Bear, and more. Because if there’s anything we want, it’s seeing more of those guys on the shelf so more people will buy them and thus the economic cycle of Muppets continues.
As we’ve done just about every year since 2008, we attended Toy Fair in New York City to hunt for all the latest offerings from the Muppets, Sesame Workshop, and the Jim Henson Company. This time around, we were joined by Chris Stulz from the Muppet Stuff website, who used his Muppet merchandise expertise (and uncanny Sixth Sense) to help us spot all of the stuff you’re gonna read about right now.
So let’s get crackin’! Check out all the merch we found, and then keep an eye on Muppet Stuff throughout the next couple weeks for Chris’s take on things!
Our first stop was the off-site Hasbro showroom, which houses the majority of Sesame Street’s merchandise. As you can see in the images above (give ’em a click to embiggen!), there are lots of play pals, toy cars, plush dolls, and lots of Elmo and Cookie Monster. Basically, the fact that Sesame Street is coming out with so much new stuff isn’t all that new. We’ve grown accustomed to their regular output of quality children’s toys.
But that’s not all! That little red fellow is Big Hugs Elmo, Sesame’s feature toy of the year. BHE gives real hugs, sings songs, can be tickled, knows when he’s being hung upside-down, and does your taxes (okay, not that last part, although you might be able to equip him with the Quicken app). He looks like he’ll have a crazy amount of fun inside his circuitry, and he’ll retail for a whopping $59.99.
The other big Sesame offering is the Sesame Street PALs set, which is an interactive app with various toys and tools to go along with it. In the demo we saw, it was night time on Sesame Street, and you can use the magnifying glass tool to locate your Sesame friends in the dark. The accessories include Elmo, Cookie Monster, a paint brush, a grocery scanner, and the iPad/Android frame, although not all of the accessories will be available with the starter pack. I wish the demo had been longer, because I would’ve loved to have seen everything in action, if only to see what the toys of the future will be like. (Elroy had this one on The Jetsons, right?)
Also on display was this dapper looking gentleman. Sadly, our presenter didn’t have any information on him, but it looks to be an Elmo the Musical doll with a microphone. And I don’t know why, but I’m strangely drawn to him, as if he’s the mature Elmo we grown-up Muppet fans trade in our old toys for to show that we’re mature and stuff. That was a poorly-worded sentence. Ignore me.
Gund is the main manufacturer of Sesame Street stuffed animals, so we hunted them down, knocked all of their Sesame toys onto the floor, and rolled around in them as if we were Arabian sultans in a pile of satin pillows. Okay, so we really just took a few pictures, but now I know what I’m gonna do once I’m rich and stop caring what people think of me.
Here are some big-footed floppy Sesame dolls, which are much softer than they look (and they look pretty soft already). Their proportions are all off, which makes them all the more adorable. Gund was not able to comment on why Elmo’s eyes are all Cookie Monster-ified.
The Take-Along pals are equally as soft, but they’re almost flat and much more portable. Hence the take-along name, I suppose. I just got that.
This Elmo doll was my favorite of the bunch. He’s obviously sick (and he sneezes when you press the button in his hand), but if you take away the box of tissues, he looks more like Hugh Hefner, making him almost as dapper as the tuxedoed Elmo we saw earlier.
A quick note that there was some Muppet merchandise we saw at Toy Fair that we aren’t reporting on. Mainly because we’ve been doing this for a while, and some things never change. For example, the Fraggle Rock display at Manhattan Toy, which includes some cute Fraggle plush, puppets, and bobble-heads, is untouched as if it had been sitting in the convention center for the past year. With Fraggle Rock’s 30th anniversary coming up this year, we were hoping that there would be a bigger Fraggle presence, but it wasn’t meant to be. We also spotted Kermit at the Ty booth, once again offering his silky smooth fuzziness to anyone who can find him in stores.
The first new Muppet merchandise we found were these Plushy Pencil Pals (read: weird-looking pencil toppers). As you can see, they are a little wonky. But I have to admit, I’m a big fan of wonky Muppet toys. The wonkier the better. So at the cheap price point (around $4-5), I’d definitely pick a few of these put, if only to gawk at Piggy’s exploding hair or Fozzie’s swollen nose or Animal’s melting face.
Kermit the Frog USB. For storing your bootleg episodes from seasons 4 and 5 of The Muppet Show.
Kermit and Animal are now in “Roxo” form. What’s Roxo, you ask? Well, it’s not quite a tile, and it’s not quite a bead, but it’s definitely a tiny thing with a picture of a face on it! Apparently you’re supposed to buy a bracelet and then collect your favorite Roxo tiles to decorate it. It’s like the children’s version of a Pandora bracelet.
The folks at Rubies usually stick to Muppet Halloween costumes, but this year they’re venturing out to apparel. Or at least some strange combination of costumes and clothing. Above, you’ll see Animal t-shirts, Animal headbands, Animal skirts, Animal purses, Animal hats, and more. Tween girls love that Animal. Apparently.
There’s just a few more Muppety things on our scavenger hunt. A plush Animal showed up paired with an Animal blanket. Kermit’s handsome mug appeared on a backpack. A few of the Muppets said hello in the form of key covers (which we spotted last year, but the Fozzie one is brand new). And Kermit and Animal are pleading to keep your feet warm as a couple pairs of slippers. I know we’re making it sound like there was Muppet stuff everywhere, but it was actually really hard to find. Every year, I’m shocked at the lack of Muppet merchandise, and 2013 was no exception. With a hit movie behind us and another one coming next year, you’d think that Disney would want to fill the shelves with Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo, but for some reason, they’re passing on all that sweet, sweet Muppet fan money. It is baffling.
The biggest surprise of the day wasn’t a toy on a shelf, but Sesame Street’s Bob himself! Bob McGrath made another surprise appearance at Toy Fair to sign his new CD, “Bob’s Favorite Sing-Along Songs”. The album has 15 of Bob’s best kids’ songs, and each track is followed immediately by an instrumental version of the same song so you can sing it yourself. Why you’d even consider singing a song without Bob is beyond me. In any case, Bob was as nice as you imagine he’d be, and the least we can do to repay him for over 40 years of teaching us how to count and spell is to tell all of you to buy his new CD. I mean, come on. It’s Bob!
The winner of this year’s Toy Fair is our friends at Funko Pop. As you may recall, Funko previously released a set of eight Muppet vinyl figures, ranging from the popular Kermit and Piggy to the obscure Mahna Mahna and Dr. Teeth. At last year’s Toy Fair, we were teased with concept art for “Wacky Wobblers”, which haven’t yet been released. But now we’ve learned that not only are the Wacky Wobblers coming out in 2013, but so are a series of plush dolls based on the Funko designs, as well as two strange toys that mix Muppets and cupcakes (which you can see above, both in their printed form and a photo of the cupcake display). There’s just so much to love here, from the bizarreness of the cupcake toys to the ferocity of the Animal plush to the fact that Dr. Teeth is getting his own bobble-head doll. Funko seems to be the only toy company that’s really embracing the Muppet property, and we hope they run with it forever.
And that’s it for our coverage of the 2013 Toy Fair. Tune in next year when we’ll show you some more soft Sesame Street toys, more Animal clothing for young girls, and next to nothing to promote the new Muppet movie!
Click here to wonder if the Kermit cupcake is dragonfly ripple-flavored on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
