by The Strong National Museum of Play has named 12 National Toy Hall of Fame finalists. Each year, the hall inducts new honorees and displays examples in the Toy Halls of Fame gallery at the museum in Rochester, New York.
This year’s 12 finalists include Baseball cards, Battleship, Bingo, Bop It, Cabbage Patch Kids, Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, Connect 4, Ken, Little Tikes Cozy Coupe, Nerf Toys, slime, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I’ve personally voted for Choose Your Own Adventure books. While a book may not be considered a toy by some, I feel they are more like a game than a book, so I feel justified in my choice. I guess the same could be said for baseball cards, as my friends and I treated the act of trading cards like a game, and we were more into them for that aspect than their future value. We’d gather around EVERY DAY in the summer on one of our porches and spend hours haggling over trades. It was a blast. I imagine it’s what stock traders feel like.
There are strong candidates all around this year, as I also feel like Slime, Nerf, Cabbage Patch Kids, and TMNT are all more than worth contenders.
Voting is open through Sept. 20 if you want to make your voice heard as well. The three toys that receive the most public votes will be submitted to join the other top three submissions from members of the National Selection Advisory Committee.
The final selections will be announced at The Strong National Museum of Play on Thursday, Nov. 9, at 10:30 a.m. For more information, visit museumofplay.org.
I wonder which toys will “win”, IDK if I could’ve chosen only 3 cause my picks are torn between Battleship, Choose your own Adventure Books, Bop It! and Tmnt. Always loved this one choose your own adventure book from the 80’s called “Shipwrecked on Mystery Island”, I also loved reading the Goosebumps ones, in particular the 1st 3 books in that series. Tmnt had so many awesome figures and the Turtle van. Battleship was always a blast to play and Bop It was always hilarious with family.