15:00 - Hell yes. As a kid, I didn't care if Beanie Babies were supposed to be so valuable they'd pay for my college tuition. I had them because they were toys, they were meant to be played with, not rot on a shelf in a glass case. They were extremely durable for how well manufactured they were back then, so they were easily the best toy around. It didn't take much to stitch'em up if they did get a hole somehow. And some of them, like Siam the Siamese cat or Chip the calico cat, were my very best friends. Being a military kid, we never stayed in one place for too long, hell, not even in the same city--so having Beanie Babies really helped ease the pain of not having other kids around to play with.
I admit it. I still have a huge box of all the cat beanies I collected as a child. Including Chip. I gave almost all the bird ones away as presents to high school friends back in the late 90s. Better than ending up on the floor of my baby brother's closet.
Chip is awesome. I liked Claude a lot too. I was a bit young for the Beanie boom since I was born in '96, but I bought some used ones at a model train fair my grandpa took me to when I was little. I also had a Beanie 2.0 named Brigette that I really loved too.
Metroid4ever same here, are used to rip the tags off I didn’t care. When I was really little I had an army of beanie babies that I would take to bed every night.
My grandma used to get me beanies and then she’d customize them. Like the Red Bull she turned into a Chicago bull, and a the dog she turned into my dog by adding some fur and making it an outfit. I didn’t have many since they were expensive but the ones i do have i still cherish since my grandmother who isn’t here anymore made them special and different. All the ones i still have are one of a kind. They may not be worth anything in terms of dollars but they are priceless to me.
That bull was actually given out at a Chicago Bulls game at one point ironically. He also had his name changed due to a lawsuit from a Tabasco company.
I worked at a McDonalds in Illinois in the 90s as a teenager. When we had the Beanie Baby Happy Meals the line of cars to the drive through would stretch down the road for blocks. I remember thinking, "these people are idiots."
But then the same thing happened with Pokémon cards last month and those people easily doubled their money And I think the value of those limited packs will dramatically increase over the years. I kept one for good measure, and even pulled a holo pikachu, charmander, bulbasaur and squirtle so I know those OGs will be worth a pretty Penny one day (:
I'd go there to eat and get some beanies during this one three day festival downtown or when the car show was on the same street. (Chesper than the festival food and was on the way there)
Funny enough, when Beanie Babies were worth thousands, most NES games were worth jack. You could get a Stadium Events for next to nothing if you could even find it, which goes for thousands today. 1996 was a year when video games were thought to be disposable, and a particular brand of plush animal would put kids through college. I love the 90's.
Chesco There was a speculator boom/bubble (and subsequent huge crash) in comics in the early ‘90s, similar to the Beanie Baby craze. People saw Action Comics #1 and so on selling for hundreds of thousands, so they thought it was an investment to buy new number one issues of new comics, without realising that what makes the wartime comics valuable is their scarcity.
The huge amount of food wasted from the Happy Meals during the Beanie Baby boom is precisely why McDonald's offers the option to just buy a toy instead for less than a buck upon request.
That last 2 minutes and the plush themselves really hit hard with me. I can see why ty was the way he was. Those plush were ment to bring comfort to him when no one else could. The man just wanted to share that same comfort with others who were going through it like him. They where never ment to be a cash grab collectors item. Just a small form of love. They started off almost nothing and went full circle. There goes a another dose of innocence, lost to time.
That's why I kinda don't feel collector mentality is really healthy. You seem some of these game reviewers with all their game consoles on display and shit... I've been selling my old gaming shit off, I kinda feel selfish holding on to it and not using them when theres someone out there that will appreciate it.
Sounds like ty was a good salesman, but a terrible manager. It's probably why he refuses to hire people these days. His employees had a great idea to make the company money, which was their job, ty went with it and had a moment of success by losing the meaning of his product. In the end, it was the love of money that was the root of all the evil, lol.
At my old work around 2000ish, we had a couple bins for Toys for Tots at my work for people to donate toys. Some lady filled up an entire one with TY Beanies, in plastic ziplock bags and tag protectors. On the bright side, these went to kids that would love them.
I lived next door to the largest Beanie baby collector in Illinois for a few years. She actually sold her car to buy the royal blue elephant one. No joke.
Good video, but I think that ending is a bit too bleak there. Beanie Babies are still really easy to find in stores and still sell well enough from what I can tell. Some kids still enjoy them and they can still be purchased for valentine's day and stuff. Instead of being "investment" they are now used for their intended purpose.
@@handsomebrick Bubbles are just people focusing all of the insanity floating around in their mind into one thing. Kind of like Black Friday but over the course of a few years.
handsomebrick that’s exactly what they do, the value gets to a certain price and then it bursts and drops (plummets) back to a value closer to its intrinsic value (which is what a crash is) now if it is a minor area of the economy (for example beanie babies) then it’s damage is contained to those individuals who bought the commodity at the inflated values, with the worst affected being those who bought at the peak price. It’s far worse when the bubble occurs in a vital area of an economy such as in the credit or housing sectors. This can lead to more extreme market damage (see the Wall Street Crash of 1939 & the credit (subprime) bubble from the 2000s). Amusingly in the 1600s there was a Tulip bubble though it’s economic impact was between the two extremes mentioned here it did still cause problems in the country it occurred in. Whilst people speculate on what will next be a bubble (for example bitcoin). You can only know something is a bubble after the fact. All bubbles burst after all. Now if the value for a commodity settles back to its intrinsic value over time then it isn’t a bubble even if some people over speculated on the commodity because the value normalised. It’s the overinflation and then steep correction that make a bubble.
My dad and I used to go to this store in the mall that sold Beanie Babies, and we'd get one every time we went. I remember being told by everyone that they were special and valuable, but more or less, at the time -- they were nice toys to me. They did get a lot of love in our household, even if they're sitting in a box in my closet now... though I have to say that the end of this video made me want to dig them all out and hug them.
I remember my snail beanie baby I had as a kid, the poem on it's tag always made me feel better about being clumsy and slow. It unfortunately has seen the effect of being held by a really clumsy kid. It's in complete tatters.
I lived in a tiny old mining village in the arse end of England at the time. Poor place, notoriously skanky and rough as a badger's arse. We had a bloody beanie baby shop. Like that's all it sold. It was insanity. Shockingly it's now gone.
I've held onto a few of mine because I genuinely like them but I'm afraid to take them out around anyone because they are such a joke now. My mom refuses to get rid of the rest of them, she thinks they are "going to be worth something someday." It really is a shame, they are great toys and kids should be playing with them but instead they are collecting dust in baby boomer basements.
@@Helicopter7 they are cute and adorable I think the shame just comes from the fact that there are many people that possibly ruin their lives collecting them and they kind of just became a symbol of that
I loved Beanie Babies as a kid, I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. I just really loved the way they looked. Growing up in an abusive household with a parent's marriage falling apart (luckily they later fixed everything and are stronger than ever) all I had were my Beanie Babies. I have this one to today named Dart, he's a poison dart frog and he was my best friend growing up. As childish as it sounds, I carried him in my backpack until my first day of highschool. My grandma and parents have brought me a million of the things, but there was something about Dart that I loved more than anything. I'm now turning 26 this year, have a wife, a kid, and another on the way, and I still have that frog sitting on my shelf in my room
KINGautumn I think you responded to the wrong comment. I wasn’t talking about collectables at all, I was talking about a TH-cam serious about bankrupt businesses
This just makes me sad. Ty was so passionate and careful about his toys. He truly loved them, and he wanted to bring that love to others who needed it. He wanted to bring joy to children and make their lives brighter. He took such special care to keep the toys out of cold dank warehouses, and initially tried to get them to sell in smaller local businesses, instead of soulless corporate chain stores. But all those toys that were meant to bring happiness all ended up doing the exact opposite, and afterwards they were left to be forgotten, never serving their original intent. So much care pored into something that ultimately ended up not reaching the ones who were supposed to receive it. That honestly makes me want to cry.
On the other hand, Ty is now a multi-billionaire, and even if it took a couple of decades, plenty of his toys *are* serving their intended purpose nowadays.
The funniest part was Warner's marriages being ruined by his constant talking about plush, and him getting his wives involved in the business but then trying to steal credit for their ideas and squeeze them out. It's weird that he somehow got the rest of the world to briefly care as much about plush as he did, if you made a movie about these events it would basically be Scarface with beanie babies instead of cocaine.
the fucked up part about this is it was mostly adults who were into them sadly the kids never got them due to greedy adults my sister had alot of them when she was younger
Tom Williams Productions Actually they're meant for both. But they're meant to be enjoyed by AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. Artificial scarcity is dickish to an extreme.
I put a Gundam model kit in a glass display case 'cause the cat I had at the time kept trying to get at it (even chewing up one of the beam sabers). Currently doing the same with a LEGO Star Wars snow speeder my sister got for me 'cause of just how fragile the damned thing is; wings pop off _far_ too easily, and if you grab it the wrong way you're going to get a spring-loaded missile in the eye.
Well, do you feel the same about vidjya, OP? Yes they're meant to be played, but I collect vidjya for archival purposes. A good fraction of my collection I've barely touched or played at all, but I still keep them because I don't want to kick myself in the future for something I once owned dissapearing into time, I want to preserve the medium. Got several games and gaming related items worth a pretty penny (could sell my entire collection for 40k+ easily), but I refuse to sell any of it.
I worked in the toys and electronics department at Target for a few years, and every holiday shopping season some coworkers and I would start a pool trying to predict which toy was going to be the one that we were going to be bitched out for not having. I had a woman threaten to sue me over a Wii in 2007, I couldn't imagine what retail employees had to go through with the TY craze in the 90's.
I was working at Toys “R” Us during the Hatchimals Christmas season craze. One morning when we had them, people were lined up outside. I remember one lady was mad because we wouldn’t price match other companies’ prices for the Toy. She threaten to not buy the toy than I reminded her it’s the hottest toy this Christmas and if she didn’t buy it, there’s a huge line of parents that are dying to get their hands on the toy for their kids. She knew I was right and shut up and bought the toy, no price matching.
I worked for a Hallmark store in high school during the height of the beanie baby craze. We had one of our delivery trucks overturned by a mob of beanie obsessed idiots outside of a shopping mall. I also had a woman standing at my counter CRYING because we couldnt sell her the new beanie babies slated to go on sale the next day. Good times.
Dude. Rainbow Loom back in 2014. I had people literally circled around me, swarming a display I was making, taking unopened packages out of my hands to "help me open them" in order to find the colors they wanted. *eye twitch*
I've done humanitarian aid missions when I was in the military and I've seen starving refugees behave more civilized during food deliveries than what I saw people doing at toy stores during the cabbage patch doll craze when I was a kid in the early 80s.
