Nintendo to Hatchimals: Gifts That Sparked Holiday Insanity

The holiday shopping season always brings wild-eyed buyers trying to take advantage of bottom-dollar discounts. But every few years, a particular item — usually electronics or toys — sells even more briskly than usual, touching off a gift-finding frenzy that goes down in the history books. From Cabbage Patch Dolls and iPods to Hatchimals and the PlayStation 5, here are some of the most sought-after items from shopping seasons past and present. 

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In one of the earliest — and most infamous — examples of a Black Friday craze, shoppers cleaned stores out of Cabbage Patch Kids, which had been introduced earlier that year. As the holiday season wore on, several shoppers were injured during would-be buyers' attempts to get their hands on the dolls. About 3 million of the dolls were sold by the end of the year.

Related: 51 Toy Fads That Drove Grown-Ups Crazy

More than 1 million Teddy Ruxpin bears were sold in the last few months of 1985, and the talking animatronic bear maintained its "it toy" status in 1986. Feeling nostalgic? An updated version (smartphone-compatible, of course) was rolled out for the holidays in 2020.

Related: Great Gifts to Buy Your Grandkids

Video consoles have become a holiday staple, and the original Nintendo pioneered the craze. A staggering 7 million consoles were sold in 1988. "Never has a toy been this successful," proclaimed John Stossel on a 1988 episode of "20/20," after waiting in a line with frustrated holiday shoppers trying to get their hands on popular games. In 2016, the original Nintendo got a reboot as the NES Classic, touching off another rush to the stores.

Related: Cool Gifts for Old School Gamers Who Miss the '80s

After shortages led to frustrated parents and some overnight camping outside toy stores during the holidays in 1993, the manufacturer ramped production way up in 1994, according to The New York Times. But many of the action figures remained hard to find that year, too. Power Rangers have had enormous staying power: They were even the No. 1 action-figure brand in 2017 according to market researchers NPD.

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Laughing, wiggling Tickle Me Elmo dolls benefited from pre-holiday buzz courtesy of TV personalities such as Rosie O'Donnell and Bryant Gumbel. Black Friday saw the toy sold out in minutes at some stores, then came the inevitable trampled shoppers and inflated prices. Tyco shipped more than a million Tickle Me Elmos by December 1996, all of which were snapped up quickly, according to The New York Times. Tickle Me Elmo was reborn in 2006 as T.M.X. Elmo, which caused a similar shopping frenzy.

Around 1.8 million Furby toys flew off the shelves in 1998; a staggering 14 million were sold in 1999, according to The Motley Fool. The owl-like creatures with their own language intrigued so many people that retailers couldn't stock them fast enough for Christmas, and $30 Furbys started fetching $400 on auction sites such as eBay, CNN reported.

The now-ubiquitous aluminum Razor scooters were on just about every kid's Christmas list in 2000, and more than 5 million were sold during the year, notes the Holmes Report, which covers the public relations industry. They owed their popularity, in part, to the fact that plenty of adults were scooting around town on them, too. Unfortunately, experts say the scooters have also been a big reason for a spike in toy-related injuries since their introduction.

Related: The Most Dangerous Toys of All Time

Though iPods were introduced in 2001, it took the digital music players a few years to go truly mainstream. In 2004, Apple added the colorful iPod mini to its lineup, grabbing the attention of gift-buyers everywhere. During the holiday sales months in 2004, Apple sold 4.5 million iPods, a 500% year-over-year jump, according to Macworld.

Related: Cool and Creative Gifts for Music Lovers

In 2005, the Thanksgiving release of the Microsoft Xbox 360 had holiday shoppers scrambling from store to store. The $300 gaming console (and the first-ever from Microsoft) was in very short supply, with some showing up on eBay for an eye-popping $2,000, according to NBC News. Some shoppers even grumbled that Microsoft was deliberately keeping supply low to keep buyers frenzied.

The popularity of video-game consoles continued in 2006. Unfortunately, demand also far outstripped supply for the newly released Sony PlayStation 3, touching off a number of violent incidents. It was also a big year for the new Nintendo Wii, which sold a whopping 600,000 consoles in its first week, according to IGN.

In 2007, gamers decided they wanted to play on the go. The handheld Nintendo DS dominated the holiday shopping season: More than 8.5 million were sold that year, 2.5 million of them in December, according to NBC News. Meanwhile, Apple released its first iPod Touch and sold 3.5 million in the final months of 2007 alone, according to Fortune.

After a run of video games and Apple products, the Zhu Zhu Pet craze of 2009 seems almost quaint. The little electronic hamsters retailed for less than $10 but fetched six times that on eBay, according to Time. Cepia, the manufacturer, eventually sold more than 70 million Zhu Zhus internationally, according to USA Today. Updated versions of the toy have also found their way back into stores in the past couple years.

Amazon has always been cagey about its Kindle sales, but Forbes estimates that sales of the iconic ereader hit a peak of more than 13 million in 2011. Amazon itself reported that sales of the e-readers and tablets on Black Friday 2011 quadrupled what they were in 2010, likely partially driven by the holiday release of the popular Kindle Fire. Last year it was one of the best holiday gift buys on Amazon.

Related: Clever and Creative Gifts for Book Lovers

There's no surprise that the Apple iPad was a hot holiday seller when it was released in 2010, but sales wouldn't peak until 2013, when more than 25 million iPads were sold during the holiday months. In fact, according to Forbes, the top three iPads made up around 18% of Target's Black Friday sales in 2013. But by 2017, revenue from the tablet was down 22% year-over-year. 

Though Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dolls actually took the No. 1 toy spot in 2014, the Disney "Frozen" Snow Glow Elsa doll was No. 2 — and "Frozen" items across toy categories generated more than $530 million in sales during 2014, according to MarketWatch. Shoppers fought over merchandise at the Disney Store in Times Square, and desperate parents paid inflated prices for the costumes and toys online, according to the New York Post.

Self-hatching Hatchimal electronic pets were so hot in 2016 that most store shelves were bare well before Black Friday, and analysts estimate revenue from sales hit around $80 million, according to CNNTech. The Hatchimal Surprise came out to continue the egg-hatching trend.

The hottest toy of 2017, Fingerlings were inspired by a viral photo of a pygmy marmoset.  The plastic monkeys that hang on to kids' fingers wowed with their 40 sounds and interactions. Parents were probably more impressed with the $15 price, though the toys were often sold for three times the retail price by third-party sellers on eBay and Amazon. How hot were they? A Fingerling was sold every minute of the week ended Nov. 1 that year, and Target and Walmart often limited the number that could be bought by one person at a time. 

L.O.L. Surprise! more or less invented the "unboxing" gift back in 2016 and the trinket-stuffed suitcases, collectible figures, and ephemera have been at the top of holiday must-have lists every year since. The trend reached a fever pitch in 2018, as stores and online retailers struggled to keep the L.O.L. Surprise! Bigger Surprise suitcases in stock, along with the brand's related collectible toys. Kids unpack the plastic purse to reveal a treasure trove of dolls and accessories like clothes, shoes, hats, and other bling. As kids unpack each and every item, they also uncover stickers and other surprises like a “magnifying glass” to uncover clues hidden in the product packaging. 

The PlayStation 5, which came out just in time for Christmas 2020, has dominated the dreams of desperate parents for the past two holiday seasons. It hasn't been any easier to find this year, sadly. The major issue: A pandemic-related shortage of microchips, related to both supply issues and increased demand, which is roiling several industries. Toshiba, which builds many video-game console components, says things may not be back to normal until 2023.