12/01/16
If you're old enough to remember the arcades you'd see as stand alone entities or within a mall, you can attest to how you felt the moment home gaming arrived on the scene.
No longer were you cramming next to someone at an arcade, hoping that a game was available or running between lives to get more quarters or tokens.
Home gaming put arcades virtually out of business due to the convenience of being able to play whatever you wanted from the privacy on your living room couch or family room.
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06/09/16
Few can argue that when it comes to toys and how those products are linked to quality and safety that the first name and brand on the tip of your tongue is ToysRUs.
Their commitment to production centers on a host of different elements that define what a toy brand should be, from price to service, but safety often trumps the discussion when it comes to parents and how they view potential toys for their children.
ToysRUs is easily is the most revered and renowned toy brand in the marketplace and their ability to draw customers and keep them happy is underscored by stores and customer service that is head and shoulders above the competition.
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02/06/16
What is inappropriate for your kids as far as toys and games go? Is there such a thing as toy that can promote violence to the point that it actually takes place?
This debate has raged on for years, the moment video games took a step toward an R rating, and acts of violence by kids and teens took a turn for the worse.
Are video games to blame? Should parents be shamed for every toy gun every bought and sold? Are toys in general to blame for the fact that they've gotten a lot more mature over the course of the last two decades?
I know personally, I've heard this debate for years, as a former writer for a major newspaper who wrote about professional wrestling. I was a kid in the mid 1980s, five years old in 1985 to be exact, and I loved wrestling. 
Hulk Hogan was my idol, and I had all the toys and watched all the shows. But as wrestling hit its high point in the mid 1980s and again the late 1990s, the two didn't run parallel as far as how kids reacted to this form of entertainment.
I don't remember hearing a lot in the 1980s about kids hurting other kids or body slamming them or acting up while wrestling or emulating their favorite superstars. I never body slammed or clothes lined my sister, but the late 1990s saw a rise in violent acts that some tried to pin on professional wrestling.
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11/27/15
Before doors to most retailers opened on Thanksgiving night, "Black Friday" was the main event when it came to shopping and, for parents, aunts, uncles and anyone else who was buying for children, the moment in time they had to secure the hottest toy of the season.
You remember the countless "Black Friday" headlines, the ones that involved moms pulling hair, dads throwing punches and consumers content on finding the last remains of the hottest toys left on the shelves; those are what showed up in the newspapers and online on Saturday morning following "Black Friday." 
Hard to believe just one little toy created such a stir when it came to consumers and customers alike who knew that Christmas and the holidays wouldn't be the same for their kids if they didn't open the gift that everyone wanted.
Those gifts have ranged in variety relatively speaking, based on the type, age, gender and everything else you could imagine. Transformers ruled the world in 1984 with kids, mainly boys, making it the hottest selling toy nearly 32 years ago.
The idea of robots turning into cars and vice versa was all any little boy could imagine, and the toys from three decades ago spawned a series of superb movies that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 1984, however, "Black Friday" wasn't the hot commodity that it is today.
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11/18/15
I played with Barbie's when I was a kid, circa 1985 or so There, I said it, and it wasn't that big of a deal then. And, it certainly isn't now.
I had a younger sister, and we played with them all the time. We would take turns playing with our respective toys. I had a slew of World Wrestling Federation (now Entertainment) wrestlers. These larger than life rubber wrestlers were all the rage in the mid 1980s, and Barbie has always been a staple, and my sister had what seemed like every Barbie every made, dream house included, cars and anything else that made Barbie, well, Barbie.
I was six year old in 1985 and my sister was five, and I never once even then thought it was weird or awkward to play with "dolls," much the same way my sister was totally fine playing with "action figures."
That's probably why I'm not overly shocked or blown away at the news of the Barbie brand releasing its first commercial that features a boy in it.
Truth be told, that seems long overdue.
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