Toy Fair 2015: The Ritter Report!

by Bill Cable
on 2015-03-03, 12:06:06

CreatureCantina.com is delighted to share a report on toy fair written by our great friend Mike Ritter. Mike attended Toy Fair with Steve Rensi and shared the reporting duties for CC.com. He visited vendors all over the convention floor, and here are his impressions...

The 112th North American International Toy Fair recently took place over Valentine’s Day weekend in New York City’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. While everyone was getting their hearts broken over Hasbro’s presentation, or lack thereof, I went about the miles of aisles to see what some of the other smaller vendors had to show us this year as far as what was coming out later this year. Each vendor I spoke with was more than happy to discuss what they had planned, except for anything related to some movie coming out in December I think. That was the running theme amongst all the vendors. “We’re working on something related to something, but can’t talk about anything related to that something.” ;-) I guess we’ll have to wait till September 4th to see what makes it onto the shelves.

It was a bit breezy that weekend in NYC so it was best for our first vendor, BrainStorm Products, that their booth was set up inside the Jacob Javits Center. They featured a whole assortment of kites that certainly would have gone far with a good breeze. They showed off their current assortment of Rebels themed kites in their SkyDelta and SkyDiamond lines. Coming this summer is a R2-D2 shaped kite in their SkyFriends line. They are working on classic Star Wars designs and also EVII products, but they couldn’t say more about the last part. ;-) They can be found at retailers like Walmart. They can be found on the web at www.xkites.com

• Rebels kites
• R2-D2 kite
• Star Wars kites

Next up was Qmx showing a selection of metal keychains. The Millennium Falcon, Slave 1 and Star Destroyer are already out and available. They did show two key fobs, an Imperial Cog and a Rebel Insignia, that are still in the prototype stage. They do have plans for EVII but surprise! Can’t talk about it. www.qmxonline.com

• Assorted metal keychains

Cartamundi was there showing of their two new decks of cards coming out summer ’15, a Fett deck and a Rebels deck. Both will be available with or without collectible tins. They also showed product currently available. They too are working on EVII product, but don’t ask. www.cartamundiusa.com

• Fett deck
• Rebels deck
• Assorted decks and games
• Fett and Rebels playing cards

Something a little different was the FlairHair/Concept One booth showing off some pretty cool headgear. For an R2-D2 fan like myself, their R2-D2 Ugly Sweater hat is a must find and looked pretty warm. They also showed several other Vader hats and beanies, and some baseball style caps. Their rep showed their catalog with a lot more designs than the few they had at the show. The one piece I found amusing was their Chewbacca FlairHair hat. You know those visors with the Guy Fieri spikey hair that many older guys wear trying to look cool? Yeah, but this is Chewbacca! ;-) www.flairhair.com

• R2-D2 toque
• Star Wars baseball caps
• Chewbacca toque

For a sweet change of pace I stopped in the Jelly Belly booth. They had a display of their Star Wars branded bags of jelly beans. Unfortunately for this sweet tooth they zip tied all their bags to the display racks. They do have some Stat Wars decorated tins that are out now. They did show an early version of their Death Star Dispenser that is coming out in a few months. www.jellybelly.com

• Vader jellies
• Star Wars jelly bean machine

Puzzled by my reporting yet? You probably will be after the next two vendors. ;-) Buffalo Games & Puzzles was their showing off their PhotoMosaics line of puzzles. These, if you haven’t seen them yet, are puzzles of images made from thousands of tiny frames from the Star Wars movies. Series 3 is coming out Summer ’15 with 5 new images and Fett that is already out. And they are working on EVII but are waiting on Disney approval. www.buffalogames.com

• PhotoMosaic puzzle display
• PhotoMosaic puzzles

Another Puzzling vendor was Cardinal Industries. Their line includes puzzles packed in several different tins. The tins range from shaped and square tins to Vader and R2-D2 puzzle capsules. The capsules come in two different sizes, small 24 pieces and large 100 pieces. They also showed “lunch box” style tins with handles. They are currently working on EVII products and, nevermind, can’t talk about it. They also showed, but did not allow any photographs, of their crowd sourced trivia game. Apparently over 800,000 trivia questions were received from fans around the world and they narrowed that down to 500 questions. Each question card will include the name of the person who submitted that question. The game is expected to hit retain around July/August. www.cardinalgames.com