I worked at a Hallmark gift store during the beanie baby years. We sometimes hid a few of the toys from each newly released line to make sure that actual children could buy some after school. The adult collectors would buy all of them up during the day in an angry frenzy. They'd shout at us because of the store limit of 3 of one type per customer. One furious lady came back with a spaced out toddler saying he's a paying customer too so she gets 6 to buy six now. All of the staff knew that, with maybe a few exceptions, these won't be worth much in the future. It was depressing. Especially telling little kids that "Yes the new models came in today but all of them were sold this morning."
That's crazy! And to make it worse those Beanie Babies are probably worth less than the collectors spent on them. Its one of those fads that faded away in time
I remember my grandmother being crazy into these things when I was kid. When the McDonald's promotion hit, she BEGGED my mother to get them for her. So, one day, my mom comes home with 6 happy meals and says they're all for me, but grandma gets the toys. Now, when you're a little kid, the prospect of 6 happy meals may seem like reason to celebrate at first, but by the time I got to happy meal #3 I wanted to fucking die. I've hated those stuffed bastards ever since, and I learned a valuable lesson in finances from that whole ordeal.
@@ftwinzeler I know this is an old comment, but I believe the first time they did the promotion, you had to buy the meal. After the craziness that ensued, they changed it so you could buy just the toy.
I still have a big basket full of these things in my basement storage. Not only did I love them as a kid (and I actually PLAYED with them, though I kept the tags on), when my mom died I got like 15 of the things. Easy condolence gift I guess. Anyway my plan is to keep them and then when I eventually have kids that's one Christmas/birthday present already sorted. Just dump a big basket of plush on the kid and call it a day.
Aye..I've seen my fair share of tragic stories, many far and away worse than this one...but I gotta be honest..this is one of the few stories that actually makes me cry.. Mostly just out of sympathy for Ty Warner himself. Sure, I could criticize a few of his business decisions with hindsight and all, and his lawsuits were rather frivolous to say the least, but Ty...poor Ty..probably one of the most innocent people out there at that point in time, who only wanted to bring the joy and innocence that he never had as a child to children everywhere, only to see the very thing he created turn into the center of a toxic cesspool of myopic, money hungry idiots who were so convinced on getting rich quick off of stuffed animals. As a fellow sufferer of Peter Pan Syndrome who grew up as the black sheep of an abusive household, I can't help but sympathize deeply with that desire to bring about that which you never had as a child, or even share it with the world.
I have to agree with you as well. I don't know if my empathy relates to my own baggage, and not only did I find myself sympathetic to Ty but also relating. It's interesting to consider the causation of your hangups as an adult, like why I'm in my mid 30s and find myself personifying stuffed cats to the point I have to be careful to avoid certain aisles in stores because I "feel bad" and sympathize more with inanimate objects that people sometimes. I guess the fact I can be objective and simultaneously laugh and cringe is something I have going for me... but yeah... Ty... really tragic story.
I was in college during the Beanie Baby craze. There was a girl that put her entire savings into Beanie Babies. I tried to explain how it was just going to be a fad but of course she didn't listen. She was convinced it was going to make her rich.
I have no idea. She was a friend of a friend so I never saw her again after college. I guess the only good thing would be college students usually don't have much money, so I think she had spent "only" a couple thousand on them. Hopefully she got her degree and a good job, but who knows!
This reminds me of a story My old man told me once. He basically ended a friendship with a girl because of these things. He was riding in her car and she would stop at every McDonald’s to try and pick up a certain one on their way to visit a friend. Eventually he got so annoyed that he left the car and called a cab to take him home, he hasn’t spoken to her since
Huh, I now have utmost respect for Ty. Even when he was rolling in money, he was willing to do things that would hurt his bottom line because he hated how kids weren't getting a chance to enjoy the toys he made Mad props, there EDIT: And got to the tax evasion part ...Eh, still respect him for being pissed at adults
My mother and late grandmother used to collect these, they had boxes upon boxes full of em, like at least 13 printer paper boxes and a few Rubbermaid totes, I got to skip alot of school to help them buy certain beanie babies, and when McDonald's did the beanie baby happy meals, we would spend HOURS in line there, and they would bring home the food. I lived off of hamburgers for weeks. It was ridiculous. After my grandmother passed, my mom held onto all of them, even after finding out they were worth nothing. I think it was a way to hold on to her mom after she passed, like the Norman Rockwell collector's plates. Pretty sad now that I think about it...
Lap Lasagna thank you for sharing. I think my parents have a tote of the McDonald's beanie babies still in wrappers someplace. I remember not understanding why my dad wanted to keep them wrapped but I had plenty of other stuffed animals so I never really cared that much
These kinda make me sad, and its because my mom had her collection for me and saved it in storage, but they got lost in the storage and they couldn't be found, so these personally make me sad
Nick Armitt no, I'm not sad about worthless plush toys, I'm sad because my mother was going to give them to me. What the hell is your problem saying it like that to me? I'm sorry but that comment made me angry. My mother was going to give them to me, its the sentimental VALUE of them, NOT about the plush toy itself.
+Some Scrub Because those people are fucking pathetic losers who have been used like the brand of TP I wipe my ass with. if they want to randomly attack someone for no reason, I can deal them 100x that and more if they wish. sick of the pointless antagonism.
I've become somewhat known by my online community for my random Beanie Baby obsession, and was linked this video pretty much as soon as it went up. I usually watch your stuff anyway, but knew this one was going to have to be viewed with a different mindset, because I was expecting to go into it and nitpick every tiny little thing. But no, this seemed accurate from what I could tell, and I actually didn't know some of the history behind Ty Warner. But yeah, I was sucked into the Beanie craze during the worst of it. I got my first few as birthday presents when I turned eight in 1996, and went from there. I guess I was one of the few collectors that wasn't a soccer mom hoping to turn the collection into millions of dollars down the line, I just collected them because I liked them and enjoyed the hunt. I ended up getting around 200 of them (don't know the exact number, though I could definitely remember every single one I had if I needed to), spanning from late 96 to mid 99 before losing interest. Never did have any of the super rare ones, but it wouldn't have really mattered because I lost the entire collection (along with most of my possessions) due to some unfortunate family stuff that happened in 2005. For a number of years after that I never cared all that much about Beanies anymore, aside from getting the occasional one from a Goodwill because I recognized it as an old favorite or one that was semi-rare. On a whim, I decided to buy one of the old Mary Beth's Beanie World magazines off ebay last year (I used to collect the magazines too), and made a stupidly long vlog about it, introducing my youtube audience to a craze most of them never knew or cared about. And now I've sort of gotten back into it again, but only for the originals. There's way too many nowadays to really care about anything after the 1999 "retire everything" event. So I've decided to try and get a collection of everything with a Gen 4 tag, which is about 120 different items if you count super nitpicky variants and the like. I'm kinda glad they're not worth much anymore, since that means this collection is actually somewhat reasonable. Anyways, I enjoyed the video and am glad you didn't completely make fun of it as badly as I thought you would. It was a stupid time to live in, but it was fun as long as you didn't take it too seriously. Which ... I did, but at least I never hurt anyone over it.
My brother and I were pretty young when these were all the rage, and we only had a few. But they were honestly the toys that we cherished the most out of everything we had. They were just the right size and just malleable enough to fit in my brother's toy tractor, my barbie convertible, and the freight cars of a kiddie train set we had. So, naturally, they went on all the adventures...and as those adventures increased in number, we ended up developing different character traits that we attributed to each one. When I was in college, I actually bought a new version of one out of a little homesick nostalgia, but I had forgotten the time my brother accidentally dropped our original into a potpourri wax melter (even though I spent weeks washing and rewashing it by hand to get the pink wax out) and that long after it was clean, the black ears were still a little stiff, so we could pose them a bit and they would stay. So when I got a new one, I initially thought there was something wrong with the ears until I realized that it must have been the scented wax incident that caused our childhood toy to be that way. So as wild as the beanie craze was for some adults, it didn't taint the joy of partially-stuffed plushies for every kid.
I worked at McDonald's when they put these in kids meals. Confirming what Larry is saying, most of the buyers where adults. Very little where kids. They just wanted the toy and not the meal. It was insane working those days. As so many hamburgers where made and then thrown away.
Poison No, it's really not. Food going to waste is food going to waste. Even if it's greasy fast food, there are hungry people who would have loved to eat it.
Poison Sorry. I know you were just making a little joke about the quality of American fast food. It's just that I find food waste a hard subject to make light of.
The End: "All good things come to an end, it's been fun for everyone, peace and hope are never gone, love you all and say, so long." This black bear was the only thing I asked for that Christmas. I cared for nothing else but this. Blessedly, my mom managed to get her hands on it for me and nearly 20 years later, I still have it. It's not in pristine condition (though it is still tagged) but even if it was, it's not for sale. When I look at my Beanie Babies, I think of Christmas as a child and the Hurculean efforts my mom went through to make them special for us as a single mom (even stealing a hot seasonal item out of someone's cart! The poor child that probably didn't get that toy...). My toys have too much sentimental value to ever be sold but they're not in selling condition anyways. To this day though, I get teary-eyed when I read The End's poem. I've never been good with goodbye's.
"The poor child that probably didn't get that toy" Look at it this way, you probably appreciate that toy now, 20 years later, more than that other kid probably would have 20 years ago.
Dargonhuman I don't have the toy (Fluffy, My Come Here Puppy) anymore. And it met an early demise. My older brother weirdly whipped it once with a belt and the mechanical dog flashed green. I might've told him to stop a time or two but I was a little amused. A little amused turned into a lot amused when I began to let her (Fluffy) tumble down the stairs to watch her light up more. It all stopped once she broke a leg. I swear I wasn't abusive with most of my toys (except Barbies. I was a stuffed animal person but it never failed that some well-meaning stranger would get me a Barbie on my birthday or Christmas. I managed to sodder my final two barbies together when I was about twelve, one black and one white, and made her look something like Goro from Mortal Kombat with biracial arms. I looked at it as each needing to learn to understand the other. Damnit, I should've kept her!) Anyways! I loved most of my toys and to this day, I have most of them. I don't know why I found it amusing to kick around this expensive toy my mom had to steal away from some other kid but I think that kid would've loved her more than I did. Well...I loved the toy. But then sadistic kiddie amusement made me love her in a different way. ...All of this makes me sound very twisted, lol!
When I was like 5 or 6 I was at Cracker Barrel with my grandma and as we were checking out she said I could go grab a beanie baby. This was at the height of their craze. I waddled over to the beanie baby wall and spotted an older couple (about 40-50 years old) browsing frantically through the shelves. I walked over and saw an oddly colored bear and as soon as I picked it up, the woman in the couple ran over to me and without a word she grabbed me hard by the arm and snatched the beanie baby out of my hand. I'll never forget the look of sheer malice she gave me as she did so...it was insane. Just as quickly as she had come, they were gone. I just grabbed another random beanie baby and walked back to my grandma. I guess that would have been traumatizing to someone, but I just assumed it must have been really important to that woman. I was way too kind a child for my own good.
