LET’S PLAY BALLBUSTER!

In the previous article, you read about four toy lines that made millions. Well, for every one success story, there are hundreds of toys that flop…like these.

BALLBUSTER

Product: No joke—the Mego Toy Co. introduced it in 1976 as “a family game that’s loads of fun.” It consisted of wire stalks attached to a gridlike base. Each was topped with a hinged red plastic ball. The object, according to Mego, was to “use your balls to bust your opponent’s, if you can. Break ’em all and you’re a winner!”

Problem: Somehow, Mego thought it could get away with the name. But the first preview of the Ballbuster TV commercial— shown to buyers from major toy and department stores—ended that illusion. The ad showed a family playing the game, after which the husband turned to his wife and said, “Honey, you’re a real ball buster!”

“The stunned silence that followed,” Paul Kirchner writes in Forgotten Fads and Fabulous Flops, “triggered the first suspicions that Ballbuster was not destined to displace Parcheesi in the pantheon of classic games.”

FLUBBER

Product: Hasbro’s Flubber was tied to Walt Disney’s 1962 hit film Son of Flubber (sequel to The Absent Minded Professor). It was similar to Silly Putty: “Flubber is a new parent-approved material that is non-toxic and will not stain,” the company proclaimed. “Flubber acts amazing. It bounces so high. It floats like a boat. It flows and moves.” Flubber was made out of synthetic rubber and mineral oil, so it was cheap to produce…but it was sold for a high profit. Hasbro, still a relatively small company at the time, was expecting a good year.

Problem: Flubber had one significant difference from Silly Putty— it made people sick. More than 1,600 kids and their parents came down with sore throats, full-body rashes, and other reactions from handling the stuff.

Hasbro had to recall Flubber…and then had to find a way to get rid of several tons of it. Flubber floated, so they couldn’t dump it in the ocean; they couldn’t incinerate it, because it gave off “noxious black smoke,” so Hasbro buried it behind a new warehouse and put a parking lot over it. According to company legend, “On hot summer days, Flubber oozed through cracks in the pavement—a primordial reminder of the vagaries of the toy business.” Hasbro had been profitable in 1961, but Flubber almost put them out of business in 1963.

THE OOBIE

Product: It’s the world’s first—and so far last—hitchhiking toy, introduced by Parker Brothers at a time when hippies were bumming rides around the country and hitchhiking was still considered reasonably safe. Oobie was a clam-shaped plastic container with an address label and cartoon eyeballs painted on the lid. The idea was this: Kids would write a note to a friend and put it inside, then put the friend’s address on the outside and leave Oobie someplace where strangers would find it. If the stranger was headed in the direction of the address of the intended recipient, they could “help Oobie on his journey, hitchhiker style, across the street or across the country.” With enough help, Oobie would eventually be delivered.

Problem: “Most parents,” writes Kirchner, “even in that more innocent age, did not like the idea that some pervert finding the Oobie would not only get their child’s address, but be equipped with a splendid excuse to drop by. Parker Brothers quickly got the message—and Oobie was a dead letter.”

ANGEL BABIES

Product: In the late 1970s, the Ideal Toy Corp. bought a product called Fairies from another toy company. They were tiny dolls with mechanical fluttering wings, and might have sold quite well…if an executive at Ideal hadn’t insisted on changing the name to Angel Babies. They had to change the doll, too. “Now,” says one toy industry insider, “they were these chunky little toddlers with halos and wings. They lived on clouds, played harps, very cute.” Ideal introduced the toy at the annual New York Toy Fair in February, and waited for Christmas orders to pour in. They never came.

Problem: Ideal forgot something important. “The buyers said, ‘OK, Angel Babies,”’ recalls the toy industry insider. ‘They’re dead babies, right? Babies that died and now they’re in heaven.’ So of course, nobody would touch it.” The product died an instant death (and went to…?).

THE ELVIS DOLL

Product: Hasbro made a fortune with New Kids on the Block dolls, so in 1994 they came up with another rock ’n’ roll “sure thing”—a high-priced collector’s doll of Elvis Presley. The Elvis stamp was a smash, and surveys showed that, 16 years after his death, the King was bigger than ever. Hasbro envisioned offering a new series of Elvis dolls every year, “enticing middle-aged women with memories and money to burn.” Hasbro hired a top-notch sculptor to design the dolls, paid $1.5 million as an advance to Presley’s estate, and released the first three in the series. At the end of December 1994, the company tried a limited sale of 16,000 dolls at Walmart. With no advertising, they sold out in two weeks. It looked good for the big rollout in January, the anniversary of the King’s birth.

Problem: It turned out that Elvis fanatics were the only ones seriously interested in the dolls—and once they finished snapping up their dolls in the first weeks, sales went into a freefall. Within a couple of months retailers had slashed prices from $40 to $19.99. Some retailers actually experienced negative sales, as angry shoppers who’d paid full price a week or two earlier returned to stores demanding a $20 refund. The Elvis doll, launched with one of the largest promotional campaigns in the history of the toy industry, ended up as one of Hasbro’s biggest duds.

WORLD OF LOVE DOLLS

Product: Another Hasbro loser. World of Love dolls were the company’s response to the twin challenges of the astonishing success of Mattel’s Barbie doll and the emerging hippie subculture. There were five dolls: Love, Peace, Flower, Adam, and Soul (an African American). Love, a longhaired blonde, was the doll that looked most like Barbie. “Love is today’s teenager,” the company’s sales catalog read. “Love is what’s happening.”

Problem: Kids didn’t want a World of Love—they wanted Barbie.

Time it takes a marble factory to turn out 1,000 glass marbles: 5 minutes.