Oyo Sports who are a toy maker has raised $3 million in new seed funding from Boston tech investors, according to Chief Executive Tom Skripps, reports the WSJ.

Oyo sports designs, manufactures and sells “minifigures” of pro-athletes. Its main customers are fans, collectors and kids who want official, licensed gear from of their teams.

Boston Seed Capital and Atlas Venture led this round of funding and this brings total raised to $4.6, back in 2013 the company raised $1.6 from angel investors. See doubters still plenty of market to go after and compete for traditional ish toys/figures and not digital apps etc. continue reading>>

An original Humpty toy made to appear in the UK BBC childrens programme ‘Play School’ made in the 1960’s has been sold in an auction for £6,250/$10500. The toy was one of several made for the TV show, which ran for more than 20’s from the mid-1960s. Other toy characters from the show included Big Ted, Little Ted and Rag Doll Jemima.

Unsurprisingly the 53cm high toy was based on the nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty and first appeared on UK TV screens (3 channels) in 1964 and appeared in nearly all programmes.
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The software developer Signal Studios, who are behind popular Xbox Live Arcade titles Toy Soldiers and the follow-up Toy Soldiers: Cold War, have purchased the rights to the games and the Toy Soldiers IP, so now they have complete control.

Now they own the full rights they have decided the first move is to launch Toy Soldiers: Complete on PC. So now you can currently grab Toy Soldiers: Complete on Steam in early access form for $9.99. Complete bundles include Toy Soldiers, Toy Soldier: Cold War, and the DLC released for the games including Kaiser’s Battle, Invasion, Napalm, and Evil Empire. Complete also allows Toy Soldiers and Cold War players to compete in multiplayer, and adds content and weapons from the second game into the first. The original Toy Soldiers also released on Steam as a standalone game in 2012. continue reading>>

The iconic Simpsons series from Twentieth Century Fox celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. And it has been announced that NECA will release a limited edition range of figures, collectables, novelty items, and apparel merchandise, based on 25 of the greatest celebrity guest stars to appear on The Simpsons.

The first figures will be available in March 2014, with further groups of five released each quarter of this year in limited numbers.

A deal has also been announced with Promotional Partners Worldwide which will see Homer Simpson immortalised as a Mr Potato Head toy! I think this is quite cool and I would certainly buy a homer potato head if I had a child at the target age. The product will be six inches in height and feature his iconic white shirt, blue trousers, and doughnut. continue reading>>

So depending on your age you may remember Ghostbusters or must of seen at sometime the Ghostbuster films on TV, well a new range of Toys have been announced after the Marshmallow Fun Company have agreed a new deal with Sony Entertainment which allows them to feature Ghostbuster Toys in a new range.

It has been 30 years since the first Ghostbusters film back in 1984 Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray were included in the movie where they protect New York from paranormal critters. Imdb Link

If you ask people of a certain age what do they think of when you say Ghostbusters, the answer is the theme Go Ghostbusters, Slimer, or the huge Marshmallow character from the film. continue reading>>

So who would of thought the Hero that is Woody from Toy Story fame would be accused of links to possible terror links – So at Heathrow in the UK it is claimed an Airport security worker confiscated the weapon from the children’s character and then as they were told:

The parent said the toy was his son’s and they were told nothing resembling a weapon of “any size” can go through airport security.

Now of course people are only doing their jobs and they should always take threats or possible risks seriously and they can choose to remove any item they like but come on people how small and dangerous is a tiny solid, non real weapon anyway. Perhaps this was a case of one worker taking the rules to the full extent. continue reading>>

The one and only Disney Enterprises is being sued again, this time the issue centres around one of the characters used in the the 2010 film Toy Story 3. In the movie a villain was a fluffy purple bear called Lotso.

The naming of Lotso is the main focus of dispute for NJ based toy company Diece-Lisa Ind (DLI) – As according to them they have a licensed, patented and protected trademark line of cuddly toys named ‘Lots of Hugs’ and have held this since 1995. They claim the Lotso character in the film is a copy and imitation of its line of protected toy range. continue reading>>

A new range of toys based on top Nickelodeon animation shows have been announced at the American toy Fair and will feature heavily in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2014.

The Mega Brands company is expanding its range of Mega Blok Kids constructions toys and play-sets and will also be releasing new SpongeBob Squarepants toys and merchandise on behalf of the Nickelodeon brand.