This certainly brought back memories. I never was fully aware how crazy the Beanie Babies became, since I was young at the time. But, as a kid, I always loved those things; aimed to get whichever ones I really wanted. Still have them too. The ending of this video only makes me happier that I loved them as plushes, not as rare collectibles.
Nostalgia works best with things you got to enjoy when you were younger, a major driving force to the Beanie Baby craze was adults wanting to make money, most of whom wouldn't let their children touch the things. Sure there's going to be a certain influx of people wanting to track down the Beanies that they remember from their time as a kid but it probably won't reach the limits anywhere near the peak that it once was
Some of the rarer ones, yeah maybe. But nothing like a 90's boom will be happening with it again. Of course, we all said that about things like Bitcoin after that crash in 2014, right?
Buying "rare" items in loot boxes, is the new Beanie Baby craze. All my sisters and my mom's Beanie Babies that they spent thousands of dollars on, eventually ended up in a recycling bin. Who didn't see that coming!
Void of Space and Time. On top of that, The item's you purchased were never real to begin with. And just imagine if you purchased loot boxes with bitcoin, you'd be buying something that doesn't exist, with something that never existed!
Well, digital items do have weight, but they still weight at mere protons. But your point still stands, if the entire internet weights around 3kg, You would still be owning something sized in a planet:universe ratio.
Charmiskit. My main argument was this artificially created, Rare phenomena , They were only rare because it was the intention from the get go, they could have easily made a 100 million of the Supposedly "rare", beanie babies. And same with the so called, rare loot Box items, It's all carefully structured to get your money, Well that is until you move on to the next "rare" thing. And I'm not saying there's anything particularly good or bad about this, that's just how it work'💲.
I remember whend we have the Pokemon-Go fever,my neighbor quit his job to be a professional trainer so he can sell accounts to other people,history reapeting it self !
Classic80sStuff, I think he last some two months or less,he see in ebay people selling accounts for thousands of dollars ,one week later he quit his job as a teacher * facepalm * to catch and evolve pokemons so he can sell and be rich. Problem is no one was buying and people was moving to fidget spinners or something like that ,today he is unemployed and he knows as "Pokemon Master" in the neighbor.
I still love my beanies. My parents got them for me when I was a child and, as you say they should be, they're still priceless to me. Really interesting video, I'm glad to know the history behind the plushies that pretty much defined my childhood
Nothing about the recent surge of TY Beanie Boos? The filled plushies with the giant eyes you can bludgeon children to death with? I guess people weren't so keen to go wild over another TY lineup. My 7 year old actually has a lamb beanie buddy still. And it's beyond priceless. In sentimental value, like a plushie should be.
The new TY plushes aren't Beanie Babies, let's be real. They've taken a quality dive in that each one is just a color swap of another of the exact same critter. All the proportions stay the same, so they don't feel unique in the slightest.
Sorry, but I feel it's kinda your own fault if you quit your main place of income (job) over a stupid fad, only for the fad to end. It's essentially reckless gambling with your (financial) life. I'd feel more sad for the kids and adults with Beanie Babies being assaulted by said people wanting to make a quick buck.
Sure! Lots of people gave up their job for their dream (job/hobby), but most of those dreams aren't fads. For instance, lots of people gave up their job to make videos on TH-cam or stream. The difference is that TH-cam and streaming provide a somewhat financially assured future, as TH-cam isn't a fad and won't go * poof* in one day and be worth nothing (unless very special circumstances). A fad however, most certainly will. That's the danger of fads that are worth money; they go away, in an instant, and nobody really knows when. Fads are finite and IF a fad survives, it is no longer a fad and chances are it won't be worth as much money as it used to; a.k.a. Beanie Babies. What I was trying to say is that some people think way too easy about these sort of things and don't think things through when making such life changing decisions. I wasn't talking about the creator of Beanie Babies, I was talking about the parents trying to get mad $$$. Most of these parents didn't do it because they love Beanies so much, they did it for the money only.
TY Beanies are still flying strong. Our store alone at work sells over a thousand of a the beanie boo line each year and we can't keep the collectable blind bag boxes in long enough. Main difference is now tho it's mainly kids buying them, they do tend to hold their value at least
The best Christmas memories I have was in 1996. 'Santa' got me a whole lot of Beanie Babies, but instead of putting them around the tree, they were hidden all over the living room. It was like Easter and Christmas combined. I grew up outside Chicago, and one of my best friends moms was exactly the person who loved Beanie Babies as much as her kids, and kept the high value ones in a display cabinet. I have all of my old Beanie Babies and have fond memories of playing with them
Adults hoarding beanie babies to get rich quick while children can't get them is an awful lot like crypto coin miners hoarding graphics cards while gamers can't get them. And it will end the same way.
Oda Swifteye I think it's a stretch to call cryptocurrency an actual currency. Trading is difficult most of the time, and typically they end up having to be sold for fiat money before anything can be bought with them. The value isn't stable and people hold them instead of actually using them as currency, so pricing things for people that actually accept them is not easy to do. They aren't a safe store of value, they aren't easy to use as a medium of exchange, and they aren't legal tender.
@@amberbaum4079 Well, yes. At the moment I'd say the big three are Fortnite, PUBG and Apex Legends, with COD: Blackout and Battlefield: Firestorm on the backburner. But then there are games like The Culling 2 and Radical Heights, games that just didn't survive.
@@SuperPerry1000 Once the market is satisfied, it is satisfied. I guess only a few candidates will always make the bucket of gold. If you come in too late or with something boring into the craze you will fail. Reminds me when eveyone's favourite sport was guessing what will be the "World of Warcraft killer".
@@amberbaum4079 Or the Halo Killer. Or the Call of Duty Killer. It's all the same. Even though the only thing that could kill COD is COD itself, as Black Ops 4 is so desperately trying to do.
My buddy worked at McDonalds at the time and needed a lot of dental work. His dentist traded services for Beanie Babies lol. He said he had a kid but after watching this I question if it wasn't for himself haha. That time was insane with those stupid things.
I grew up playing with Beanie Babies, and many of them were my favorite toys as a kid. I still have most of them and I still love and remember them. I’m not fond of the newer designs, but the older ones have a special place in my heart. Hearing this story makes glad to be one of the people giving them the love they deserved as toys.
The Peter Molyneux memorial bear filled with PVC pellets is worth more than the one with styrofoam pellets. It's also made to look like it's been used to wipe with.
I remember a fight breaking out at my elementary school over these. They got added to a list of things that were banned from the school grounds. The list had Pokemon cards, yo-yos, binders with non school approved images, etc. If ANY were brought in they were taken and destroyed by the principal(which was done in full public view of the class). Granted the list was stopped the next year, and the principal left a few years later. Still those little things caused a lot of harm, and worlds of good both at the same time. They couldn't help it that they were popular, they just wanted friends.
I convinced my mom to stop hanging them from their little necks on the Christmas tree. A hanged man's tree for Christmas. My mom never did see why that was so morbid.
The only thing I remember being banned in my elementary school were Tamagotchi's...every kid had at least one and they were really disruptive in school.
I feel like literally destroying student's property is likely why that principle was forced out Like if I found out my child's stuff was destroyed on purpose by the school, then oh boy is that school getting sued
I have a friend with hundreds of them, and just about any of them where the actors playing them are still alive are signed, he even had a princess Leia signed before Carrie Fisher passed. He seems to think he has a lot of money sitting boxed up still and for the moment he does but I keep making jokes about how he has all of this money invested in the next beanie babies. Although, ones like the Princess Leia one will still be worth something more than others, He doesnt seem to think there is anything to worry about
@@mychemicalbromance97 yeah there’s a store by my house which has a really cool video game section but more and more funko-pops are taking up more and more shelf space which is bad for me since I like looking at video games and seeing if I can buy them.
Great coverage ! I always appreciated their quality, realism, posability, and popularity. I had little trust for it making a fortune, but I have always liked hugging Teddy bears and the like, so I couldn't resist collecting a ton of these when it was "cool" to like plushies ! I had baskets of them of every shelf ! These days, I focus on hugging on my lemon beagle. The other day, when I brought him over a friend's, he said, say, that's a handsome dog. Is he for sale ? Absolutely not ! I'm in it for the love, not the money.
I suppose the similarity is spending real cash on something that will ultimately be worthless in an effort to get rich - which again probably depends on whether you think bitcoin will stay worthwhile or ultimately fail..
as they say, "a fool and their money are soon parted." bubbles always burst, and it's always a sure sign it's coming or already here when nearly everyone gets involved.
Special thanks to Kim Justice for helping write and edit this video: th-cam.com/users/elmyrdehory The story as to why she has the video on her channel first, was this video was meant to go up on my channel in December, but I had a major sore throat and had the flu, so suggested that she put it on her channel so she could take advantage of the December ad revenue (as it's the best month of the year) and I'd voice a slightly different version when I got a bit better. Kim's written and edited a number of my videos over the past 2 years, same as why Dan has a few similar videos to me.
Larry Bundy Jr Is this word-for-word Kim's video? I thought I'd heard it before so I went back to her video and it seems like it. I'll watch again though, Larry. Your voice is like having warm cream poured into my ears. Which has actually happened on six separate occasions, so I know what I'm talking about.
Larry Bundy Jr i was a bit suspicious of how similar this was to Kim’s video But since Kim actually worked on this video with you at least its a not a Weegee-soulbrother situation
I bought a squirrel one a few years ago to use as a prop. I was making an Armored Vault Suit Fallout cosplay at the time, so we decided to make a Squirrel on a Stick food prop. We doused it in gasoline, set it on fire, and once it was charred the way we wanted it we painted red bits of gore and glued giant googly eyes to it. It's still my most commented on cosplay prop to this day.
Oh man, I used to feed these to my cat, she would hurl a beanie Baby around for hours and hours. They would always end up with their guts ripped out after a few weeks or so, now I don't feel so bad about that.
I had a bunch as a kid, several more because my great grandma collected them during the craze and she let me take the ones I wanted while she was working out her will, specifically because everyone knew one of my great aunts was planning to swoop in and nab them to see if they were worth anything. Pretty sure I still have them, a shark, a frog, a duck and... I think a Republican elephant somewhere. I hope Ty knows that despite these greedy adults trying to exploit his toy for a quick buck, those of us who were kids at the time truly do appreciate the sentiment behind the little things. That and the fact they were one of the only brands of plush toy a weird kid like me could rely on to find a cuddly shark.
I remember selling them. The scalpers knew what day we got our delivery and would be waiting at the door before we even got in to work. It was heartbreaking having to tell a little kid we had no bears because some old bloke got them all. To be honest even we the staff weren't immune to the crazy. I still have 3 The End bears reminding me that get rich quick doesn't work.
