They're not worth shit now, champ. It ain't 1996 anymore.

>>2925496
i never thought they were, i just find it funny that people wasted so much money back then and they are worthless now.

>>2925498
See Beanie Babies, or Furbies, etc.

Things only go up or retain value when there is a limited number, but not even then all the time. Compare prices on Botcon sets 2006 (Dawn of Futures Past) and 2007 (Games of Deception) vs. 2009 (Wings of Honor) and 2010 (Generation 2 Redux).

Tickle me Elmo was pretty big Christmas of 1997 also. I worked at a sports memorabilia store at a mall that was attached to a Target. I remember on Black Friday (though I don't remember if it had that name back then) the mall opened up at like 6:00 a.m. and there wasn't a single person in the place. Outside Target however there was a HUGE line of people waiting to get those stupid things. I didn't get a customer until after noon.

File: 1339142423027.jpg-(38 KB, 512x384, 1311238489635.jpg)

Hype, thrill of the hunt, having a spoiled-rotten kid/grandkid...

What anime is this from?

>>2926807
SERIOUSLY?!?!!? Go kill yourself now.

>>2926952
>in your post
Hello I'm autistic and don't know what jokes are!

Anyone got any stories on those Hamsters?

A friend of mine who at the time, worked at Toys R Us, told me the story of how grandmas were outside in the parking lot... chase after an arriving delivery truck, to get their hands on dem Elmos.

Also, he was working at a Midnight Launch for the Star Wars Phantom Menace figures. First time they were available, way back before the movie came out and the hype was fucking off the heezy.

Dudes were running into each other with carts, and all of the employees were just disgusted and disappoint.

>>2926807

Kiiikiihuroghashimakatubo the destroyer

Haaa!
I remember this!
I can't remember WHY, though. WHY was this in such high demand? Did they ever figure that out?
Was it just the toy wasn't quite as available as people wanted, and it just kinda snowballed from there?

>>2928409
Oh I remember the Phantom Menace midnight launch. I was second in line, but first in the store since I decided to skip out on getting a shopping cart. I got to the figures first, grabbed a Darth Sidious (the main figure I was after), and was taking my sweet time just gazing over everything, just to take it all in.

Then the rest of the crowd caught up, and everything just got all grabby. The shelves got stripped of the figures, most of the non-figure stuff just sat there (kind of surprised the Jabba Glob didn't actually fly off though). When one of the employees brought out a shopping cart full of figures to restock, it was like dumping a bucket of chum into shark infested waters.

I don't remember any fights though, and one guy with a cart full did let me go through and take anything I needed, so it was more of a friendly and orderly pandemonium.

I did get everything I wanted that night, but for some reason, it seemed like Boss Nass was the hardest figure to find after that night (was about another two months before I found another one at a random drug store).

>>2930832
And then everyone saw the movie.

>>2930743
It was babby's first vibrator. Seriously. It lead to a trend in vibrating toys, until people realized WHY they were so popular with kids. It was the harry potter broom that really clued people off.

TV news reporters fueled the hype

bump

File: 1339503016097.jpg-(56 KB, 400x308, tmx.jpg)

I worked at KB when the tenth anniversary Elmo--TMX--came out.

We took preorders for months before his release date. When the day finally came, we had maybe half a dozen preorders, so those people got their Elmo with no trouble. Then they featured him on the Today show or something, and from then on it was nothing but desperate people searching for TMX and getting pissed when we didn't have any. We kept a notebook by the register to take people's names and phone numbers. There were probably eight to ten pages of names, and we only got three or four cases a week at most (there were three Elmos in a case), so most of those people never got a call.

After Christmas, we had enough Elmos to circle-stack them by the door. It wasn't even a fun toy; in fact, it was a shitty toy, a total one-trick pony with his little rolling-on-the-floor laughing gimmick. He was just a hard plastic box covered with felt. You couldn't hug him, and he was probably too heavy for a 2-3 year old to carry around. This kind of crap is totally marketed toward dumbass parents.

>>2933392

My 1 year old can carry him around just fine so no, that's not right at all.

I got the jump on TMX elmo before everyone else due to a heads up from a KB employee. I believe I went around my state buying up as many as I could and selling them on Ebay for triple the money. I made a video of what TMX elmo could do and put it up on ebay and it got millions of hits and to this day I've made thousands on advertising from that video. Still have the elmo from the video and my daughter loves him.

TMX Elmo I love you

>>2933451
Huh. At my store we limited them to two per customer. Which was weird because my manager normally didn't have a problem dealing with scalperfags. He didn't give a shit as long as we made our sales goals.

I know you're trolling, but I hope no one ever took tips from KB employees about what would sell. That company thought the dumbest shit was going to be the next big thing. The reissued Pogs, this stupid dancing robot thing named Iz, Test Tube Aliens...KB promoted all of them heavily, bought thousands of units, and all of them failed. They probably would have been all over Kung Zhu if they had still been around.