MOVERS, SHAKERS & GROWERS

The Gidget Widget stress and anxiety relief gadget picks up where fidget spinners left off. It’s a handsome gray plastic cube, about an inch per side, with calming green buttons and dials for your fidgeting pleasure. This is the Series 2 model with all new fidget functions, including dial, scroll, slide, click, flip and jump. Sounds like a junior high on a Friday afternoon, but it’s all at your fingertips anytime you need or want it. Ages 6+.

THE American classic novelty item (even ahead of the whoopee cushion and rubber vomit, we think) is a set of chattering choppers. Auto-dentures. Invented by Eddy Goldfarb in 1949, a man who made the Toy Industry Hall of Fame ahead of Milton Bradley, these are, not to put too fine a point on it, the sine qua non of gagdom, the ne plus ultra of spring-driven frivolity. Ours are 2-1/2" dia, with a wind-up key.

Cutest drone ever. Shaped, and sized, like a chicken egg, just over 2-1/2” tall . Opens up to a 5” wide quad-rotor drone with a range of approx 100 feet, and it’ll fly for approx 6 minutes on a 45-minute charge. Features auto-hover and 360-degree roll, headless remote and (3) speeds. Includes charging cord, spare blades and a small screwdriver. Has a 2.4 GHz transmitter that uses (2) “AAA” batteries.

Spin the ribbed 7" handle of this hand-powered prop between your palms, and watch it take off. (If it lands instead of flying off into the wild blue yonder, reverse the spin!) Neon handle, bright, metallic-flaked 8" propeller, and a lift so high we imprinted it with our logo - the airborne Jarvis. It's all plastic, and won't decapitate anyone, but it's still for 10-year-olds and up.

Behold our version of the gravity-fed sliding woodpecker. Ours is a 1-3/4" standard black woodpecker, not counting his cute red plume, slowly pecking his way down a 16-1/2" tall metal rod. His super-rapid, lifelike pecking action is strangely compelling to adults, and draws belly laughs from toddlers!

Why, when we were your age all we had to play with was a stick and an old tin can. But never mind that--now you too can make your own fun in the form of actual wind-up toys with this small wind-up motor with an attached pair of 9/16” dia wheels on a 1-1/8” wheelbase. The winding shaft is 1-1/8” long and the whole shebang measures 1-1/4" x 5/8" x 1/2" and has a good long running time of approx 10 seconds.

From France comes this fun mechanical plastic bird that really flies by flapping its wings. It is about 8" long and has a wingspan of 16" tip to tip. Snap the wings in place, wind up the rubberband drive and toss it gently into the air on its maiden flight. It flies up to fifty yards with a satisfying fluttering sound. 

By popular demand from every 12-year-old in our database, our remote-control rat is back, this time in a new, improved model with an infrared sensor on his little rat back. Measures an alarming 7-1/2” long (almost 11” with the tail) and is powered by (5) “AAA” batteries, which you’ll have to add, because it’s your rat. Improved 25-foot range will reach well into your mother’s walk-in closet or the teachers’ lounge. In luxurious black velour (another first), it runs straight ahead and spins backwards. The red LED eyes just add to the rodential verisimilitude. For (non-squeamish) ages 5 and up.

Rattlebacks are plastic semi-elliptical shapes, 3-7/8" long, that illustrate Newton's laws of motion, while mystifying kids. Set them down (the rattlebacks, not the kids) and their offset center of gravity makes them spin. Spin them in one direction and they stop and reverse themselves. You get a package of (10) in blue, along with a lesson plan and suggested activities.

Good clean fun for trips to the beach or pool. This 4-3/4” rubber shark has a small human foot sticking out of its maw. Give him a good squeeze and the leg pops out up to the shin. Quickly repeated squeezes make it look like the shark is having lunch.

Even if you're not a female flamingo yourself, you can still hatch an adorable hot pink flamingo. You’ll get an equally hot pink, 4-1/4" egg, which you immerse in water and wait a couple-three days while it hatches and grows to 8”+ tall. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Take Pinky out of the water and he or she will shrink back to egg-size and regrow endless times. (The egg, however, will be history.)

Introducing the Aeromax 2000. This update of the classic parachute toy has mesh under the canopy instead of lines, so it's tangle-free. Big 20" chute floats the little 3-1/2" tall trooper gently to the ground. In assorted colors, which we'll pick because we have really good color sense.

We believe, deep down in our hearts, that this is the world's smallest remote-control helicopter. (This world, anyway.) Measures approx 3-1/2" long and stands 2" tall from landing pads to rotors. Stores in 3-1/4" x 3-3/4" plastic box that doubles as the remote. Bonus: it's a two-channel remote so you can buy a pair and have copter wars. Comes with a rechargeable lithium battery in the helicopter; you add (4) "AA" batteries to the remote. Ages 8+.

Just like our famous cow popper, but this guy is a 5-1/4” tall rubber axolotl with a mouth big enough to take a 1-1/8” dia foam ball and spit it 20 feet when you squeeze it, as you will want to do. And if you’re axolotl-ignorant, they’re neotenic salamanders, the world’s cutest amphibians, and they also answer to “Mexican walking fish.” Ours come with (6) foam balls for your axolotl-squeezing convenience. For ages 4+.

Go fly a kite. We highly recommend this rainbow-colored nylon parafoil version, measures 20" x 23" at its widest with a 14-foot tail (over three times longer than a tiger's) on a spindle with a couple hundred feet of string. Includes a carrying pouch, too, making it a very practical, portable parafoil.

Shoot one of these little plastic arrow-helicopter-rotor gismos straight up with the included rubber band launcher and watch it soar as far as 300 feet! A fun outdoor toy that grows in sophistication as you learn how to adjust the arrowcopter for wind conditions and flight patterns: distance, return, circular descent etc. Our "each" contains a package of two (2). Recommended for kids over the age of 9.

We don't know the folks at TSA, but we're hoping they won't let you on the plane with this remote-controlled rattler, for everyone's sake. Measures approx 16" long with (22) segments and creeps along quite quickly when you push the forward, left or right buttons on the snake-eggish infrared remote. Remote runs on (3) button-cell batteries, included, and the snake is rechargeable via the included USB charge cord. Range is about 20 feet. We'll pick a snake in serpauthentic speckled gray, speckeld white, or green or orange, all with a nice retractable tongue. Ages 8+.

If you remember that poster, you’re really old. Today’s generation just grabs the Decide-O-Matic, which lets it decide for them. Like the Magic 8-Ball, but with more options and more fun via a pendulum and magnet. Select a Decision Disc--fortune teller, truth or dare, movie “flix mix,” pizza picker or playlist shuffle--then set the pendulum swinging and watch it lurch from choice to choice before settling on the one that relieves you of the burden of decision-making. Includes a blank disc to add your own custom quandaries.