The Toy Crazes that Movies and Television Shows Build

From the vantage point of someone with grown kids, I can tell you that kids' obsessions with movie-based and television-based toys, videos and other associated items pass as quickly as they set in. I can also tell you, however, that until the child reaches adolescence fading obsessions are usually replaced by new ones.

Whether movie-based, television-based or just the latest children's craze, children's obsessions with the latest kid stuff can drive parents to the point of desperation, trying to find the often hard-to-find latest thing.

I've survived the Care Bears phase, the Spiderman phase, the Hulk phase, the Puffalumps phase, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phase. Then there were Transformers, Star Wars (my son had a particularly impressive Millenium Falcon) and Fraggles. They weren't movie-based, but rationed Cabbage Dolls fit into the crazy craze category. There has always been "Everything Barbie". There was a point when all of my kids were at an age when all three children wanted all three Simpsons children (Bart, Lisa, and Maggie). Let's not forget The Little Mermaid, Ariel; Princess Jasmine, and Belle. Then, too, there has been the parade of action figures. (Who would have thought even Ghostbusters would have little dolls...).

We parents have seen how sometimes movies are inspired by toys, while other times toys are apparently the inevitable consequence of movies. Sometimes when a movie is old (like the animated Charlotte's Web) they are remade in a way that starts a whole craze that the older version never inspired. Barbie is a toy that has been turned into movies.

My advice to parents in the throws of a child's obsession with the latest movie-based or television-based toy is to try get the "important" items - the action figures or doll, a few accessories, a "big ticket" item like (forgive the archaic references) the Millenium Falcon or the pump-up Hulk who would bust out of his cage. Its also helpful (and satisfying for your children) to get some of the "supplemental" items like lunch-boxes, drinking cups, and/or whatever other here-today-gone-tomorrow junk that may be available. Videos for kids who will watch them again and again until they go around repeating all the lines incessantly aren't expensive and make kids happy. Littler kids may benefit more from music. For birthdays and other special occasions there are always the much coveted movie-themed sleeping bags. The occasional fast-food kid's meal with a movie-themed toy is another way to quench a child's thirst for this stuff.

Inflatable, movie-themed, wading pools will usually not last through the next Summer; although parents may want to think twice before investing in a movie-themed sandbox. Parents who like to offer that "something extra" may like to buy bedspreads and decorative switch-plates for the children. Generally, bedspreads and switch-plates will be switched at about the time the bedspread wears out along with the obsession.

The likes of Puffalumps, Care Bears, and even Transformers and Hulk are actually fun things when they're in vogue; and long after children are grown and have forgotten their love for these flashes-in-the-pan, parents may always hold in their hearts the tiniest of fondest memories for the characters that once made their child so happy. Long after Hulk's cage breaks from so much use and, I am guessing, long after Shrek and Feona finally live happily ever after (which has not happened yet, based on the fact that a third Shrek movie has recently been made), parents always wake up one day with no need to stand in long lines for the latest item and no need to put all those action figures back in their movie-themed (and cleverly- designed- to-hold -100) case.

My advice to today's parents is this: Enjoy these wonderful, silly and insane childhood crazes and be very grateful that, at least for a while, their worries are no more serious than whether or not they can get the latest thing.