You can always spot a parent around the holiday season. Their hair is a frazzled mesh of cow licks and stray strands as if it’s been pulled by a crowd of frantic people. Their eyes dart around in all directions desperately seeking something that could suddenly appear at a moment’s notice. They break down and cry during commercials that advertise “the hottest toy of the holiday season.”
With 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' coming to theaters, now is a good time to look over the almost 50-year history of the world's most popular action figure and take stock of its origins, mysteries and innovations. Use this handy guide and now you'll know all you need to win half of your trivia battles...
Ah, Playmobil. Basically Lego's weird cousin, Playmobil offers all of the imaginative environments and changeable figures of Lego without having to actually build anything.
Andre Cassagnes, the man responsible for inventing the venerable Etch A Sketch, a toy that inspired countless children ever since it was introduced in 1960, has died at age 86 in France.
Ever since it was introduced in 1963, the Easy-Bake Oven has been marketed exclusively to girls, leaving aspiring boy chefs out in the cold. But that's about to change thanks to a campaign led by a teen girl on behalf of her four-year-old brother, who loves to cook.
Thirteen year-old McKenna Pope is fighting mad at Hasbro, and this little activist wants some positive changes now. The eighth grader, who hails from Garfield, New Jersey, has started a petition on Change.org asking Hasbro to make their Easy Bake Ovens more gender-neutral.
Scandinavian Toys"R"Us licensee Top-Toy has taken a new approach to making sure kids get what they really want for Christmas: a fully gender-blind catalog that erases the line between boys' and girls' toys.
In a pleasantly surprising move, a Swedish toy company called Top Toy has made a giant leap for gender equality amongst children. Top Toy's Christmas catalog features an interesting twist: the boys are the ones who are playing with dollhouses and the girls are happily playing with the Nerf guns.