I had quite a collection back in the day, and perhaps took it too seriously, but over the past few years I've been selling them for $1-$2 a piece at garage sales. Kids love them. Makes me very happy.
I had a platypus beanie baby . He was chill. Remember Meanie Babies they were like edgier beanie babies ? I had a roadkill cat that came with a box of Capn Crunch
I'm glad this video was made, though some parts were sad and infuriating. I hope that those McDonalds restaurants that had customers tell them they didn't want the food from the Happy Meals kept the food to sell to someone else instead of just throwing it away. Edit- Oh, here's one more stupid thing. I saw an article explaining that the McDonald's toys were worth almost nothing, and the comments section had a number of people asking if the toys were worth a lot. Really, playa?
Most McDonald's I've been to will sell the toys to collectors individually (granted they cost about as much as the Happy Meal but...) though there's usually a 1-per customer, per day limit. That said, even if I had to buy the meal to get the toys, and didn't want the food, there are plenty of homeless people in my area who wouldn't mind some free hot food.
Dargonhuman From what I've heard, when they did the first promotion, you had to buy a Happy Meal to get the Beanie Baby; it was only later on that you could buy it individually. That said, thank you! That's exactly right. If you don't want the food, then give it to someone who will appreciate it.
Ahh, that makes more sense; I was a young boy when the Beanie Baby craze hit so I had no interest in those fuzzy little "girl toys", and I intentionally ignored most of the promotions during that time. It helped that shows like Batman, X-Men and Power Rangers commanded all of my attention too haha!
I still remember some of Beanie Baby cats I owned. The last bit of narration for the story and thinking of then honestly made me feel sad. (I really love cats)
Clbull118 I still think a Skeet plushie would sell like hotcakes. Think about it, that Skeet doll you push its stomach while saying sodium chloride only for that doll to constantly correct you that it’s salt. A happy meal thankies from McSpanky’s
I was born a couple years after the craze ended, so I wasn’t aware of the craze growing up. I did, however, manage to amass a sizable collection of Beanie Babies as a child. I loved and still love every single one of them.
My mom has a HUGE bin full of Beanie Babies. She wasn't in it to get rich, it was just something she collected if she liked the look of the toy. She has a few other collectable toys too that just hang out in bins. When I inevitably end up with them, I might see if any are worth anything worthwhile, and otherwise put them on display instead of leaving them packed away.
Just after the craze died I remember buying a beanie and sending it along in an Operation Christmas Child present (sending a shoe box filled with things such as toothbrush and pencils and toys for a kid in a poor country). It was so soft and cute. I didn't want to send some cheap dollar store crap. I thought a poor kid should get a quality toy for once.
Osamu Tesuka was *probably* a furry too. A fair bit of his work had themes of anthro animals or people changing into animals, with the ladies always changed into sleek looking "cat girls".
I loved them my parents thank god didnt get caught up in selling them. They bought me a bunch and just handed them too me. My friends and family and I would I have some infamous beanie baby wars. those things were deadly in my hands
I'm tempted to say the one thing that has come the closest to Beanie Babies in regards to the craze factor would be yet another line of plush toys that came out in the early-mid 2000s called Webkinz. They were stuffed animals that had little codes attached to them which you could enter online to also have a "virtual version" which you could then dress up, play games with and whatnot. Honestly though, it was the online interactivity part that seemed to drive the Webkinz craze more than owning the physical stuffed toy. In the store I worked for we used to sell Webkinz, and we had a major problem with people coming in and simply ripping the code tags off of them, while leaving the plush sitting on the shelf. It eventually got so serious that we had to start removing the tags ourselves and keeping them behind the cash register so they couldn't be stolen. I remember it finally dying down around 2010 or so.
15:00 - Hell yes. As a kid, I didn't care if Beanie Babies were supposed to be so valuable they'd pay for my college tuition. I had them because they were toys, they were meant to be played with, not rot on a shelf in a glass case.
They were extremely durable for how well manufactured they were back then, so they were easily the best toy around. It didn't take much to stitch'em up if they did get a hole somehow. And some of them, like Siam the Siamese cat or Chip the calico cat, were my very best friends. Being a military kid, we never stayed in one place for too long, hell, not even in the same city--so having Beanie Babies really helped ease the pain of not having other kids around to play with.
Chip is the best
I admit it. I still have a huge box of all the cat beanies I collected as a child. Including Chip. I gave almost all the bird ones away as presents to high school friends back in the late 90s. Better than ending up on the floor of my baby brother's closet.
Chip is awesome. I liked Claude a lot too. I was a bit young for the Beanie boom since I was born in '96, but I bought some used ones at a model train fair my grandpa took me to when I was little. I also had a Beanie 2.0 named Brigette that I really loved too.
My mom got rid of my Beanie Babies, but I still have one.
Metroid4ever same here, are used to rip the tags off I didn’t care. When I was really little I had an army of beanie babies that I would take to bed every night.
My grandma used to get me beanies and then she’d customize them. Like the Red Bull she turned into a Chicago bull, and a the dog she turned into my dog by adding some fur and making it an outfit. I didn’t have many since they were expensive but the ones i do have i still cherish since my grandmother who isn’t here anymore made them special and different. All the ones i still have are one of a kind. They may not be worth anything in terms of dollars but they are priceless to me.
That bull was actually given out at a Chicago Bulls game at one point ironically. He also had his name changed due to a lawsuit from a Tabasco company.
This is the most wholesome comment I’ve ever read
I'd rather have a customized one by my grandma any day. That bulls one sounds pretty dope!
ur gran ruined them the idiot
Awww 🥰
I worked at a McDonalds in Illinois in the 90s as a teenager. When we had the Beanie Baby Happy Meals the line of cars to the drive through would stretch down the road for blocks. I remember thinking, "these people are idiots."
How right you were
But then the same thing happened with Pokémon cards last month and those people easily doubled their money
And I think the value of those limited packs will dramatically increase over the years. I kept one for good measure, and even pulled a holo pikachu, charmander, bulbasaur and squirtle so I know those OGs will be worth a pretty Penny one day (:
Lol, I remember working at McD at that time around 1999 and won a whole set of the beanies babies. Most customers came in just for the beanies.
Thinking everyone else is an idiot is a typical teenager thing to do.
I'd go there to eat and get some beanies during this one three day festival downtown or when the car show was on the same street. (Chesper than the festival food and was on the way there)
Funny enough, when Beanie Babies were worth thousands, most NES games were worth jack. You could get a Stadium Events for next to nothing if you could even find it, which goes for thousands today.
1996 was a year when video games were thought to be disposable, and a particular brand of plush animal would put kids through college. I love the 90's.
Funny how it is.
All it takes is that generation that grew up on those games to well....grow up, have some expendable income and a taste of nostalgia and there you go.
That's what happens. Like comic books.
Are comic books going up in price now??
Chesco There was a speculator boom/bubble (and subsequent huge crash) in comics in the early ‘90s, similar to the Beanie Baby craze. People saw Action Comics #1 and so on selling for hundreds of thousands, so they thought it was an investment to buy new number one issues of new comics, without realising that what makes the wartime comics valuable is their scarcity.
The huge amount of food wasted from the Happy Meals during the Beanie Baby boom is precisely why McDonald's offers the option to just buy a toy instead for less than a buck upon request.
😄😄😄😄 really?
Pokémon Cards: Allow me to introduce myself!
That last 2 minutes and the plush themselves really hit hard with me. I can see why ty was the way he was. Those plush were ment to bring comfort to him when no one else could. The man just wanted to share that same comfort with others who were going through it like him. They where never ment to be a cash grab collectors item. Just a small form of love. They started off almost nothing and went full circle.
There goes a another dose of innocence, lost to time.
Probably for the best that the bubble burst. Now their only use is what they were meant for: kids' toys.
I think the idea was noble, there just soft toys, like a teddy bear really.
That's why I kinda don't feel collector mentality is really healthy. You seem some of these game reviewers with all their game consoles on display and shit... I've been selling my old gaming shit off, I kinda feel selfish holding on to it and not using them when theres someone out there that will appreciate it.
Sounds like ty was a good salesman, but a terrible manager. It's probably why he refuses to hire people these days. His employees had a great idea to make the company money, which was their job, ty went with it and had a moment of success by losing the meaning of his product.
In the end, it was the love of money that was the root of all the evil, lol.
At my old work around 2000ish, we had a couple bins for Toys for Tots at my work for people to donate toys. Some lady filled up an entire one with TY Beanies, in plastic ziplock bags and tag protectors. On the bright side, these went to kids that would love them.
Shatterstar this! This is the best!
I lived next door to the largest Beanie baby collector in Illinois for a few years. She actually sold her car to buy the royal blue elephant one. No joke.
Angrey Doggo did she ever say it was worth it??
lol she tried to sell her collection in 2002, but no one wanted them. She almost got divorced by her husband as a result.
Angrey Doggo yeah probably not worth one single plush toy. I mean I love stuffed animals but not enough to sell a whole car
to quote at the time, "I'm making a smart investment"
Ironic.
Mindy Auron I love plushies as well but I'm never spending more than 50 bucks on one.
Good video, but I think that ending is a bit too bleak there. Beanie Babies are still really easy to find in stores and still sell well enough from what I can tell. Some kids still enjoy them and they can still be purchased for valentine's day and stuff. Instead of being "investment" they are now used for their intended purpose.
yeah they sell well at a pharmacy i go to, lots of dads buying them on impulse for the kids tagging along with them.
'Instead of being "investment" they are now used for their intended purpose.'
Is that not what bubbles tend to do to the inflated product in the end?
@@MarkyVigoroth Bubbles are just a rush of investment into some sector of the market, they don't always result in a crash.
@@handsomebrick Bubbles are just people focusing all of the insanity floating around in their mind into one thing. Kind of like Black Friday but over the course of a few years.
handsomebrick that’s exactly what they do, the value gets to a certain price and then it bursts and drops (plummets) back to a value closer to its intrinsic value (which is what a crash is) now if it is a minor area of the economy (for example beanie babies) then it’s damage is contained to those individuals who bought the commodity at the inflated values, with the worst affected being those who bought at the peak price. It’s far worse when the bubble occurs in a vital area of an economy such as in the credit or housing sectors. This can lead to more extreme market damage (see the Wall Street Crash of 1939 & the credit (subprime) bubble from the 2000s). Amusingly in the 1600s there was a Tulip bubble though it’s economic impact was between the two extremes mentioned here it did still cause problems in the country it occurred in.
Whilst people speculate on what will next be a bubble (for example bitcoin). You can only know something is a bubble after the fact. All bubbles burst after all. Now if the value for a commodity settles back to its intrinsic value over time then it isn’t a bubble even if some people over speculated on the commodity because the value normalised. It’s the overinflation and then steep correction that make a bubble.
