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FEATURE/Toy Wishes: The Ultimate Toy Buying Guide Announces the 'Hot Dozen' for Holiday '99

Magazine's Editorial Board Predicts the Top 12 Toys of the Year

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--Sept. 21, 1999--The waiting is finally over, and in plenty of time for strategic shopping. Toy Wishes: The Ultimate Toy Buying Guide has announced what co-publishers Jim Silver and Gareb Shamus are calling the ``Hot Dozen,'' the twelve toys they predict will be the blockbusters of 1999.

The selection of these toys began as early as a year ago when members of the Toy Wishes editorial board took a 'first look' at more than 150,000 toys, games and related products. The final selection was made mid-year when the editorial board pooled their personal lists, gleaned from their more than 75 years of combined experience with toys, children's entertainment, technology and product trends. Adding to the mix, most importantly: what kids really want to play with.

According to Silver, The ``Hot Dozen'' are the magazine's predictions for the hottest and coolest toys of the 1999 holiday season. Parents and gift-givers will be able to turn to it for help in selecting the most appropriate ``hot toy'' for the kids on their shopping lists and to understand its appeal.

In addition to The ``Hot Dozen,'' each of the 25 different toy categories reviewed in Toy Wishes has its own 'hot pick' for the holidays. So, if your nephew loves video games, you'll be able to see 'what's hot' in that category. If your daughter loves activity toys, you'll be able to find 'the one' that will make her happiest.

Sprinkled throughout Toy Wishes, where appropriate, are special 'keep an eye on' notations that the editorial board predicts will be this season's 'sleeper' hits. Other toys have been cited as the 'coolest, new innovation' of their particular category.

Joining Silver and Shamus on the selection committee were Douglas Goldstein, editor of Toy Wishes, Christopher Byrne, nationally known toy expert who is also known as The Toy Guy(TM) and Nancy Lombardi, editor of The Toy Book, the toy industry's leading trade publication.

The ``Hot Dozen'' (in alphabetical order):

• Amazing Ally (Playmates Toys/$69.99) Amazing Ally uses revolutionary technology that allows her to interact with a virtually unlimited vocabulary and realistic, synchronized animatronic movements. Kids can tell Ally personal information -- their favorite colors, their nickname, their birthday...and Ally will not only remember them, but recall them during play.
• Furby Babies (Tiger Electronics/$29.99) Who can forget the Furby craze of '98? Well, last year's hottest toy is getting an update -- this time as cute Li'l Furby Babies. And like their bigger counterparts, they'll pick up English as it's spoken around them!
• Intel Play QX3 Computer Microscope (Mattel/$99.99) Thanks to the Intel Play QX3 Computer Microscope, kids can magnify any object, display it on their home computer and use the included software to creatively manipulate the image -- including creating dramatic animation.
• Interactive Yoda (Tiger Electronics) From the makers of Furby comes this interactive plush yoda, the sage advisor of the Star Wars universe. And just like Furby, Yoda is voice-activated and responds to his surroundings with unique, ever-changing responses, all in his distinct and unforgettable voice.
• Pokemon Fossil Cards (Wizards of the Coast/$3.29) Not since 'Go Fish' has any card game been so popular. The Pokemon collectible card game has been a phenomenal success, both in its native Japan and in the United States. This expansion set features all new cards and characters.
• Pokemon Pikachu Plush (Hasbro/$9.99) Hot property plus flagship character equals super-hot toy! Pikachu's at the top of the Pokemon heap, with millions clamoring for anything and everything adorned with his tiny yellow visage. This plush doll perfectly captures his super-high cute quotient.
• Rock & Roll Elmo (Fisher-Price/$29.99) In 1997, there was no toy hotter than Tickle Me Elmo and, in 1999, it looks like Elmo's staging a big-time comeback. Duded up in a cool leather jacket and strumming a light-up guitar, Elmo can sing and jam on two classic rock songs.
• 12-Inch Talking Darth Maul (Hasbro/$29.99) This 12-inch figure captures the Sith bad-boy in an imposing stance, with his double-bladed lightsaber in hand. And lest we forget, he also waxes poetic, with a voice chip that includes three lines from the film!
• Flight Control Buzz Lightyear (Mattel/$39.99) Standing 12-inches tall, Smart Flying Buzz contains a two-minute sound chip that allows him to talk to kids based on his position and the direction he's facing. And as if that wasn't enough, he's also got retractable wings that pop out at the touch of a button.
• Working Woman Barbie (Mattel/$29.99) Timeless and enduring, yet always hip, Barbie's reinvented herself yet again. This year, Barbie is a snazzy working gal. Working Woman Barbie is all decked out in a smart suit and packaged with a briefcase, cell phone and a laptop computer.
• WCW Tough Talkin' Wrestlers (Toy Biz/$39.99) Are you ready to rumble? Goldberg and friends are, in a line-up of talking figures that actually recognize and interact with one another! Thanks to infrared sensors, each of the first four figures - Goldberg, Sting, Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash - will address one another by name as they hurl their trademark taunts.
• WWF Net Wired Stone Cold Steve Austin (Jakks Pacific/$49.99) No wrestler's more popular than the tough-talkin' Stone Cold Steve Austin. So what could be better than a toy that delivers his brash ringside soliloquies right in his own voice? The 12-inch Net Wired Austin allows fans to download snippets of real life Stone Cold dialogue directly from a special Web site into the figure. New sound bites are available every day.

All of the toys in The 'Hot Dozen' are scheduled to be available at toy retailers and through many online e-commerce sites this holiday season.

Toy Wishes will retail for $4.99 and will be available on newsstands on October 5th. It will also be featured in special displays at Barnes and Noble, Border's Bookstores, Waldenbooks and Blockbuster. It will also be available at the places people shop for toys, including Toys ``R'' Us, Wal-Mart and Kmart. For more information, check out the website at http://www.toywishes.com.

     Litzky Public Relations

     Enid Lewin or Josslynne Lingard

     201/222-9118

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