Crazy Aaron’s Toy Fair Round-Up
Crazy Aaron returned from the New York Toy Fair and thought some shout-outs were appropriate.
The Cricket Toy – For those awkward moments, a keychain fob that chirps like a cricket. Its a gimmick, but a funny one. And Jeff Anderson, the creator, is a fun guy who knows how to turn an awkward moment into a laugh.
Triops – I’ve always been fascinated with SeaMonkeys but they are more hype than reality. They are tiny and hard to see. They aren’t really monkeys. Triops takes the concept to a new level of awesomeness. Billed as “creatures that time forgot”, you place the eggs into water and they have growing into swimming creatures that a blend of silverfish, horseshoe crabs, catfish and alien facehuggers. They get to be about 1 1/2″ long. I saw them in person and they are great.
Q-Ba-Maze – This building set caught my eye and my ears. You build towers using a series of cubes which allow steel balls to fall through. The movement and sound of the balls is just like the Pachinko machines I used to play with as a child. The pieces are beautiful colored clear plastic and it looks like a lot of fun.
Crazy Forts – As a kid, I was always rearranging the furniture and blankets to make forts. With Crazy Forts, you basically have oversized Tinkertoys to shape into fort-like structures. Cover with blankets and the kids can crawl through them. Then, they pack away in a tiny box for later use. So obvious, I’m surprised no one ever did this before!
Photos by Kardandak Enterprises, LLC/ToyOps/Q-BA-MAZE Inc./Everest Wholesale.
Jaclyn on February 27th, 2009 11:04 am
Those were some great and very cool looking toys and inventions. i especially love the cricket…that would be pretty funny to set one of those off during an awkward moment and i really like the crazy fort idea. as a kid myself i use to take off all the couch cushion’s and steal all the clean sheets from the laundry room to build forts…this would be a much easier and simplier way to build a fort as a kid.
Jeff (theCRICKETtoy) Anderson on April 30th, 2009 6:37 pm
Aaron,
Great to have you stop by the booth at Toy Fair. Just realized I never responded on here. I’ll do a ’shout out’ to you in the next couple days on Twitter.
Thanks again.
This has been a fun year. I could use a few more awkward moments, but I’ll just keep talking. Usually does the trick.
Chirp. Chirp.
Jeff
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