ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611130006
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN GRIESSMAYER STAFF WRITER
Here's a quick quiz: Do you know what Beanie Babies are? Are they:
a) the set of triplets born to Mr. and Mrs. Bartholomew J. Beanie of Padookaville, Iowa?
b) a breed of mutants created when a mad scientist crossed a baby with a can of baked beans?
c) the hottest craze in huggable, collectable toys?
If you answered (c), you're right! Beanie Babies are the colorful bean bag animals that have become best friends to millions of kids across the country. They're soft, cute and small enough to fit right in your pocket.
Beanie Babies are fun to collect, too, because there's almost 100 different ones. Each Beanie Baby has its own birthday and a cool name that reflects its personality.
Some are cuddly, like Cubbie the bear, Ringo the raccoon and Wrinkles the bulldog. Some are not-so-cuddly, like Lizzy the lizard and Legs the frog.
Some live in the jungle, like Congo the gorilla, Freckles the leopard and Kiwi the toucan. And some come from under the sea, like Pinchers the lobster and Bubbles the fish.
There are even some scary ones, like Spooky the Ghost and Radar the bat.
May McBurney, a third-grader at Crystal Spring Elementary School in Roanoke, got her first Beanie Baby a few weeks ago after she broke her arm ice skating. A friend gave her Bongo the monkey as a get-well present. Then she got Stripes the tiger from another friend.
"Now I've got eight Beanie Babies," she said. "But I think Derby the horse is my favorite."
"They're so fun. I play with them every day and I sleep with them every night."
Beanie Babies have only been around since 1993, but stores all over have been selling out of them. Sometimes there's a waiting list of hundreds - even thousands - of kids and adults who want to get their hands on a certain one to complete their collection.
Chris Nagel, who owns Capt. Party with her husband, John, said they've got more than 8,000 Beanie Babies on back order with the company.
"The company simply can't keep up with the demand for Beanie Babies," she said. "They just cannot make them fast enough."
Nagel said sometimes she'll look up and there will be 20 or more people gathered around the Beanie Baby shelf at her store. She also said some people will do anything to find out when the new ones are coming out.
"One girl called us every day for two weeks asking if Magic the dragon was in. And once, a group of people saw the UPS truck parked outside the store and they waited around to see which new ones we were getting."
Ty Inc., the company that makes Beanie Babies, usually creates new animals every six months, in January and June. And every year, some older Beanie Babies - Humphrey the camel and Steg the stegosaurus, for example - are retired. That means you won't be able to buy them anymore.
But never fear, because stores in our area get new shipments of Beanie Babies all the time. The trick is, they never know which ones they'll get until they open the box.
Until the new ones are released, we can only guess which animals will be the next to be turned into Beanie Babies. Will we see furry versions of kangaroos or wombats or sea cucumbers?
Or maybe a fuzzy, floppy flying squirrel?
Well, one thing's for sure: Whatever the new ones are, they'll be popular with kids and adults. May McBurney seems to know why.
"They're just so little and skooshy," she said. "If you had enough of them, it would be like a giant fluffy pillow."
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY. Beth Pullins (left), 9, a pupil at Forestby CNBPark Elementary School in Roanoke, and May McBurney, 8, who attends
Crystal Spring Elementary in Roanoke, hold a few of the many Beanie
Babies available to collector or those who just love stuffed
animals. color.