Toy Retailers Association

Toys and tech next to set the scene.

The Toy Retailers Association made Power Rangers Toy of the Year for 1994.

Bandai's figures were in short supply all over the world.

Barbie took Doll of the Year.

One show about women surviving a camp, the other about kids dodging alien machines, and both stuck in the playground the next morning.

Before any review scores, a toys and tech beat, the Toy Retailers Association named Transformers Toy of the Year for 1985, Optimus Prime on the box, Autobots and Decepticons emptying shelves, and a second win waiting in '86.

Transformers winning the official prize still makes sense when you remember the cartoon and the figures fighting for space next to the Christmas lists.

Loud plastic, clear good versus bad, and the toy aisles were stacked with semi-trucks that turned into robots.

Before any review scores, a quick toys and tech beat.

The Toy Retailers Association name Sylvanian Families from Tomy as nineteen eighty-seven Toy of the Year.

First win start of a long reign, little woodland houses and figures living on bedroom shelves all winter.

Tiny rabbits paying rent is such an eighty-seven story.

Toys and, uh, tech next before we touch the reviews.

The Toy Retailers Association say the 1992 Toy of the Year was the Hasbro WWF Wrestlers.

Thunderbirds Tracy Island was the one everyone queued for, but shortages, uh, cost it the award, so the wrestlers took the official prize.

Queuing all night for a plastic island while Hasbro wrestlers win the trophy is such a '92 story.

Quick look at the toys and one bit of tech.

The Toy Retailers Association say Sylvanian Families won Toy of the Year in '89 for the third year running, a hat trick after '87 and '88.

They don't publish a neat top three for fourteen-year-olds.

So that's the honest picture, and they also note that Batmania hit Britain that year.

Period flavor time.

The Toy Retailers Association made Hasbro’s WWF Wrestlers, uh, toy of the year for 1992, so plastic Hulk Hogans were everywhere.

Thunderbirds Tracy Island was the other famous want that Christmas, and shops simply could not keep it in stock.

For a 14-year-old lad, it was, uh, wrestlers, a Super Nintendo, and, uh, maybe a Super Soaker if the parents were brave.