The Big Flop - Listen Now: Beanie Babies, A Big Flop or The Best Idea Yet?

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

On The Big Flop, we unpack history’s most fascinating flops, frauds, and fiascos. But The Best Idea Yet brings you the untold stories behind some of the most successful products of all time. So...what happens when both shows cover the same topic? A proper debate!Listen in as Nick & Jack, the hosts of The Best Idea Yet, join Misha to dive into the fascinating world of Beanie Babies – those unassuming critters with birthdates and bios that took America by storm in the late 90s. They explore how these plushie pals helped launch eBay, why you should never trade your Bucky the Beaver for a cupcake, and the eventual market crash that wiped out millions, all to decide whether they were a success or a flop.You can listen to the full 'Beanie Babies' episode of The Best Idea Yet right now, on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts: Wondery.fm/TBIY_IFDThe Best Idea Yet explores the most viral products of all time every week, from Birkenstocks to Sriracha, Air Jordans to Super Mario. Come for the products you're obsessed with, stay for the business insights that'll make you the most interesting person at your next brunch.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everyone, it's Misha. Hope you're doing fabulous. Today I'm bringing you a little something special. I'm joined by the incredible hosts of the Wondery podcast, The Best Idea Yet. It's Nick Martel and Jack Ravici Kramer. Hello, Misha. Thank you so much for having us on. Finally.

It's so great to have you here. Can you just give us a quick rundown of what The Best Idea Yet is all about? Nick and I co-host a show called The Best Idea Yet, where we dive into the untold origin stories of the most popular and viral products of all time. Like, the Happy Meal is only here because of a mother in Guatemala who introduced it to the world. Wow. And the Pez dispenser was actually invented to help people stop smoking.

It's half Netflix documentary, half business school case study, really fascinating bright stories of business successes. The Juicy Couture one is just chef's kiss, but it's a story for another pot. Running straight to that one. But today we're having an important, crucial debate to settle something once and for all, Beanie Babies. Big flop or best idea yet? So, last year, we did an episode

on Beanie Babies where we called them a flop. But this week on The Best Idea Yet, Nick and Jack are telling the whole tale as a business success story. Yes. So, like, what gives? I mean, we've got to straighten this out. What Jack and I have discovered, and we appreciate a debate, is that the Beanie Babies is one of the most successful things ever created by mankind from a commercial, cultural, social standpoint. Misha, you focused on the down. We focused on the up.

And we think both have legitimate cases to be the story. All right. Well, then let's dive right into this fluffy pile. Okay, Jack, let's hit the whiteboard. At its peak, it was a huge financial success. Beanie Babies claims to have made over $700 million in profit in one single year, 1998, which is more profit than Mattel and Hasbro

made that year combined. Yes, there was a bust after the bubble. However, the impact of the Beanie Baby was long term because Beanie Babies were critical in the rise of the internet. Tye.com is one of the first ever websites to market a product. Very early on, they created a blog.

And in that blog, they started giving little hints of what is the next Beanie Baby that we're gonna launch hints of what is the next Beanie Baby that we're gonna launch And what's the next Beanie Baby that we're gonna retire? In fact, we would go so far to argue that eBay would not exist today without Beanie Mania Okay, that's huge. I'll give that to you. So here's a question though How about the actual guy behind Beanie Babies? Because I seem to remember him being like quite a character. Yeah, yeah. Ty's out there. There's an issue with a Swiss bank account. You know, he didn't pay his employees perfectly. There's some issues going on with

Ty. He's a pretty eccentric guy, actually. But Jack and I discovered that Ty developed a business strategy that we would argue is magnanimous because he actually shunned the big box stores. He sold Beanie Babies through small stores. Also, he strategically priced them at $5 so that more people could afford them. Basically, you could say that the Beanie Baby became the every man stuffed animal, some of which made people really rich, hitting $10, $20,000 each. So all right, that's fair enough. But it's not like we're still trading Beanie Babies today. You don't see a lot of Squealers the Pigs around anymore. So what about the fact that Beanie Babies totally flamed out? Look toys come in and out of fashion. You don't see everyone playing with a

yo-yo or hacky sacks as much as they did when I was a kid but I'm not gonna call those busts. I'm gonna call those fantastic products that had their day and Beanie Babies had an even bigger day. They changed the internet, they changed our lives, and they probably changed your childhood. I love how positive we are, yes. Well, besties, the good news is you all get to decide for yourselves.

Now, you can go back and listen to our episode on our show feed. But right now, I'm going to play you a clip from the Beanie Babies episode that just dropped on the best idea yet. To hear the full episode, follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And please let us know in the comments, was this a big flop or a big win? We'll make a Spotify poll on the episode and you can vote right there to help settle this matter one cent for all. A white Rolls Royce silver shadow glides up to a hotel entrance.

The door opens and out steps a man. He's in his mid-30s, but he has a youthful elf-like aura. What stands out, though, is his fur coat, his top hat, and a cane that he starts twirling as soon as he springs onto the sidewalk, like he just stepped out of a 1920s gangster flick. He's got a briefcase in his hand. Maybe he's about to make some kind of shady backroom deal. Except when he flips open the case, it's not filled with cash or stolen jewels.

