My Little Pony has again made the list of finalists for the National Toy Hall of Fame. Maybe the seventh time will be a charm.
The pastel toy horse with the silky mane is among this year’s 12 contenders, said the announcement Wednesday from the Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester, N.Y.
Introduced in the early 1980s, My Little Pony became an immediate hit, for a time outselling Barbie and spawning movies and TV shows. The 2010 animated series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” led to the baffling trend of “bronies,” a fandom of grown men.
Despite the popularity, My Little Pony has always fallen short in the annual balloting for the Toy Hall of Fame — taking a backseat to not only Barbie, American Girl and Cabbage Patch Kids but a stick and a cardboard box.
Another ’80s favorite, Transformers action figures, is also on the short list again after multiple fails.
The hall of fame, launched in 1998, every year inducts a few toys based on voting by the public as well as input from an expert panel.
This year’s finalists:
- The party game Apples to Apples
- Balloons
- Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks
- Hess Toy Trucks
- My Little Pony
- The card game Phase 10
- Pokémon Trading Card Game
- Remote-controlled vehicles
- The board game Sequence
- Stick horse
- Trampoline
- Transformers
(Trivia item from the museum’s press release: The trampoline was patented in 1945 under the name “Tumbling Device.”)
The public can vote through Wednesday, Sept. 25, at toyhalloffame.org, and the winners will be announced in November.
Toy Hall of Fame inductees: Full list through 2023
- alphabet blocks
- American Girl Doll,
- Atari 2600 Game System
- baby doll
- Baby Nancy
- ball
- Barbie
- baseball cards
- bicycle
- Big Wheel
- blanket
- bubbles
- Cabbage Patch Kids
- Candy Land
- cardboard box
- checkers
- chess
- Clue
- coloring book
- Crayola Crayons
- dollhouse
- dominoes
- Duncan Yo-Yo
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Easy-Bake Oven
- Erector Set
- Etch A Sketch
- Fisher-Price Corn Popper
- Fisher-Price Little People
- Frisbee
- G.I. Joe
- The Game of Life
- Hot Wheels
- Hula Hoop
- jack-in-the-box
- jacks
- Jenga
- jigsaw puzzle
- jump rope
- kite
- LEGO
- Lincoln Logs
- Lionel Trains
- Lite-Brite
- little green army men
- Magic 8 Ball
- Magic: The Gathering
- marbles
- Masters of the Universe
- Matchbox Cars
- Monopoly
- Mr. Potato Head
- Nerf
- Nintendo Game Boy
- paper airplane
- pinball
- Play-Doh
- playing cards
- puppet
- Radio Flyer Wagon
- Raggedy Ann and Andy
- Risk
- rocking horse
- roller skates
- rubber duck
- Rubik’s Cube
- sand
- Scrabble
- sidewalk chalk
- Silly Putty
- skateboard
- Slinky
- Star Wars action figures
- stick
- Super Soaker
- swing
- teddy bear
- Tinkertoy
- Tonka Trucks
- top
- Twister
- Uno
- View-Master
- Wiffle Ball
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