My dad and I used to go to this store in the mall that sold Beanie Babies, and we'd get one every time we went. I remember being told by everyone that they were special and valuable, but more or less, at the time -- they were nice toys to me. They did get a lot of love in our household, even if they're sitting in a box in my closet now... though I have to say that the end of this video made me want to dig them all out and hug them.
You collected them as toys and not for collectables?
I did, since the concept of re-selling toys for profit wasn't much of a thought in my head at the time. :P
I remember my snail beanie baby I had as a kid, the poem on it's tag always made me feel better about being clumsy and slow.
It unfortunately has seen the effect of being held by a really clumsy kid. It's in complete tatters.
Protagonist Von Badperson Yet you still have it. :) Its not ruined, it's well loved.
I always loved the little poems
I lived in a tiny old mining village in the arse end of England at the time. Poor place, notoriously skanky and rough as a badger's arse.
We had a bloody beanie baby shop. Like that's all it sold. It was insanity. Shockingly it's now gone.
Bloody fookin el m8
Cor blimey, guv'nor. Gawd bless ya, squire!
It probably turned from a Beanie Baby shop into a "We sell your stuff on Ebay for you" shop
I wonder what line of work or extra vocational past time would make one knowledgeable in the texture of badger arse. Certainly not mining I'll wager.
I've held onto a few of mine because I genuinely like them but I'm afraid to take them out around anyone because they are such a joke now. My mom refuses to get rid of the rest of them, she thinks they are "going to be worth something someday." It really is a shame, they are great toys and kids should be playing with them but instead they are collecting dust in baby boomer basements.
Who knows, nostalgia has a way of bringing the weirdest things back.
I don't see how they are a joke I think beanies are still great and cute..
@@Helicopter7 they are cute and adorable I think the shame just comes from the fact that there are many people that possibly ruin their lives collecting them and they kind of just became a symbol of that
Kinda like my life.
I made mine toys for my kitten. She loves them!
I loved Beanie Babies as a kid, I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. I just really loved the way they looked. Growing up in an abusive household with a parent's marriage falling apart (luckily they later fixed everything and are stronger than ever) all I had were my Beanie Babies. I have this one to today named Dart, he's a poison dart frog and he was my best friend growing up. As childish as it sounds, I carried him in my backpack until my first day of highschool. My grandma and parents have brought me a million of the things, but there was something about Dart that I loved more than anything. I'm now turning 26 this year, have a wife, a kid, and another on the way, and I still have that frog sitting on my shelf in my room
Aww, I love Dart's colors. That's one I still don't have, too. I can definitely relate to Beanies being a kind of solace.
You should do a video on Lisa Frank! She's a horrible woman who abuses her employees. They call her factory the "Rainboe Gulag"
Explain
I second that notion. Supposedly, the factories they worked in were borderline sweatshops!
Not to mention she steals designs from BIPOC artists!
The rainbow gulag lmao
@@lunapyrope9683 BI-what?
Oh I'd love to see more Rise and Demise.
If you’re interested the channel Bright Sun Films has a series entitled Bankrupt which might scratch the itch for more Rise and Demise
KINGautumn I think you responded to the wrong comment. I wasn’t talking about collectables at all, I was talking about a TH-cam serious about bankrupt businesses
me too
As a kid I made armor and weapons for my Beanie Babies out of K'Nex.
That's adorable. I use to make clothes out of socks. Got in a lot of trouble doing that.
So did I.
They're like LEGO, but arguably pretty interesting
Please don't tell us what you used as glue.
My sister made dresses out of toilet paper ...lmao. We made a time machine out of a clothes hanger though.
I got a lot of poor little beanie babies from my grandma and cherish them! I remember in elementary school where they were all the rage!
I accidentally got rid of one my grandmother gave me. I was mad at myself for a month.
I still look over at my LEGO Yoda who wears a crab Beanie Baby like some form of warped toupee.
This just makes me sad. Ty was so passionate and careful about his toys. He truly loved them, and he wanted to bring that love to others who needed it. He wanted to bring joy to children and make their lives brighter. He took such special care to keep the toys out of cold dank warehouses, and initially tried to get them to sell in smaller local businesses, instead of soulless corporate chain stores. But all those toys that were meant to bring happiness all ended up doing the exact opposite, and afterwards they were left to be forgotten, never serving their original intent. So much care pored into something that ultimately ended up not reaching the ones who were supposed to receive it. That honestly makes me want to cry.
It reached some of the intended target group. I'm one of them.
They're cheaper now and kids love them, I had a little blue bird that I donated to the special ed room I used to work in and he gets plenty of love
On the other hand, Ty is now a multi-billionaire, and even if it took a couple of decades, plenty of his toys *are* serving their intended purpose nowadays.
The funniest part was Warner's marriages being ruined by his constant talking about plush, and him getting his wives involved in the business but then trying to steal credit for their ideas and squeeze them out. It's weird that he somehow got the rest of the world to briefly care as much about plush as he did, if you made a movie about these events it would basically be Scarface with beanie babies instead of cocaine.
SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND.
His name is Wallus the walrus!
"You know what capitalism is? Getting f***ed!"
-Tony Montana
the fucked up part about this is it was mostly adults who were into them sadly the kids never got them due to greedy adults my sister had alot of them when she was younger
(Insert brony joke here)
True Alex, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I still love my beanie babies, but even as a kid, I wouldn't act like how those "adults" were fighting over them. Ain't authority weird?
I hate when toys become collectible Toys are meant to be played with not kept in glass display cases
Tom Williams Productions
Actually they're meant for both. But they're meant to be enjoyed by AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.
Artificial scarcity is dickish to an extreme.
I put a Gundam model kit in a glass display case 'cause the cat I had at the time kept trying to get at it (even chewing up one of the beam sabers).
Currently doing the same with a LEGO Star Wars snow speeder my sister got for me 'cause of just how fragile the damned thing is; wings pop off _far_ too easily, and if you grab it the wrong way you're going to get a spring-loaded missile in the eye.
Well you'll hate me then.
Nintendo: "what?"
Well, do you feel the same about vidjya, OP?
Yes they're meant to be played, but I collect vidjya for archival purposes. A good fraction of my collection I've barely touched or played at all, but I still keep them because I don't want to kick myself in the future for something I once owned dissapearing into time, I want to preserve the medium. Got several games and gaming related items worth a pretty penny (could sell my entire collection for 40k+ easily), but I refuse to sell any of it.
I worked in the toys and electronics department at Target for a few years, and every holiday shopping season some coworkers and I would start a pool trying to predict which toy was going to be the one that we were going to be bitched out for not having. I had a woman threaten to sue me over a Wii in 2007, I couldn't imagine what retail employees had to go through with the TY craze in the 90's.
My husband worked at Toys R Us during Christmas a few years ago. After his time with them was over, he couldn't be happier.
I was working at Toys “R” Us during the Hatchimals Christmas season craze. One morning when we had them, people were lined up outside. I remember one lady was mad because we wouldn’t price match other companies’ prices for the Toy. She threaten to not buy the toy than I reminded her it’s the hottest toy this Christmas and if she didn’t buy it, there’s a huge line of parents that are dying to get their hands on the toy for their kids. She knew I was right and shut up and bought the toy, no price matching.
I worked for a Hallmark store in high school during the height of the beanie baby craze. We had one of our delivery trucks overturned by a mob of beanie obsessed idiots outside of a shopping mall.
I also had a woman standing at my counter CRYING because we couldnt sell her the new beanie babies slated to go on sale the next day.
Good times.
Dude. Rainbow Loom back in 2014. I had people literally circled around me, swarming a display I was making, taking unopened packages out of my hands to "help me open them" in order to find the colors they wanted. *eye twitch*
I've done humanitarian aid missions when I was in the military and I've seen starving refugees behave more civilized during food deliveries than what I saw people doing at toy stores during the cabbage patch doll craze when I was a kid in the early 80s.
I worked at a Hallmark gift store during the beanie baby years. We sometimes hid a few of the toys from each newly released line to make sure that actual children could buy some after school. The adult collectors would buy all of them up during the day in an angry frenzy. They'd shout at us because of the store limit of 3 of one type per customer. One furious lady came back with a spaced out toddler saying he's a paying customer too so she gets 6 to buy six now. All of the staff knew that, with maybe a few exceptions, these won't be worth much in the future. It was depressing. Especially telling little kids that "Yes the new models came in today but all of them were sold this morning."
That's crazy! And to make it worse those Beanie Babies are probably worth less than the collectors spent on them. Its one of those fads that faded away in time
Screw these people. Kids deserve cute plushies too!
4 minutes in and no Peter Molinoux whatsoever... somethings wrong
I scrolled down into the comments section to look for this comment.
Salud 74 Nah, I thought it was refreshing not to see it.
Honestly I was like 'thank god'.
I guess he's kind of worn out with it.
therefore the amount will be doubled in the next episode
Wow, the ending of this video made me feel quite sad. Something meant to bring joy were used to feed greed and then thrown aside and forgotten
Nikolai Karpovich I know right. It made me remember about the beanie babies I got from McDonalds when I was a kid.
Remember the fun monthly magazines? I looked so forward to each one.
I still have the Beanie Baby Handbook from 1998. I was obsessed with it as a kid. Poor beanies 💔
I remember my grandmother being crazy into these things when I was kid. When the McDonald's promotion hit, she BEGGED my mother to get them for her. So, one day, my mom comes home with 6 happy meals and says they're all for me, but grandma gets the toys.
Now, when you're a little kid, the prospect of 6 happy meals may seem like reason to celebrate at first, but by the time I got to happy meal #3 I wanted to fucking die. I've hated those stuffed bastards ever since, and I learned a valuable lesson in finances from that whole ordeal.
fly666monkey Oh my, I hope you were okay and didn't had a stomach ache from overdosing of McDonalds food. Do you still like McDonalds to this day?
Meh, I still like McDonalds just fine, though I do prefer Burger King.
Did they not know you could just buy the toy separately? Or did they not do it back then?
@@ftwinzeler I know this is an old comment, but I believe the first time they did the promotion, you had to buy the meal. After the craziness that ensued, they changed it so you could buy just the toy.
I still have a big basket full of these things in my basement storage. Not only did I love them as a kid (and I actually PLAYED with them, though I kept the tags on), when my mom died I got like 15 of the things. Easy condolence gift I guess. Anyway my plan is to keep them and then when I eventually have kids that's one Christmas/birthday present already sorted. Just dump a big basket of plush on the kid and call it a day.
I like to imagine your basement floor flooded with them as if you broke a pipe and beanie babies poured out
@@seiyuokamihimura5082 That imagery is glorious
Aye..I've seen my fair share of tragic stories, many far and away worse than this one...but I gotta be honest..this is one of the few stories that actually makes me cry..