It's crammed with stuffed toys. This is Ty Warner, and he's not your typical toy salesman. And I don't just mean because of his wardrobe. In 1980, where our story begins, he's pulling in six figures. When the median US household income was around $20,000, Ty's making well over $1 million in today's money,

all from selling stuffed animals to toy shops. But Jack, it's not just the money that Ty loves. This guy, he's about the attention, and he's realized something pretty important. Being the most flamboyant guy in his sales district makes him unforgettable. And district makes him unforgettable, and that makes him very, very good at selling stuff. And honestly, that tracks with his past. Yeah, because he's always wanted to be center

stage, literally. Before the Rolls Royce and the fur coats, he was an aspiring actor. He grew up in Chicago, spent a year studying drama at Kalamazoo College, but he dropped out and moved to Hollywood to make it big in the movies. Instead though, Ty waited tables, parked cars, even sold vacuum cleaners door to door. And after five years of rejection, packed it in and headed back home to Chi town. That's when he lands a sales job at Dakin, a company that sells stuffed toys. You probably haven't heard of Dakin, but they were big from the 1960s to the early 80s. Their standout product is a line called Dream Pets.

I'm looking at the picture now, Jack. Dream Pets are like a velveteen covered stuffed animal. They're colorful, dare I say even a bit trippy, like a cabbage patch kid who got stuck at wood stock for too long. They look heavy. They are because their stuffing is made of sawdust and wood chips, literally, and it's packed so tightly that these things are basically rock solid.

They're less of a bedtime snuggle, more of a makeshift weapon against nighttime intruders. But these zany-looking, brightly colored bears, turtles, octopi, and tigers, they suit Ty's sales pitch. His over-the-top personality, honed in Hollywood, grabs his customers' attention every time. Let me tell you my favorite story about when Ty was selling vacuums door to door. As soon as the homeowner would open their door,

Ty would throw a handful of dirt onto the floor in front of them, like inside their home on the hardwood floor, and then immediately vacuum it up with the vacuum that he was trying to sell. The one vacuum sale was worth the 50% of the time the homeowner calls the police. But Ty has another skill. He has a unique talent that his toy shop clients love. Ty has an almost supernatural ability to know which toys are going to be hits. This, along with his tenacity, means that he can close more deals than anyone else at Dakin.

In fact, Ty makes more in a month selling to toy stores than he did in a year as an actor. Some years, he's even earning more than Dakin's CEO is. I mean, Ty missed out on his chance to join the Hollywood Brad Pack, but now he's got a starring role at a top toy company, not too shabby. Unfortunately, though, the fame goes to his head.

Ty's arrogance and main character energy doesn't go over well with his colleagues. But as long as his sales numbers are strong, his bosses at Dakin don't care. Until Ty crosses a line. Yeah, in 1980, after more than a decade as Deakin's deal closer, one of Ty's customers tips off the company. Turns out Ty isn't just selling Deakin toys, he's selling his own plush line on the side. We don't know where Ty was sourcing these toys or even if he was hand stuffing them himself, but that didn't matter to Deakin when they found out.

Yeah, side hustling his own toys that compete with his employer. Not even My Little Pony could forgive that. So Ty's bosses, yeah, they fire him. But does Ty regret it, apologize, and never ever ever pinky swear do it again? Nope. Ty doubles down and starts his own plush toy company. But for the first time in his life, the market, it's actually moving against Ty. It's 1980. Inflation spikes, unemployment soars, and Americans, they're more focused on buying milk and bread than teddy bears. In just a few months, Ty goes from king of plush to having the stuffing knocked out of

him. This guy has built his entire life around selling fluffy bears and cuddly monkeys. So struggling to sell these toys, it's bigger than a financial hit for him. It's a full on identity crisis. Without those soft toys, it's bigger than a financial hit for him. It's a full-on identity crisis. Without those soft toys, Ty Warner is nothing. So he does what any exhausted American who got a $1 million bonus last year would do. He flies off to Italy's Amalfi Coast for some R&R. The scent of lemon trees and sea salt drifts through the air as Ty Warner weaves his way through the winding cliff-top alleys of Sorrento, Italy.

He came to this small, beautiful shoreline town to clear his head. But despite the Mediterranean sunshine, Ty is still in a funk. But then something catches his eye. Among the hand-stitched leather purses and delicately shawls in the markets, he sees a stuffed cat. He picks it up. The fur is soft, almost weightless. It's floppy, not stiff, settling naturally

right in the palm of his hand. He presses the paw, and he feels tiny plastic pellets shifting about like small little beans. Ty looks down into the cat's glossy strangely expressive eyes and smiles. He feels his mood lift and a new sense of purpose fills his entire body. Remember Ty's special power is spotting toy trends before their toy trends. To the casual shopper this floppy Italian feline is cute but nothing special special, but Tye sees them differently.

Remember those Dakin dream pets that he used to sell? They were cute, yeah, but basically sawdust crammed into Velveteen. They were stiff, they were rigid, more for display than for play. Kind of like a taxidermied animal. But these cats, they're soft and they're floppy. They bend, slouch and settle into your grip.

You can flap them over your shoulder and it feels like they're snuggling with you. And this is Ty's key insight. These Italian toys are only half filled with stuffing. Typically, doing something halfway would seem the cheap thing to do. But in this case, the half filled toy is actually more satisfying, more engaging,

and maybe ironically, even more premium. In that moment, Ty sees his future. This could be his chance to outshine his old employer, the guys who fired him. So he puts all the money that he saved up into founding his new toy company, which, true to his ego, he names Ty Inc. which, true to his ego, he names Ty Ink. He spends months making sure that every detail of his new line of cats is exactly how he wants them. From the color of their ribbons to the precise distance between their eyes,

this man is meticulous. These cats are Ty's way of proving to himself and to the world that he is still the best toy salesman on the planet. Yeah, but one final question, Jack. Is anyone actually gonna buy it?