• Assorted Star Wars puzzles
• Vader puzzle tins
• Vader puzzle
• Star Wars puzzles
• Vader puzzle display

Next in line was Bladez Toyz with remote control inflatable toys. I’m sure you’ve seen the inflatable RC R2-D2 this past fall at Target. Well Bladez is rereleasing the R2-D2 but this time with sound. Coming summer/fall ’15 is an inflatable Yoda and an inflatable Darth Vader. The Yoda and Vader shown were early samples and may differ slightly. www.bladeztoyz.co.uk

• Yoda, Vader and R2-D2
• Yoda, Vader close-up
• Boxed Vader
• Boxed Yoda
• Boxed R2-D2

Imperial/Rubies has been a Lucasfilm licensee for 20 years now and came to show off their costumes, masks and muscle shirts. They will be available at various retailers including Target and TRU. Once again, they will be doing stuff for EVII but weren’t allowed to talk about it. www.rubies.com

• Rebels costumes
• Star Wars costumes
• Even more Star Wars costumes
• Way more Star Wars costumes

PPW Toys was there showing their PopTaters line, similar to Hasbro’s Mr. Potato Head. There are four characters available now, Vader, Yoda, Stormtrooper and R2-D2. They are also available as keychains. There is a Fett and C-3PO PopTaters coming in Summer ’15, and they announced a Slave Leia coming in the Fall ’15. They are also releasing three sets of nesting dolls, a Jedi & Droids, Rebellion and Empire themed sets. They are not for mass retail but should be found at specialty stores. www.ppwtoys.com

• PopTaters display
• PopTaters Boba Fett
• PopTaters keychains
• PopTaters Slave Leia
• Star Wars nesting dolls
• PopTaters C-3PO

I’m just bubbling with excitement with this next vendor, Imperial Toys. They are LucasFilm’s first licensee for bubble solutions, you know, the wands that you blow through the loop on the end and blow bubbles. You might have seen some of their products already hitting stores such as Walmart, various styles of bottles with character heads such as Vader, Yoda and R2-D2. There will also be lightsabers and collectible tins. Their big item was a large R2-D2 bubble dispenser that will retail for around $80. The dispenser is about the size of Hasbro’s Interactive R2-D2 from a few year ago. The bubbles will come out of the eyeport and there are three settings for the dome to move, straight, oscillate and combo. This R2 fan is definitely picking one up! www.imperialtoy.com

• Bubble toy display
• Bubble bottles
• R2-D2 bubble machine
• 3D R2-D2 Bubble machine

Finally I stopped to talk with the guys at ThinkGeek, the company that brought you the TaunTaun sleeping bag. I heard them say they have 40+ items waiting for approval from Disney. That sounds expensive. They didn’t allow any photos to be taken so I will do my best to describe them. There was a Space Slug snoglobe. They had R2-D2 cupcake pans, essentially R2 bodies you cook cupcakes in where the cupcake dome is R2’s dome. Yumm! Next was an R2-D2 Bento Box for your lunch needs. A cool item was a Death Star waffle maker. Picture round waffles that look like the Death Star. They can’t resist maple syrup of that magnitude! There were also cookie cutters in various character head shapes. The last item was a Star Wars dinner set that they are working on. They were sure of the final configuration yet but what they showed included an R2-D2 napkin, a C-3PO napkin holder, a Death Star plate and lightsaber knife fork and spoon. Their mockup looked like a fun way to eat dinner. www.thinkgeek.com

Well that’s it for now! If you made it this far, thanks for being patient and listening to my ramblings! If you didn’t read this far, I hate you all! ;-) A big thanks to Bill Cable for letting me attend New York Toy Fair 2015.