Mostly just out of sympathy for Ty Warner himself. Sure, I could criticize a few of his business decisions with hindsight and all, and his lawsuits were rather frivolous to say the least, but Ty...poor Ty..probably one of the most innocent people out there at that point in time, who only wanted to bring the joy and innocence that he never had as a child to children everywhere, only to see the very thing he created turn into the center of a toxic cesspool of myopic, money hungry idiots who were so convinced on getting rich quick off of stuffed animals.
As a fellow sufferer of Peter Pan Syndrome who grew up as the black sheep of an abusive household, I can't help but sympathize deeply with that desire to bring about that which you never had as a child, or even share it with the world.
DragonMastrNova How true; why couldn’t they have stayed something for kids to gain enjoyment from?
I have to agree with you as well. I don't know if my empathy relates to my own baggage, and not only did I find myself sympathetic to Ty but also relating. It's interesting to consider the causation of your hangups as an adult, like why I'm in my mid 30s and find myself personifying stuffed cats to the point I have to be careful to avoid certain aisles in stores because I "feel bad" and sympathize more with inanimate objects that people sometimes. I guess the fact I can be objective and simultaneously laugh and cringe is something I have going for me... but yeah... Ty... really tragic story.
I like that the way you said "soccer moms" sounded like "sucker moms". That's how I view all these collectors.
Soccer Moms is shorthand for "sucker moms who fall for any old shit" anyway, so you're not far off.
We still have a whole bin full of Beanie Babies that thankfully aren't covered in blood since we didn't murder our way to get our hands on them.
Shiro-Luna consider donating them to less fortunate children?
I was in college during the Beanie Baby craze. There was a girl that put her entire savings into Beanie Babies. I tried to explain how it was just going to be a fad but of course she didn't listen. She was convinced it was going to make her rich.
Morbos1000 and how's that girl doing now after the craze? Can't imagine anything good came after it.
I have no idea. She was a friend of a friend so I never saw her again after college. I guess the only good thing would be college students usually don't have much money, so I think she had spent "only" a couple thousand on them. Hopefully she got her degree and a good job, but who knows!
This reminds me of a story My old man told me once. He basically ended a friendship with a girl because of these things.
He was riding in her car and she would stop at every McDonald’s to try and pick up a certain one on their way to visit a friend. Eventually he got so annoyed that he left the car and called a cab to take him home, he hasn’t spoken to her since
Morbos1000 she probably has bitcoins now.
mr y mysterious video lol, just as worthless
Huh, I now have utmost respect for Ty. Even when he was rolling in money, he was willing to do things that would hurt his bottom line because he hated how kids weren't getting a chance to enjoy the toys he made
Mad props, there
EDIT: And got to the tax evasion part
...Eh, still respect him for being pissed at adults
10:15
"There was a McDonald's *Ty*-in"
I see you, clever boy
My mother and late grandmother used to collect these, they had boxes upon boxes full of em, like at least 13 printer paper boxes and a few Rubbermaid totes, I got to skip alot of school to help them buy certain beanie babies, and when McDonald's did the beanie baby happy meals, we would spend HOURS in line there, and they would bring home the food. I lived off of hamburgers for weeks. It was ridiculous. After my grandmother passed, my mom held onto all of them, even after finding out they were worth nothing. I think it was a way to hold on to her mom after she passed, like the Norman Rockwell collector's plates. Pretty sad now that I think about it...
Lap Lasagna thank you for sharing. I think my parents have a tote of the McDonald's beanie babies still in wrappers someplace. I remember not understanding why my dad wanted to keep them wrapped but I had plenty of other stuffed animals so I never really cared that much
I bet the beanie baby craze was pretty fun for some people. So she has good memories.
These kinda make me sad, and its because my mom had her collection for me and saved it in storage, but they got lost in the storage and they couldn't be found, so these personally make me sad
of course they did... So you are sad that you havent got worthless understuffed plushies? Amazing. into Loli and beanies... sounds about right.
Nick Armitt no, I'm not sad about worthless plush toys, I'm sad because my mother was going to give them to me.
What the hell is your problem saying it like that to me? I'm sorry but that comment made me angry. My mother was going to give them to me, its the sentimental VALUE of them, NOT about the plush toy itself.
thevideosinc just making sure- me or the other guy? I'm sorry I'm just- I'm really mad right now
+Some Scrub
Because those people are fucking pathetic losers who have been used like the brand of TP I wipe my ass with.
if they want to randomly attack someone for no reason, I can deal them 100x that and more if they wish.
sick of the pointless antagonism.
" into Loli "
What?
I remember similar crazes with Webkinz and other toys. Seems fads may die, but their tradition doesn't.
KhakiCube Webkinz was no where here near the level of Beanie Babies. No adults I know actually owned any webkinz.
well that didnt stop beaine babies 2.0 from making a game simlar to webkinz to chase the tail of its peak
as long as stay at home moms have wine, this tradition will continue.
I've become somewhat known by my online community for my random Beanie Baby obsession, and was linked this video pretty much as soon as it went up. I usually watch your stuff anyway, but knew this one was going to have to be viewed with a different mindset, because I was expecting to go into it and nitpick every tiny little thing. But no, this seemed accurate from what I could tell, and I actually didn't know some of the history behind Ty Warner.
But yeah, I was sucked into the Beanie craze during the worst of it. I got my first few as birthday presents when I turned eight in 1996, and went from there. I guess I was one of the few collectors that wasn't a soccer mom hoping to turn the collection into millions of dollars down the line, I just collected them because I liked them and enjoyed the hunt. I ended up getting around 200 of them (don't know the exact number, though I could definitely remember every single one I had if I needed to), spanning from late 96 to mid 99 before losing interest. Never did have any of the super rare ones, but it wouldn't have really mattered because I lost the entire collection (along with most of my possessions) due to some unfortunate family stuff that happened in 2005.
For a number of years after that I never cared all that much about Beanies anymore, aside from getting the occasional one from a Goodwill because I recognized it as an old favorite or one that was semi-rare. On a whim, I decided to buy one of the old Mary Beth's Beanie World magazines off ebay last year (I used to collect the magazines too), and made a stupidly long vlog about it, introducing my youtube audience to a craze most of them never knew or cared about. And now I've sort of gotten back into it again, but only for the originals. There's way too many nowadays to really care about anything after the 1999 "retire everything" event. So I've decided to try and get a collection of everything with a Gen 4 tag, which is about 120 different items if you count super nitpicky variants and the like. I'm kinda glad they're not worth much anymore, since that means this collection is actually somewhat reasonable.
Anyways, I enjoyed the video and am glad you didn't completely make fun of it as badly as I thought you would. It was a stupid time to live in, but it was fun as long as you didn't take it too seriously. Which ... I did, but at least I never hurt anyone over it.
My brother and I were pretty young when these were all the rage, and we only had a few. But they were honestly the toys that we cherished the most out of everything we had. They were just the right size and just malleable enough to fit in my brother's toy tractor, my barbie convertible, and the freight cars of a kiddie train set we had. So, naturally, they went on all the adventures...and as those adventures increased in number, we ended up developing different character traits that we attributed to each one.
When I was in college, I actually bought a new version of one out of a little homesick nostalgia, but I had forgotten the time my brother accidentally dropped our original into a potpourri wax melter (even though I spent weeks washing and rewashing it by hand to get the pink wax out) and that long after it was clean, the black ears were still a little stiff, so we could pose them a bit and they would stay. So when I got a new one, I initially thought there was something wrong with the ears until I realized that it must have been the scented wax incident that caused our childhood toy to be that way.
So as wild as the beanie craze was for some adults, it didn't taint the joy of partially-stuffed plushies for every kid.
Damn. Who knew these cute little plushies had such a dark history o.o
You should look up the history of Sea Monkies…
Âmesang good suggestion! Lol
Mindy Auron: I need one o.o
Âmesang oh no..... oh don’t do this to me DX
Too true.
I worked at McDonald's when they put these in kids meals. Confirming what Larry is saying, most of the buyers where adults. Very little where kids. They just wanted the toy and not the meal. It was insane working those days. As so many hamburgers where made and then thrown away.
Wow. Was there a moment when the adults were wanting the toys and they were sold out?
I hate to hear about perfectly good food being thrown away because of something stupid 😭.
Poison No, it's really not. Food going to waste is food going to waste. Even if it's greasy fast food, there are hungry people who would have loved to eat it.
Poison Sorry. I know you were just making a little joke about the quality of American fast food. It's just that I find food waste a hard subject to make light of.
Lurker1979 I had a 2.0 toy, not the 1.0.
The End: "All good things come to an end, it's been fun for everyone, peace and hope are never gone, love you all and say, so long."
This black bear was the only thing I asked for that Christmas. I cared for nothing else but this. Blessedly, my mom managed to get her hands on it for me and nearly 20 years later, I still have it. It's not in pristine condition (though it is still tagged) but even if it was, it's not for sale.
When I look at my Beanie Babies, I think of Christmas as a child and the Hurculean efforts my mom went through to make them special for us as a single mom (even stealing a hot seasonal item out of someone's cart! The poor child that probably didn't get that toy...). My toys have too much sentimental value to ever be sold but they're not in selling condition anyways. To this day though, I get teary-eyed when I read The End's poem. I've never been good with goodbye's.
"The poor child that probably didn't get that toy"
Look at it this way, you probably appreciate that toy now, 20 years later, more than that other kid probably would have 20 years ago.
Dargonhuman I don't have the toy (Fluffy, My Come Here Puppy) anymore. And it met an early demise. My older brother weirdly whipped it once with a belt and the mechanical dog flashed green. I might've told him to stop a time or two but I was a little amused. A little amused turned into a lot amused when I began to let her (Fluffy) tumble down the stairs to watch her light up more. It all stopped once she broke a leg. I swear I wasn't abusive with most of my toys (except Barbies. I was a stuffed animal person but it never failed that some well-meaning stranger would get me a Barbie on my birthday or Christmas. I managed to sodder my final two barbies together when I was about twelve, one black and one white, and made her look something like Goro from Mortal Kombat with biracial arms. I looked at it as each needing to learn to understand the other. Damnit, I should've kept her!)
Anyways! I loved most of my toys and to this day, I have most of them. I don't know why I found it amusing to kick around this expensive toy my mom had to steal away from some other kid but I think that kid would've loved her more than I did. Well...I loved the toy. But then sadistic kiddie amusement made me love her in a different way.
...All of this makes me sound very twisted, lol!
Haha, it does but I found it amusing as I'm a little twisted too so you're at least in good company!
I dug all my beanies out and played with them again during lockdown seeing them all made me happy took me back to the 90s
When I was like 5 or 6 I was at Cracker Barrel with my grandma and as we were checking out she said I could go grab a beanie baby. This was at the height of their craze. I waddled over to the beanie baby wall and spotted an older couple (about 40-50 years old) browsing frantically through the shelves. I walked over and saw an oddly colored bear and as soon as I picked it up, the woman in the couple ran over to me and without a word she grabbed me hard by the arm and snatched the beanie baby out of my hand. I'll never forget the look of sheer malice she gave me as she did so...it was insane. Just as quickly as she had come, they were gone. I just grabbed another random beanie baby and walked back to my grandma. I guess that would have been traumatizing to someone, but I just assumed it must have been really important to that woman. I was way too kind a child for my own good.
