They don’t make kids toys like they used to. Before the invention of Xboxes and Playstations, we still remember those more simplistic, quirky toys and games that we spent far too much time and pocket money on during the 90s. Long summers spent looking through the Argos catalogue, shiny images of the brand new Stretch Armstrong, Barbies and Action Men that everyone wanted. Collecting and trading Pokemon cards and Pogs in the playground; the joy was never ending.
As the world changes and children today are embracing new types of VR and AI games, are these legendary 90s toys still popular?
The data
We decided to do some digging to find out. We looked through search volumes for the last two years of all kinds of popular 90s toys to reveal which are the top 20 most popular still today. Not only that, we wanted to know whether demand is decreasing, or if people’s interest is growing for Pokemon cards in 2020.
Revealed: The 20 most popular 90s toys in 2020
Our research showed that thousands of people are still searching every month for hundreds of popular 90s toys and games. But we wanted to know which are the most popular, so we have listed the top 20 most searched games and toys below.
|
Rank |
Toy |
UK monthly search volume (2019-2020) |
|
1 |
Pokemon cards |
90,500 |
|
2 |
Polly pocket |
49,500 |
|
3 |
Tamagotchi |
40,500 |
|
4 |
Pogs |
33,100 |
|
5 |
Furby |
27,100 |
|
6 |
Action Man |
22,200 |
|
7 |
Bop it |
18,100 |
|
8 |
Hungry hippos |
12,200 |
|
9 |
Game boy colour |
12,100 |
|
10 |
Stretch armstrong |
12,100 |
|
11 |
Mouse trap game |
9,900 |
|
12 |
Troll dolls |
9,900 |
|
13 |
Mr Frosty |
6,600 |
|
14 |
Betty Spaghetty |
5,400 |
|
15 |
Moon shoes |
2,400 |
|
16 |
Skipit |
2,400 |
|
17 |
Rock em Sock em robots |
1,300 |
|
18 |
Hit clips |
1000 |
|
19 |
Doodle bear |
720 |
|
20 |
Slinkies |
320 |
Unsurprisingly, Pokemon cards still hold the top spot for the most popular 90s toy, with over 90,000 people searching in the UK every month for the legendary card game. This doesn’t come as a shock to us, as just last year it was reported that the rarest Pokemon card in the world sold for over £150,000 (it’s the Pikachu Illustrator Promo Card for those Pokemon nerds!).
What did surprise us is that although in the top 20 of the toys we did analyse, slinkies are relatively unpopular in comparison to the other toys. Maybe the old staircase toy just doesn’t hold as much charm as it used to!
Revealed: 90s kids toys are making a resurgence
Not only did we want to know the top 20 most popular 90s toys still today, we wanted to see which 90s kids toy is growing in popularity, despite many of them not being made or sold new in years. To do this, we looked at search volumes from the same period last year across the UK, to see the changes in interest and demand for these toys.
It has been an unprecedented year, with more people inside due to global lockdowns, which might account for the fact that unanimously all of the most popular 90s toys had an increase in interest! On average, out of the top twenty 90s toys, there was a 32% increase overall in search volume from 2019 to 2020. The full results and percentage changes are below.
|
Rank |
Toy |
UK search volume 2019-2020 |
UK search volume (2018-2019) |
% change |
|
1 |
Betty Spaghetty |
5,400 |
2,900 |
46.30% |
|
2 |
Skipit |
2,400 |
1,300 |
45.83% |
|
3 |
Action Man |
22,200 |
12,100 |
45.50% |
|
4 |
Troll dolls |
9,900 |
5,400 |
45.45% |
|
5 |
Rock em Sock em robots |
1,300 |
720 |
44.62% |
|
6 |
Hit clips |
1000 |
590 |
41.00% |
|
7 |
Poo chi |
170 |
110 |
35.29% |
|
8 |
Hungry hippos |
12,200 |
8100 |
33.61% |
|
9 |
Mouse trap game |
9,900 |
6,600 |
33.33% |
|
10 |
Moon shoes |
2,400 |
1,600 |
33.33% |
|
11 |
Doodle bear |
720 |
480 |
33.33% |
|
12 |
Giga pets |
210 |
140 |
33.33% |
|
13 |
Furby |
27,100 |
18,100 |
33.21% |
|
14 |
Pokemon cards |
90,500 |
60,500 |
33.15% |
|
15 |
Bop it |
18,100 |
12,100 |
33.15% |
|
16 |
Game boy colour |
12,100 |
8,100 |
33.06% |
|
17 |
Pogs |
33,100 |
22200 |
32.93% |
|
18 |
Slinkies |
320 |
260 |
18.75% |
|
19 |
Tamagotchi |
40,500 |
33,100 |
18.27% |
|
20 |
Polly pocket |
49,500 |
40,500 |
18.18% |
Strangely, Stretch Armstrong which was listed on the most popular list previously did not make it into the biggest movers and shakers - since the search volume remained the same throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The data shows the biggest increase in popularity comes from Betty Spaghetty, which has nearly doubled in interest over the last year!
Every single toy at least increased or stayed the same in terms of search volume over the last year, showing that overall 90s toys are certainly making a resurgence.
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