Dolls talk back at Sydney Toy Fair

Press, 18 March 1987, Page 24

Dolls talk back at Sydney Toy Fair

NZPA-AAP Sydney At this year’s Sydney Toy Fair you can get slimed, talk to a doll that will talk back or try your hand at a new Australian board game the distributors think will become an international hit. Talking Cabbage Patch Kids will hit the Australian market in October just in time for Christmas. Or more accurately, just in time for kids whose parents can afford the SNZ24O retail price. The new Kids are revolutionising the doll market with their lifelike voices and their ability to

respond to different situations and questions. Their vocabulary give them a choice of up to 5000 phrases. If the young owner of a talking Cabbage Patch Kid holds the doll by its feet, for example, sensors in the legs are activated and the Kid responds by saying: “Don’t hold me upside down please.” Other sensors located over the doll are controlled by an internal microchip, so it can speak its mind. Other innovations among Kids include babies that really smell

like babies and Kids tbat have hair rather than the traditional woolly mops. A new Ghostbusters gun allows combatants to slime each other with purple, non-toxic, nonsticking ectoplasm. Although the successful movie of the same name was released several years ago, licensing for Ghostbusters toys was granted only recently. Minotaur Maze is a new board game designed by a Brisbane man, Mr David Wren, aged 27, while he was recovering in hospital from a back operation. Mr Ken Chapman, man-

aging director of Kenner Parker, Australia’s biggest toy distributor, believes Minotaur Maze could become very successful overseas. “We get about 600 ideas for games and toys submitted to us every year, but this one has all the ingredients of a game that’s bound to become very popular. It can be played by kids or adults . who want to play like strategists. “We’ve already shown it at the Japanese toy fair

and received a very favourable response. We plan to take it to toy fairs in Canada and tbe United States,” Mr Chapman said. And the inventors of Trivial Pursuit, Scott Abbott and Chris Haney, have come up with another offering, Übi. The name means “where is" in Latin and is based on the player’s geographical knowledge. Mr Chapman said even though the toy industry, which totals $5OO million annually in Australia, is

constantly coming up with new ideas, there was no single high-flyer this year which had dominated the market. “The big developments are in the electronic field with talking dolls, plush toys, guns, interaction with television screens as well as radio control. “Japan and the United States are getting together to come up with some good ideas using Japanese technology and United States marketing skills," Mr Chapman said.