Who does that?!?!?!?
My mother has two reindeer beanies. She uses them as Christmas decorations.
I remember we talked about this ages ago.
Infact you sent me a bleedin book on the subject.
Nice to see you finally do a video about it
What's this book? Is it even more detailed than this video?
TheLonelyGoomba cool seeing you here
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble. - amazing book.
😮 goomba
TheLonelyGoomba WUT
Who knew that you could revive a failing product just by changing the word discontinued to retired?
That's cool
I wouldnt mind more non-gaming videos like these.
This certainly brought back memories. I never was fully aware how crazy the Beanie Babies became, since I was young at the time. But, as a kid, I always loved those things; aimed to get whichever ones I really wanted. Still have them too. The ending of this video only makes me happier that I loved them as plushes, not as rare collectibles.
Wait another 10-15 years and they'll start to gain value again. Nostalgia does strange things to peoples' wallets.
Nostalgia works best with things you got to enjoy when you were younger, a major driving force to the Beanie Baby craze was adults wanting to make money, most of whom wouldn't let their children touch the things. Sure there's going to be a certain influx of people wanting to track down the Beanies that they remember from their time as a kid but it probably won't reach the limits anywhere near the peak that it once was
Sort of like the NES Mini?
Some of the rarer ones, yeah maybe. But nothing like a 90's boom will be happening with it again. Of course, we all said that about things like Bitcoin after that crash in 2014, right?
Yeah, but it would something rather like small, dedicated market, and certainly prices would not get that high...
Nah. The 90's nostalgia is at its peak or now slowly fading. Beanie babies didn't get a price increase, so they'll be cheap forever now.
Buying "rare" items in loot boxes, is the new Beanie Baby craze. All my sisters and my mom's Beanie Babies that they spent thousands of dollars on, eventually ended up in a recycling bin. Who didn't see that coming!
lootboxes are even worse because server dies, your items disappear.
Void of Space and Time. On top of that, The item's you purchased were never real to begin with. And just imagine if you purchased loot boxes with bitcoin, you'd be buying something that doesn't exist, with something that never existed!
Well, digital items do have weight, but they still weight at mere protons. But your point still stands, if the entire internet weights around 3kg, You would still be owning something sized in a planet:universe ratio.
Donate them to charities.. kids still play with them. They are still toys.. jeze ppl throw them away?
Charmiskit. My main argument was this artificially created, Rare phenomena , They were only rare because it was the intention from the get go, they could have easily made a 100 million of the Supposedly "rare", beanie babies.
And same with the so called, rare loot Box items, It's all carefully structured to get your money, Well that is until you move on to the next "rare" thing.
And I'm not saying there's anything particularly good or bad about this, that's just how it work'💲.
I remember whend we have the Pokemon-Go fever,my neighbor quit his job to be a professional trainer so he can sell accounts to other people,history reapeting it self !
Wolfgang Amadeus Or people mortgaging their houses to buy bitcoin
Didn't know Pokemon Go was such a hot thing in 18th-century Vienna.
Dr0dd,it was but instead of pokemon we catch diseases ,fun for whole family !
Lol really? That is crazy, that fad only last what a few months?
Classic80sStuff, I think he last some two months or less,he see in ebay people selling accounts for thousands of dollars ,one week later he quit his job as a teacher * facepalm * to catch and evolve pokemons so he can sell and be rich.
Problem is no one was buying and people was moving to fidget spinners or something like that ,today he is unemployed and he knows as "Pokemon Master" in the neighbor.
I still have one.. it's a bear called Hope, and he is on his knees praying with his eyes closed.
For you kids that weren't alive then, Beanie Babies where like the Funko Pops of their day.
DudeistBelieve Not really. Funkos are no where near that level.
Savannah Simpson yes they are.
Funko turds are a war crime.
Please do a Rise and Demise of POGS.
Born Different, Born Innocent....
Mathew Haswell Born perfect
Would that require Pogs actually having a "rise"?
Do you remember Alf?
He's back! In pog form!
the original bitcoin
Jabrils Nah, tulip bulbs were the original
Keeping it real in the comment thread.
I'll just pull out my Charizard card to keep me safe here xD
The original Bitcoin was the entire Louisiana region for the French.
Mammoth tusks were the original, clearly.
Bitcoin and Beanie Babies are hardly unique in that regard.
I still love my beanies. My parents got them for me when I was a child and, as you say they should be, they're still priceless to me.
Really interesting video, I'm glad to know the history behind the plushies that pretty much defined my childhood
This was like Hostess Twinkies. Discontinued and people buy them in bulk and sell them for high price just to come back.
Imagine going to prison for that
"what are ya in for"
"Beany baby's"
Nothing about the recent surge of TY Beanie Boos? The filled plushies with the giant eyes you can bludgeon children to death with? I guess people weren't so keen to go wild over another TY lineup.
My 7 year old actually has a lamb beanie buddy still. And it's beyond priceless. In sentimental value, like a plushie should be.
What, really? Have there really been stories of kids being bludgeoned by the new Beanies?
The new TY plushes aren't Beanie Babies, let's be real. They've taken a quality dive in that each one is just a color swap of another of the exact same critter. All the proportions stay the same, so they don't feel unique in the slightest.
I worked at a toy trade fair and TY had paid for hugggeeeee banners of the Beanie Boos I guess they got a decent marketing budget.
I cringe at those. I have two that were gifts, but I wouldn't buy those for myself.
Wow, that was... kinda depressing really, all the people that thought they could get rich quick, only to lose all there money on a stuffed animal.
Sorry, but I feel it's kinda your own fault if you quit your main place of income (job) over a stupid fad, only for the fad to end. It's essentially reckless gambling with your (financial) life.
I'd feel more sad for the kids and adults with Beanie Babies being assaulted by said people wanting to make a quick buck.
Sure! Lots of people gave up their job for their dream (job/hobby), but most of those dreams aren't fads. For instance, lots of people gave up their job to make videos on TH-cam or stream. The difference is that TH-cam and streaming provide a somewhat financially assured future, as TH-cam isn't a fad and won't go * poof* in one day and be worth nothing (unless very special circumstances). A fad however, most certainly will.
That's the danger of fads that are worth money; they go away, in an instant, and nobody really knows when. Fads are finite and IF a fad survives, it is no longer a fad and chances are it won't be worth as much money as it used to; a.k.a. Beanie Babies.
What I was trying to say is that some people think way too easy about these sort of things and don't think things through when making such life changing decisions. I wasn't talking about the creator of Beanie Babies, I was talking about the parents trying to get mad $$$. Most of these parents didn't do it because they love Beanies so much, they did it for the money only.
TY Beanies are still flying strong. Our store alone at work sells over a thousand of a the beanie boo line each year and we can't keep the collectable blind bag boxes in long enough. Main difference is now tho it's mainly kids buying them, they do tend to hold their value at least
grecianandy I guess that's what Ty wanted. kids to care about his toys and everybody else not even think about them.
The best Christmas memories I have was in 1996. 'Santa' got me a whole lot of Beanie Babies, but instead of putting them around the tree, they were hidden all over the living room. It was like Easter and Christmas combined. I grew up outside Chicago, and one of my best friends moms was exactly the person who loved Beanie Babies as much as her kids, and kept the high value ones in a display cabinet. I have all of my old Beanie Babies and have fond memories of playing with them
People are really bad at economics sometimes. See also: The comic crash.
Basically tulipmania again.
Adults hoarding beanie babies to get rich quick while children can't get them is an awful lot like crypto coin miners hoarding graphics cards while gamers can't get them. And it will end the same way.
King Harkinian They don't hoard the cards. They install mining rigs and run them to earn a currency they can actively trade on the market.
Oda Swifteye they are still taking the cards away from the people who actually want them for what they were designed for, its the same thing.
Oda Swifteye I think it's a stretch to call cryptocurrency an actual currency. Trading is difficult most of the time, and typically they end up having to be sold for fiat money before anything can be bought with them. The value isn't stable and people hold them instead of actually using them as currency, so pricing things for people that actually accept them is not easy to do.
They aren't a safe store of value, they aren't easy to use as a medium of exchange, and they aren't legal tender.
Broadway JR Not to mention that Bitcon's value has since collapsed, losing more than half its overall value overnight.
My niece would complain that she couldn't get certain Monster High dolls because adults bought them up. It's annoying. Leave some toys for the kids.
Darn, never thought i`d feel sorry for stuffed animals 0_o
Moral of the story: leave the bandwagon alone.
Considering the glut of Battle Royales coming in and dying instantly, this comment is important now more than ever.
@@SuperPerry1000 People still play Fortnite, no? Or is it one of the few Battle Royale games that are played?
@@amberbaum4079 Well, yes. At the moment I'd say the big three are Fortnite, PUBG and Apex Legends, with COD: Blackout and Battlefield: Firestorm on the backburner. But then there are games like The Culling 2 and Radical Heights, games that just didn't survive.
@@SuperPerry1000 Once the market is satisfied, it is satisfied. I guess only a few candidates will always make the bucket of gold. If you come in too late or with something boring into the craze you will fail. Reminds me when eveyone's favourite sport was guessing what will be the "World of Warcraft killer".
@@amberbaum4079 Or the Halo Killer. Or the Call of Duty Killer. It's all the same. Even though the only thing that could kill COD is COD itself, as Black Ops 4 is so desperately trying to do.
My buddy worked at McDonalds at the time and needed a lot of dental work. His dentist traded services for Beanie Babies lol. He said he had a kid but after watching this I question if it wasn't for himself haha. That time was insane with those stupid things.
I grew up playing with Beanie Babies, and many of them were my favorite toys as a kid. I still have most of them and I still love and remember them. I’m not fond of the newer designs, but the older ones have a special place in my heart. Hearing this story makes glad to be one of the people giving them the love they deserved as toys.
The Peter Molyneux memorial bear filled with PVC pellets is worth more than the one with styrofoam pellets. It's also made to look like it's been used to wipe with.
I remember a fight breaking out at my elementary school over these. They got added to a list of things that were banned from the school grounds. The list had Pokemon cards, yo-yos, binders with non school approved images, etc. If ANY were brought in they were taken and destroyed by the principal(which was done in full public view of the class). Granted the list was stopped the next year, and the principal left a few years later. Still those little things caused a lot of harm, and worlds of good both at the same time. They couldn't help it that they were popular, they just wanted friends.
Man, I hope they'd hold them up and slit their throats.
I convinced my mom to stop hanging them from their little necks on the Christmas tree. A hanged man's tree for Christmas. My mom never did see why that was so morbid.
Having Pokémon cards banned from a school is a crime itself.
