‘80s toys revival targets parents

Don’t be alarmed if holiday wish lists this year look as if they came from the 1980s.

Toy makers behind the ’80s resurgence — which also includes untold versions of Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Pony and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — are hoping today’s 20- and 30-somethings will try to relive Christmases past.

Teddy Ruxpin, Baby Alive, Holly Hobbie and even 1990s toys such as Elmo and Troll dolls are coming back for another run under the Christmas tree.

Toy makers say the ’80s toys capture characteristics every parent wants for a child: imagination and wholesomeness. And grown-ups’ rush of memories upon seeing Care Bears or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may help loosen the purse strings.

“Parents absolutely have a tendency to lean toward products and brands that their mom or they used as kids, no matter what category it is,” said Sharon John, a general manager at Hasbro, which makes Baby Alive and My Little Pony. “The first time you buy laundry detergent, you’re going to use what your mother used.”

Toy makers have updated the toys — giving Strawberry Shortcake a modern outfit and Teddy Ruxpin digital technology — but say they don’t want to mess with the essence of the toys. Strawberry Shortcake still smells like strawberries, and Teddy Ruxpin still tells stories.

The perfect storm of nostalgia and wholesomeness has already been successful.

More than 1 million Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were sold in 2004, the year of their return to stores, and nearly 2 million Care Bears were sold in 2002. Sales quadrupled in each toy’s second year back on the market, said Jay Foreman, president of Play Along, the Florida company that released the updated versions of both.

Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears have pulled in $1.5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, since they were reintroduced in 2002, according to American Greetings Properties, which owns the licenses to both.

Toy companies attribute some of that success to the iconic status these toys achieved the first time around. The children of the ’80s made up the first generation to experience multiple popular toys. The lines of shoppers seeking Cabbage Patch Kids became an iconic image of the 1980s and a phenomenon that wasn’t really matched until Tickle Me Elmo was introduced in 1996.

“That started to happen in the ’80s — when you really weren’t a good parent unless you ran out at 3 in the morning to get your kids the hot toy,” Mr. Foreman said. “Once you had a hot toy, they built a TV show around it, a movie, and it became this whole cultural and merchandising juggernaut thing.”

The ’80s toys are familiar to today’s parents and grandparents. BackPack Toys, which makes Teddy Ruxpin, said their brand is known to 75 percent of people. Makers of revived toy brands don’t have to pour as much money into marketing as the maker of a new toy to create awareness.

“These toys are so emotionally connected to people,” said Carlin West, a senior vice president at 4Kids Entertainment Inc., which owns licenses to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cabbage Patch Kids. “It’s so hard to launch a new brand today because it costs so much money to introduce a new property. If it doesn’t work, all of that money you’ve invested is a loss.”

Hasbro reached even further back into the vault to 1973 to reincarnate Baby Alive. And American Greetings went back to the 1970s to reintroduce this year Holly Hobbie, the great-granddaughter of a greeting card and toy character.

Tamra Knepfer, a senior vice president at American Greetings Properties, said the Holly Hobbie brand is similar to the ’80s hits because it teaches values like sharing, friendship and nurturing — another reason they think the ’80s toys have been hits.

“Moms want wholesomeness,” she said. “There are so few role models when there are properties like Bratz [dolls that have been criticized for promoted materialism]. These toys are much more about core values for little girls.”

But it’s the generational cycle of these toys that is the key to their success. Toys from the early ’90s — only about half a generation ago — have had mixed success.

TMX Elmo, the updated version of the original Tickle Me Elmo, has been one of the hardest to find gifts this year.

But Troll dolls, last introduced in the early ’90s, haven’t had the same success in part because today’s parents weren’t children when Trolls were popular and don’t have the same emotional connection to them, said Mr. Foreman, whose Play Along reintroduced them.

“This time around, it’s not as obvious as a teddy bear, and not a 20-year cycle like Care Bears,” he said. “I think that it’s taking a little bit longer for that to get out there — it might take two or three years to build.”

So if these toys are working on a 25- to 30-year cycle, does that mean we’ll see the ’80s toys again in 2030? It’s possible, toy makers say.

“If they hit again,” Ms. John said, “we’ll most definitely see them revisited.”