Tickle Me Elmo.

Chicargo's Ron Dubren big break came from Tickle Me Elmo. Dubren started his career as a doctor in research psychology but playing Scrabble one day with his wife he thought someone must have invented this, I am going to give it a shot. A few of his toys were bought into the ruthless market of the toy industry but none found fame and fortune.
Dubren's eureka moment came in the form of two laughing children on a park bench in New York. It made him remember the joy of laughing and brought back memories of being tickled as a child. Tickle me Elmo was not born yet though. Tickles the chimp was first and then Tickle Me Taz.
Tickle Me Elmo was taken to the toy fair and the reaction was not as good as Dubren had hoped although Neil Friedman decided to produce 30,000 of the giggling toys sold at $29.99. But Elmo was not a phenomenon yet.
Rosie O'Donnell is the person Dubren needs to thank. O'Donnell had a talk show on the TV that was devised for mothers. Throughout the show O'Donnell kept an Elmo doll on her lap and whenever someone is the audience said the word 'wall' she threw an Elmo toy into the crowd. 300 Elmo's where given away and that was the advertising Elmo needed. O'Donnell become the 'queen of nice' and has always been associated with the pop culture of Tickle Me Elmo.
The selling of these toys was described as a 'self feeding frenzy' and cashed in over 30,000,000 USA dollars.
In the USA the toy industry is huge. American families are getting smaller, but are spending more on their children. Parents have children when they are older and therefore have much more spendable income. Divorce is fantastic for the toy industry because parents 'guilt buy' their children more presents, the less they see them, trying to buy love. Even grandparents are spend happy as they were brought up in the generation where money was not an issue and accounts for 17% of the American toy industry today.
Children have shorter attention spans every year and therefore the toy industry renews 40% of the toys every year which creates a massive amount of waste.
Each christmas British chidren unwrap 2 billion pounds worth of gifts, every year the gifts having to out do the one from the year before. At New Yorks annual toy fair there are thousands of diffrent ideas for new toys, piles of plastic and electronic gifts.You want to ask yourself do children need all these toys? Of course they dont but the toy industry does.