They made 36 million Corn Poppers. See how they choose the right toys for the Toy Hall of Fame

ROCHESTER, NY – When the trustees of the National Toy Hall of Fame learned last fall that the Fisher-Price Corn Popper had been elected as part of the Class of 2023, they knew they had serious work to do.

As a formal induction ceremony approached, they would have to figure out how to display the beloved children’s toy with colorful balls ricocheting around a clear dome.

It’s not as simple as going to Walmart and taking one off the shelves: the salon, which is part of The Strong National Museum of Play in upstate New York, aims to show how its toys have endured and evolved over the years – the pieces range from wood to plastic, electronics are added.

That means scouring archives, auctions, the internet and garage sales in search of, or close to, an original — a process that repeats itself with each new Hall of Famer.

“We want some recognizable things currently on the market, but we also want people to say, ‘Oh, I had one of those!’” said Christopher Bensch, chief curator of the Strong museum, which is a larger-than-life interactive museum. Toy box for children and adults.

For example, when the puzzle was released in 2002, they added one of the world’s first versions, a map of Europe pasted onto a fine mahogany board from 1766, alongside a children’s Donald Duck puzzle from 1990. Not all toys introduced at the show are also product specific – the 2021 honoree was simply “sand”.

In the case of the Corn Popper, the curators needed to find something recognizable across generations. The toy has been around since 1957 and more than 36 million have been sold, according to Fisher-Price. Nearly 650,000 visitors would arrive the following year to see it and the hall of fame’s other vaunted rides.

After being voted on by experts and fans, many hall of fame toys are removed from the museum’s vast archives for permanent display.

The honorees are often so iconic — the Barbie doll, the teddy bear, the ladies — that chances are good there are multiples among the roughly half a million objects already in the ever-growing collection.

But the team is always on the lookout for toys worth keeping—keeping an eye on eBay and garage and estate sales, especially if a toy is already in the hall of fame or seems destined for it.

With new toys on the market all the time, curators can only guess what the next Etch A Sketch, a mechanical drawing toy that is still popular and largely unchanged after 100 years, might be, and which toys will fail.

“We want to be the repository for them, the nation or the world,” Bensch said. “That’s why we have 1,500 yo-yos in our collection, or 8,000 puzzles,” he said, citing two former honorees.

Some of the board games, stuffed animals, dollhouses and other molded, cast and carved childhood souvenirs in storage were donated by manufacturers. Others come from private collectors after death, divorce or moving. A father recently donated a collection of 1,600 American Girl dolls and accessories after his son outgrew them.

Some items are auctioned off, in the same way that a fine arts museum might acquire a masterpiece. That’s how The Strong got one of his most prized possessions, an original Monopoly set, hand-painted in oil in 1933 by inventor Charles Darrow before the game went into mass production. With Monopoly in the hall of fame since 1998, the winning bid of $146,500 at Sotheby’s in 2010 went over budget — but it was worth it.

“We are the National Museum of Play. If we were the Henry Ford Museum and didn’t have the first Model T, we would kick ourselves forever,” Bensch said.

Babies have been chasing Fisher-Price Corn Poppers for more than 60 years, but finding a “historic” one in perfect museum display condition was a challenge.

“These are toys that get used a lot,” Bensch said, “especially the early versions with that plastic dome and the wooden balls hitting it. Those didn’t survive in great condition.”

What ended up being shown were two versions. One is a 1980 model bought on eBay from a woman in Canada, who probably has no idea that her castaway – its wear evident on its dented and slightly cloudy dome – is now a museum piece. The other is a brand-new version that’s still on store shelves for about $12, with a sleeker blue handle and beefier red wheels that reflect small design changes over the years.

“It was difficult to find a photogenic one that went back more than a few decades,” Bensch said. “I’m not sure we ended up getting one that was as old as we wanted, just because they were so loved.”

Every year, a new class of toys enters the hall of fame, the culmination of an annual process that invites anyone to nominate their favorite toy online.

Museum staff select nominees for 12 finalists before a panel of experts votes on the winners. Eighty-four rides have won the honor since the show opened in 1998.

Inductees can be as enduring as steel erector set creations, introduced in 1998, or as fleeting as bubbles blown by a plastic wand, honored in 2014.

Many honorees are a reminder that the true value of a toy is not necessarily in the price, but in the piece. In 2008, an ordinary stick from a tree – but a free sword or magic wand for a child – was introduced into the hall, but the Flexible Flyer sled and Rubik’s Cube were not included that year. The Easy-Bake Oven was ignored in 2005 – because of the cardboard box it could have been shipped in.

The museum received 2,400 nominations for 382 different toys for the class of 2024.

This year’s 12 finalists include Apples to Apples, balloons and trampoline. Plus: “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, Hess Toy Trucks, remote-controlled vehicles, the Hobby Horse, Phase 10, Sequel and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and two perennial nominees, My Little Pony figures – seven-time finalist – and Transformers action figures.

Of them, a select few will be announced and honored in November, and the curators will begin their hunt again.