The only thing I remember being banned in my elementary school were Tamagotchi's...every kid had at least one and they were really disruptive in school.
I feel like literally destroying student's property is likely why that principle was forced out
Like if I found out my child's stuff was destroyed on purpose by the school, then oh boy is that school getting sued
Beanie Babies 2: Funko Pop Vinyls
I have a friend with hundreds of them, and just about any of them where the actors playing them are still alive are signed, he even had a princess Leia signed before Carrie Fisher passed. He seems to think he has a lot of money sitting boxed up still and for the moment he does but I keep making jokes about how he has all of this money invested in the next beanie babies. Although, ones like the Princess Leia one will still be worth something more than others, He doesnt seem to think there is anything to worry about
iamnotgeoff Well cause there popular, Relevant, Funko pops can be anything which makes them have lasting appeal
@@mychemicalbromance97 yeah there’s a store by my house which has a really cool video game section but more and more funko-pops are taking up more and more shelf space which is bad for me since I like looking at video games and seeing if I can buy them.
Great coverage ! I always appreciated their quality, realism, posability, and popularity. I had little trust for it making a fortune, but I have always liked hugging Teddy bears and the like, so I couldn't resist collecting a ton of these when it was "cool" to like plushies ! I had baskets of them of every shelf ! These days, I focus on hugging on my lemon beagle. The other day, when I brought him over a friend's, he said, say, that's a handsome dog. Is he for sale ? Absolutely not ! I'm in it for the love, not the money.
LUL the Mass Effect 3 music at the end is brilliant! The rise and demise of the Mass Effect series is somewhat similar to the Beanie babies...
Makes me almost feel bad for the couple that spent their entire saving "investing" in Beanie Babies...
Now we have Bitcoin: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/bofa-to-decline-all-cryptocurrency-transactions-on-credit-cards
They're essentially worthless commodities who's value has been inflated by artificially high demand.
I suppose the similarity is spending real cash on something that will ultimately be worthless in an effort to get rich - which again probably depends on whether you think bitcoin will stay worthwhile or ultimately fail..
as they say, "a fool and their money are soon parted." bubbles always burst, and it's always a sure sign it's coming or already here when nearly everyone gets involved.
I don't. And 8 year old me wouldn't either.
Special thanks to Kim Justice for helping write and edit this video:
th-cam.com/users/elmyrdehory
The story as to why she has the video on her channel first, was this video was meant to go up on my channel in December, but I had a major sore throat and had the flu, so suggested that she put it on her channel so she could take advantage of the December ad revenue (as it's the best month of the year) and I'd voice a slightly different version when I got a bit better.
Kim's written and edited a number of my videos over the past 2 years, same as why Dan has a few similar videos to me.
Yeah - I thought Kim had done this recently....
Larry Bundy Jr
Is this word-for-word Kim's video? I thought I'd heard it before so I went back to her video and it seems like it.
I'll watch again though, Larry. Your voice is like having warm cream poured into my ears.
Which has actually happened on six separate occasions, so I know what I'm talking about.
I thought I was having dajavu! I thought maybe this was a reupload?
Larry Bundy Jr i was a bit suspicious of how similar this was to Kim’s video
But since Kim actually worked on this video with you at least its a not a Weegee-soulbrother situation
Subscribed to and big fans of you both!
I bought a squirrel one a few years ago to use as a prop. I was making an Armored Vault Suit Fallout cosplay at the time, so we decided to make a Squirrel on a Stick food prop. We doused it in gasoline, set it on fire, and once it was charred the way we wanted it we painted red bits of gore and glued giant googly eyes to it. It's still my most commented on cosplay prop to this day.
Bahqlak And no videos of it? I actually really want to see that.
TheCactusSword none to speak of, there are a few pictures that exist, but I'll have to go hard drive spelunking to find them
Oh man, I used to feed these to my cat, she would hurl a beanie Baby around for hours and hours. They would always end up with their guts ripped out after a few weeks or so, now I don't feel so bad about that.
I had a bunch as a kid, several more because my great grandma collected them during the craze and she let me take the ones I wanted while she was working out her will, specifically because everyone knew one of my great aunts was planning to swoop in and nab them to see if they were worth anything. Pretty sure I still have them, a shark, a frog, a duck and... I think a Republican elephant somewhere. I hope Ty knows that despite these greedy adults trying to exploit his toy for a quick buck, those of us who were kids at the time truly do appreciate the sentiment behind the little things. That and the fact they were one of the only brands of plush toy a weird kid like me could rely on to find a cuddly shark.
I just went into my attic and rummaged through some boxes and got my old beenie baby, Gobbles, just to appriciate it after watching this.
"the beanies you see here were bought for a few quid"
You forgot to show the beanies
ZykovEddy
There a video by Company Man about beanies as well that explains that specific puple beanie. It made in memorail of princess Dianna.
This is the bitcoin of the 90s.
I wonder when the crypto bubble will burst? Hopefully soon.
I remember selling them. The scalpers knew what day we got our delivery and would be waiting at the door before we even got in to work. It was heartbreaking having to tell a little kid we had no bears because some old bloke got them all. To be honest even we the staff weren't immune to the crazy. I still have 3 The End bears reminding me that get rich quick doesn't work.
I had quite a collection back in the day, and perhaps took it too seriously, but over the past few years I've been selling them for $1-$2 a piece at garage sales. Kids love them. Makes me very happy.
I had a platypus beanie baby . He was chill. Remember Meanie Babies they were like edgier beanie babies ? I had a roadkill cat that came with a box of Capn Crunch
Joey JoJo wait that was a thing?
Sorry if I didn't know about beanie baby's I was born in 1999
One Gaming yup they were huge
Joey JoJo Never heard of Meanie Babies...how morbidly fascinating, lol. I just have quite a few of the originals.
8:30 Echo the Dolphin
I assume that Sega didn't bother to sue Ty Warner back then, didn't they?
I'm glad this video was made, though some parts were sad and infuriating. I hope that those McDonalds restaurants that had customers tell them they didn't want the food from the Happy Meals kept the food to sell to someone else instead of just throwing it away. Edit- Oh, here's one more stupid thing. I saw an article explaining that the McDonald's toys were worth almost nothing, and the comments section had a number of people asking if the toys were worth a lot. Really, playa?
Most McDonald's I've been to will sell the toys to collectors individually (granted they cost about as much as the Happy Meal but...) though there's usually a 1-per customer, per day limit.
That said, even if I had to buy the meal to get the toys, and didn't want the food, there are plenty of homeless people in my area who wouldn't mind some free hot food.
Dargonhuman From what I've heard, when they did the first promotion, you had to buy a Happy Meal to get the Beanie Baby; it was only later on that you could buy it individually. That said, thank you! That's exactly right. If you don't want the food, then give it to someone who will appreciate it.
Ahh, that makes more sense; I was a young boy when the Beanie Baby craze hit so I had no interest in those fuzzy little "girl toys", and I intentionally ignored most of the promotions during that time. It helped that shows like Batman, X-Men and Power Rangers commanded all of my attention too haha!
Dargonhuman I'm a girl and I enjoyed Batman:TAS and Power Rangers too! :-D Fox Kids had some great shows.
Damn straight it did! Too bad my sister was too busy chasing crap like Beanie Babies to notice...
I still remember some of Beanie Baby cats I owned. The last bit of narration for the story and thinking of then honestly made me feel sad. (I really love cats)
Never thought I would hear you say "schezuan sauce"...
Jesus I have over 60 of these in my attic
I blame my brothers
Prince Vegeta I never knew you were fond of these things! Oh my, what would the other Saiyans think of the Prince if they knew?
Fluffymiyster They can screw themselves princes have private lives
DON'T MOCK THE GREAT VEGETA!
His collection is a sign of his great Saiyan pride!
Wait you have another brother other than Tarble
+Mighty Racoon
Yes, his name is Tarble, and I can DEFINITELY see him collecting the things.
lmao.
I'm guessing this Christmas I'll get either Peter Molyneux and Darksydephil beanie babies. Thanks ever so much Larry.
TVBForever I hope they make a premium DSP one where you can squeeze his hand to make him say "thank you, you fucking worthless humans, for the views"
How about a Gordon Ramsay one that swears at you when you squeeze its hand?
Clbull118 I still think a Skeet plushie would sell like hotcakes.
Think about it, that Skeet doll you push its stomach while saying sodium chloride only for that doll to constantly correct you that it’s salt.
A happy meal thankies from McSpanky’s
Bit of a dark ending, there. Great episode nonetheless. I think this format will work nicely!
Yeah, seriously. That got freakin buh-leak.
The Beanie Baby War, A grim dark era of American history.
Almost as dire as The Great Burger War.
and the Furbee War as well around the same time. horrible
I was born a couple years after the craze ended, so I wasn’t aware of the craze growing up. I did, however, manage to amass a sizable collection of Beanie Babies as a child.
I loved and still love every single one of them.
My mom has a HUGE bin full of Beanie Babies. She wasn't in it to get rich, it was just something she collected if she liked the look of the toy. She has a few other collectable toys too that just hang out in bins. When I inevitably end up with them, I might see if any are worth anything worthwhile, and otherwise put them on display instead of leaving them packed away.
Inky Evening consider donating them to less fortunate children to enjoy.
Just after the craze died I remember buying a beanie and sending it along in an Operation Christmas Child present (sending a shoe box filled with things such as toothbrush and pencils and toys for a kid in a poor country). It was so soft and cute. I didn't want to send some cheap dollar store crap. I thought a poor kid should get a quality toy for once.
That Mass Effect ost at the end tho.
What I'm hearing is Ty Warner was the first successful furry
Google are you fucking kidding me why would you let me pick such a retarded username Based on what?
Your reply confused me until I realised the name of the person you were replying to! XD
Osamu Tesuka was *probably* a furry too. A fair bit of his work had themes of anthro animals or people changing into animals, with the ladies always changed into sleek looking "cat girls".
By all accounts, he was a pretty chill guy. Really down to earth.
I loved them my parents thank god didnt get caught up in selling them. They bought me a bunch and just handed them too me. My friends and family and I would I have some infamous beanie baby wars. those things were deadly in my hands
I'm tempted to say the one thing that has come the closest to Beanie Babies in regards to the craze factor would be yet another line of plush toys that came out in the early-mid 2000s called Webkinz. They were stuffed animals that had little codes attached to them which you could enter online to also have a "virtual version" which you could then dress up, play games with and whatnot. Honestly though, it was the online interactivity part that seemed to drive the Webkinz craze more than owning the physical stuffed toy. In the store I worked for we used to sell Webkinz, and we had a major problem with people coming in and simply ripping the code tags off of them, while leaving the plush sitting on the shelf. It eventually got so serious that we had to start removing the tags ourselves and keeping them behind the cash register so they couldn't be stolen. I remember it finally dying down around 2010 or so.