Recently The Toy Insider held their annual Holiday of Play industry event at Current in Pier 59 at Chelsea Piers in New York City. Unlike its other show Sweet Suite the Holiday of Play puts a bit more emphasis on The Toy Insider’s holiday season gift guide with many of the attending companies being winners in one category or another which includes their Hot 20, 12under$20, and STEM10.
As is normal the show brings attendees in contact with familiar faces such as LEGO, Bandai, Mattel, Spin Master and Playmates as well as various others such as 3Doodler, PMI, Playmobil, and Clarendon Games to mix and mingle with some fun, food, and beverage. As it is their event I would be remiss in not again mentioning that The Toy Insider is a perfect resource for researching and finding reviews of toys, technology, and entertainment. With their years of experience The Toy Insider posts reviews of products throughout the entire year assessing products through a tested review process that includes quality, price, and playability along with putting together their gift guides for Summer and Holiday. Simply put The Toy Insider knows play. You can follow them through all forms of social media as well: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
As normal while there are mre companies than I covered at the Holiday of Play I will be focusing on a curated set of product. Let’s get into it!
Gift Guide Selections
https://thetoyinsider.com/2024-holiday-gift-guide/
As mentioned above within the Toy Insider gift guide the company has made three categories that they like to focus on including Hot 20 (consisting of 20 of their top choices for the holiday season), STEM 10 (consisting of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine toys), and 12 Under $20 (12 topy toys that won’t break the bank).
Hot 20
Standouts in this category would include Furreal’s Peanut the Playful Monkey interactive toy, Mattel’sIMAGINEXT Star Wars Darth Vader Bot, Plai’s Poe The Ai Story Bear, WOW! Stuff’s Real FX Disney Stitch, and Spin Masters’ Batman Ultimate Transforming Batmobile.
STEM 10
The standout item to me was Horizon Group’s had a very relevant Star Wars Galactic Chemistry Lab
12 Under $20
In the Under $20 range CRA-Z-ART’s Disney Crystal Surprise, Zuru’s Metal Machines Speed Heroes, Jazware’s Squish-a-Longs 14-Pack, and Playmates Toys Mutations Mix ‘N Match Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will all wow the children without breaking the bank this holiday season!
LEGO
https://www.lego.com/en-us
Everyone’s favorite brick building company, LEGO, was on hand to show off a wide reaching assortment of new and newish products at Holiday of Play. Aside from some sets seen at San Diego Comic-Con including Zelda’s The Great Deku Tree, Disney’s The Lion King Simba, and Star Wars’ Rebuild the Galaxy The Dark Falcon some new releases included an Art Mona Lisa, Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wednesday, City Advent Calendar, a Marvel Dancing I Am Groot, and the release of a Fortnite collaboration with LEGO. The winner in my mind however had to be the Ideas Jaws Set!
WOW! Stuff’s Real FX The Disney Stitch Edition Puppet
https://www.wowstuff.com/
https://www.wowstuff.com/toys/movie-tv-merch/disney-real-fx-stitch-puppet/
One of the big items out of Holiday of Play was WOW! Stuff’s animatronic Stitch. Boasting blinking and squinting eyes, a moving mouth, and touch sensors on his head, nose, and mouth the also features over 100 action and sound combinations. The Disney Stitch Edition is voiced by Chris Sanders the animated movie’s original artist. Selling out at launch I can see this as being a hard-to-get item this holiday season.
Clarendon Games
https://www.clarendongames.com/
Clarendon Games is a independent games publisher producing light-hearted quirky board games. They produces a range of family games as well as adult party games. At Holiday of Play Clarendon Games showed of two of those games; a party game Priorities where a person is dealt five everyday item cards and has to rank them from love to loathe once done the other players try to guess the correct order and Imposter! a deduction game where some guests to a dinner party are trying to unmask imposters among their ranks while trying to steal treasure. Another fun game of theirs when browsing their site is The Mole a conversation based game where a mole is trying to deduce a secret location while the spies are trying to unmask the mole.
P.M.I. LTD
https://pmi.co.il/
P.M.I. was again focused on their Stumble Guys line a multiplayer battle royale obstacle course game at Holiday of Play. In it up to 32 players race, jump, fall, run and stumble their way to victory. The new product line included a range of items from 2-inch blind box figures all the way up to 9-inch plush figures.this time however their focus was on the Stumble Guys partnership with Mattel’s Barbie where there was Barbie themed figure, blind boxes, and plush for the partnership. Another focus was on Booksy Monster Tales a line of miniature monster figures that each feature and actual book.
Playmobil
http://www.playmobil.us/
Playmobil is again a bit quite on the more pop culture front and not much was new from Sweet Suite but a NHL Zamboni Machine was pretty neat.
Spin Master
https://www.spinmaster.com/en-US
Spin Master seems to always have something a bit different and their products can sometime crossover into more pop-culture themes. At Holiday of play Spin Master was showing off their Batman Ultimate Transforming Batmobile which turns the batmobile into a batcave. They were also showing off their Bitzee 2.0 interactive digital pet. Bitzee reacts to your swipes, tilts, shakes and touch and grows with you as you play with it. New to the Bitzee line is a Disney themed version which features over 25 beloved Disney Characters. Also shown off were their Furreal Monkey Interactive toy, Hatchimals Alive!, Monster Jam Speedway, and Marvel Mega Spider-Man RC Car.
Playmates
https://playmatestoys.com/
Playmates continued to focus on their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Godzilla X Kong lines. For TMNT a new wave of Mutations Mix ‘N Match figures were on display along with a modernized Pizza Thrower. For Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire not much was on display except the 13? Mega Heat Ray Godzilla which spews heat ray mist and a 13? Mega Punching Kong.
Mattel
https://about.mattel.com/
The main draw from Mattel at Holiday of Play was their Wicked Fashion Dolls including Nessarose, Glinda, and Elphaba.
3Doodler
https://the3doodler.com/
Looking for a 3D Pen? 3Doodler is home of the world’s first 3D printing pen and the web’s largest catalogue of 3D pen stencils, lessons, videos and more! Upcoming will be a version that will let you eat with what you play, a 3Doodler Chef which lets you draw with sugar, perfect for those that like to create the best gingerbread house!
