toys

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Target Ditching Girls' and Boys' Labels on Toys

Company decides it's time for GI Joe and Barbie to get to know each other

(Newser) - The days of girls' toys and boys' toys are over—from now on they're all just toys, at least at Target. The company says it will be getting rid of all gender-based signs in its toy sections in the coming months, Time reports. Pink and blue shelves are going,...

Guy Sneezes Out Toy Wedged in Nose for 44 Years

Steve Easton, 51, went to doctor when he was 7 after the item went missing

(Newser) - When Steve Easton was about seven years old, his parents noticed that the suction cup was missing from one of his toy darts, and they were worried he had inhaled or swallowed it. So they took him to the hospital, but doctors couldn't find anything. Yet for decades, he'...

Play-Doh! Hasbro Toy Looks a Lot Like a Penis

Someone missed risque-looking icing maker

(Newser) - "Oh no, Play-Doh" has been the horrified reaction of some parents whose kids unwrapped their Hasbro Sweet Shoppe Cake Mountain playset over the holidays. The reaction of practically everyone else: hysterical, juvenile laughter at the set's icing maker (or, as Hasbro calls it, the "2-piece extruder"),...

Woman Pays $20K in Others' Layaway Costs at Toys 'R' Us

Guy paid $1.2K in fellow customers' bills last week

(Newser) - A little heartwarming holiday news: Shoppers who couldn't pay for items on the spot at a Massachusetts Toys 'R' Us no longer have to worry about the costs. That's thanks to an anonymous older woman who paid off every single account at the store—all 150 of...

Toys Send Kids to ER Every 3 Minutes

Scooters top toy-related injuries, which have jumped 40% over 20 years

(Newser) - A study that shows toy-related injuries have jumped 40% over the past two decades might have parents reconsidering their kids' holiday wish lists. The report, published in Clinical Pediatrics today, shows that the injury rate for toy-related accidents, which affects boys and younger children the most, increased from 18.9...

Worst Part of Breaking Bad Toys Mess: Adult Buyers

Rupert Myers thinks recent controversy is a bad sign of our times

(Newser) - Toys R Us has acquiesced to angry parents and pulled Breaking Bad dolls —sorry, action figures—from its shelves. Nobody wants kids to have meth-makers as role models, but at the Guardian , Rupert Myers thinks there's a much bigger, sadder problem here: These figurines were really for adults,...

X-Ray Scanner Reveals Mystery of Star Wars Toy

And it's a bit of a letdown for UK collector

(Newser) - He wanted a Boba Fett, but he's got to settle for a Palpatine. If that sentence makes no sense, you probably won't have much sympathy for UK toy collector Dave Moss. About five years ago, Moss bought an unopened box that contained a Star Wars figurine—part of...

Again Made in USA: Lincoln Logs

Production of iconic building toy returns from China

(Newser) - Lincoln Logs, the popular toy created nearly a century ago by a son of Frank Lloyd Wright, is coming home to the USA. Maine Gov. Paul LePage announced yesterday that the toy logs, created by John Lloyd Wright and used to create miniature toy buildings, will be made at Pride...

Lego Is Biggest Toymaker in the World

Company overtakes Mattel, thanks in part to its movie

(Newser) - Barbies and board games will always have a place in the family rec room, but it's Legos that rule the roost. The Danish toymaker now ranks as the largest toymaker in the world in terms of revenue, beating out competitors Hasbro and Mattel for the top spot with an...

Mystery Woman Makes Millions With 'Toy Porn'

YouTuber's anonymous videos get billions of hits

(Newser) - Want to make millions on YouTube without ever showing your face? Try posting videos of yourself "unboxing" children's toys (with a deliberate crinkle of the packaging) and showing how the toys work. It helps to have a pleasant, sing-song voice and nicely manicured nails, too. All of this...

Coming Soon: Female Lego Scientists

Toy maker responds to criticism

(Newser) - Lego has apparently heard the criticism that its plastic universe is mostly a boys' club, and things will change this summer. A new line of figurines due out in August will feature a female chemist, paleontologist, and astronomer, reports Time . The set was suggested by a female geochemist in Sweden...

Barbie Goes Brainy for Chinese Market

Now with violin, sheet music, and a low price tag

(Newser) - Aiming to please education-minded parents, Mattel has given Barbie a fresh new look for the booming Chinese toy market, in a move that, as Quartz reports, highlights China's shift from manufacturer to consumer. New low-price dolls, including "Violin Soloist" Barbie, will help merge joy and learning, which "...

Meet This Year's Hottest Toy: the Rainbow Loom

Even boys are on board

(Newser) - It's apparently not too early to anoint this year's hot holiday toy, one that is surprisingly old school: the Rainbow Loom. And as Annie Murphy Paul writes at Time , "If you don't know what that is, you don't have children under age twelve." For...

Today&#39;s Legos Are Angrier
 Today's Legos 
 Are Angrier 
study says
Jun 13, 2013 7:25 AM CDT

Today's Legos Are Angrier

Happy plastic faces on the decline: study

(Newser) - Lego characters, it seems, are no longer living in a state of bliss. Once, the figures wore uniform smiles, whether they were gas station workers or hospital patients. Today, however, life has gotten more complicated: Since the 1990s, the number of angry Lego faces has climbed while the number of...

Plot to Release Poison Gas via Toy Planes Foiled

Five arrested after workshops, toys uncovered in Iraq

(Newser) - Iraqi authorities say they have arrested five men who were manufacturing sarin and mustard gas, which they planned to release via remote-controlled toy planes, reports the BBC . They also planned to smuggle the chemicals into Europe and North America and strike targets there. The men confessed to the plot, and...

Girl, 5, Suspended in Hello Kitty Threat

Told friend she'd shoot bubble gun: lawyer

(Newser) - Hello Kitty may be actually terrifying to some of us, but a 5-year-old Pennsylvania girl has been dubbed a "terrorist threat" and suspended from school over a Hello Kitty bubble shooter, the New York Daily News reports. The girl was waiting for the school bus when she told a...

Teen Wins Fight for Less 'Girly' Easy-Bake Oven

Hasbro adjusts colors, marketing in wake of McKenna Pope's campaign

(Newser) - A 13-year-old girl who complained to Hasbro that its purple and pink Easy-Bake Ovens needed to be a little more unisex for her 4-year-old brother has won: Thanks to her online petition, Hasbro is releasing a blue, silver, and black version—and adding boys to advertisements for the classic toy,...

Girl, 13, to Hasbro: Market Easy-Bake Oven to Boys

McKenna Pope's petition gets 25K signatures

(Newser) - McKenna Pope, 13, has a message for Hasbro: It's time to bring gender equality to the Easy-Bake Oven. McKenna wants the toymaker to market its iconic product to boys as well as girls, because her own 4-year-old brother loves to cook and wants an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. But...

About Time: Toy Catalog Flips Kids' Gender Roles

Swedish company lets girls wear blue, boys play with dolls

(Newser) - Swedish retailer Top Toy has put out a catalog this year with images of girls shooting Nerf guns and boys, gasp, playing with dolls. It's long overdue, writes Sarah Ditum in the Guardian . "The amazing thing is that gender roles for children have become so calcified that such...

Vatican Pushes for ... Bald Barbie?

She could help rehab doll's image, Vatican newspaper notes

(Newser) - Forget any number of controversial stances the Vatican has taken, it's now weighing in on ... Barbie dolls. Following a Facebook campaign earlier this year, Mattel decided to launch a bald friend of Barbie in a nod to sick kids who've lost their hair and donate the dolls to...

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