Battle of the Fun Factories

(4 of 4)

Since radically fresh ideas surface so rarely, companies try to get all the mileage they can out of them. Coleco, which will have sold some 40 million Cabbage Patch Kids by the end of this year, has devised all sorts of ways to keep them alive. One trick is to sell them as twins ($80 to $85 a pair). Another is to dress them as world travelers, complete with international wardrobes and passports.

The smartest shop in the business right now is Rhode Island-based Hasbro, which this year expects to reach sales of $1.2 billion and surpass Mattel as the largest U.S. toymaker. Hasbro, which is now operated by its third generation of Hassenfeld brothers, has profited from a somewhat contrary attitude. The company avoided getting into video games in 1979, which at the time prompted wags to call it "Has-been." Instead, the company plunged / deeper into conventional toys, which eventually produced such smash hits as Transformers and My Little Pony, a line of plastic, pastel-colored toys.

After picking up the conservative political winds, the company in 1982 brought back G.I. Joe, which had been discontinued four years earlier. The new Joe, downsized from 11 1/2 in. to 3 3/4 in., rang up revenues of $132 million last year. While still a conventional toy, the fighting man has a battalion of colleagues and a battery of weapons. The biggest accessory is his aircraft carrier, a 7 1/2-ft.-long behemoth that carries 100 Joes and sells for $120.

Parents who are shocked by their children's Pentagon-size procurement plans should take heart. Many simple, inexpensive toys have persevered over the years. Etch-A-Sketch costs only $9, compared with $3 when it was born 25 years ago. Slinky ($1.59), the coiled spring that walks down stairs, sells at the rate of 3 million annually after 40 years on the market. The tough question is whether Stinkor will still be around years from now.