Images: Christmas Toy Fads Through the Years
Black Friday in recent years has signaled the start of the holiday shopping season. Take a peek back at these "must-have" items that have been featured at the top of wish lists, and are featured as part of a list at The Daily Beast website . From gaming systems to Tickle Me Elmo to Cabbage Patch Kids, there is no predicting what items will trend from year to year.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was a popular item in the late 80's. Tetris, an addictive brain-teasing video game, is shown as played on the Nintendo Entertainment System in New York, June 1990. Created by a Soviet scientist, Tetris was the first Communist bloc video game to hit it big in the free market.
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Gabriel Quartone, 28, from Charlotte, N.C., wears a sign as he tries to sell a Sony PlayStation 3 in Herald Square on Black Friday, Nov. 24, 2006, in New York. Quartone, an unemployed car dealer, says he bought seven PlayStation 3 games and re-sold six on E-Bay for over $9,000. He later claimed to have sold the seventh game, Friday, for $2,000.
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A happy customer displays his newly purchased "Cabbage Patch Kid" doll on Sunday, Nov. 27, 1983 as he leaves a south Bellingham, Mass. storefront crowded with people hoping to make similar, purchases. The moon faced cloth dolls, made by Coleco, have created quite a stir among shoppers nation wide, with some people waiting in 5-hour lines to buy them.
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A Tokyo toy store salesperson shows how to play Nintendo's latest computer game, "Game Boy", July 1989, which went on sale in the United States that summer and was a popular Christmas wish list item.
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Cashiers Andrea Affeld, center, of Royal Oak, and Vanessa Truitt, right, of Detroit, wait on customer Donnie Dykes of Berkley, Mich., left, as he purchases a Nintendo Wii gaming system at a Meijers store in Troy, Mich. during Black Friday, Nov. 28, 2008.
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In this Oct. 1, 2009 file photo, a hamster from Zhu Zhu Pets, by Cepia, is shown at the Time to Play Holiday 2009 Most Wanted List event in New York. Zhu Zhu Pets, which retail for $8, were the 2009 bona fide must-have toy, following in the footsteps of past crazes for Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids.
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Transformers toys are displayed at a Target Store in Colma, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013. The toys which convert from various modes into robots, were wildly popular in the mid 80's and have experienced a resurgence with the release of major motion pictures.
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The last "Tickle Me Elmo" in the Boston area, according to the manager of the Square One Mall in Saugus, Mass., sits in a glass case at the mall Friday, Dec. 6, 1996. The much sought-after doll, which retails for $22.95, is expected to fetch up to $1,000 in a charity auction at the mall Friday night. Proceeds will go to Children's Hospital in Boston.
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An iPod Touch is displayed at an Apple Store in San Francisco, Friday, Nov. 26, 2010.
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Peter Schultz helps stack a pallet of Xbox One game sets for a doorbuster sale at a Best Buy store just before midnight on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013, in Dunwoody, Ga. All of the store's 120 employees were on hand to ring up items after the electronics retailer opened on Thanksgiving this year.
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The Rubik's Cube hit the market in 1980 and became a worldwide fad. The puzzle has experienced periods of resurgent popularity in recent years.
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Demonstrator Christa Sparks debuts the latest innovation from the popular FURREAL FRIENDS line with POM POM MY BABY PANDA, at the Hasbro showroom during the American International Toy Fair on Monday, Feb. 17, 2014 in New York. Furreal plush toys have been favorite wish list items in recent years.
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The Furby plush and electronic robotic toy has experienced "must-have" status at various points since its launch in the late nineties.
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