USA: In a ceremony that was somehow both prestigious and held at a children’s museum, four toys were enshrined Thursday in the National Toy Hall of Fame, a place where the competition is fierce and the trophy case is a bit sticky.
The winners are bingo, the Care Bears, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and the playground slide, which beat out Bop It!, mahjong, Monster High dolls, Polly Pocket, Tickle Me Elmo, Yahtzee, Sorry!, and Mouse Trap.
Bingo, which dates to an Italian lottery from around 1530, has begun shaking its “your grandma’s Tuesday night” image. Curator Mirek Stolee says it’s now popular in bars and nightclubs, confirming that 500 years of progress has led humanity to yell “B-9” at a stranger while holding a cocktail.
The Care Bears ran a savvy grassroots campaign, amassing nearly one million social media followers, a number experts say is roughly 999,000 more than most candidates for local office. Pokémon cards were carried by anime fans and manga readers, who showed up to vote in a binder, protected by a plastic sleeve, inside a second binder.
Then there’s the slide, which won on a platform of motor skills and exploration. “People of all ages remember fondly the simple, satisfying, and energizing experience of racing down a slide,” said museum VP Jeremy Saucier, speaking on behalf of an object whose entire résumé is “you climb up, you come down.” Sources confirm it has never once been asked to do more.
To get in, a toy must be an icon, span generations, foster creativity, or change play forever. The class of 2026 joins 90 inductees including Hot Wheels, Frisbee, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Dungeons & Dragons, whose members spent the reception arguing over whether the slide counts as a “dungeon” if it’s covered in a tube.
At press time, a six-year-old was reportedly climbing up the slide the wrong way, undermining the whole institution.
