Multigenerational toys for grandparents

The importance of grandparents was evident at this year’s Toy Fair in New York.

Head honcho of marketing at Sababa Toys said: "Marketing to grandparents is huge .. Grandparents are young - they have a lot of money - a lot of time - they are online and want to spoil their grandkids”.

What better way of appealing to this group than re-launching toys that will be familiar and engender sentimental memories with the grandparents and appeal to the nippers.

So you have toys like the

Chatter Telephone: Introduced in 1962, the Chatter Telephone was designed with a rotary dial to teach children how to dial a phone. Today's Chatter Telephone makes children smile just the same with eyes that roll up and down, and a dial that rings. This friendly phone is being re-introduced for a whole new generation of children to enjoy!

For the older grandparent there is

Snoop 'n Sniff that was introduced in 1938 as "Snoopy Sniffer," this charming pull-along pup found a home with over five million families. Now the long black and white hound is being re-introduced for a whole new generation of children to enjoy!

There is Dr. Duck (Introduced in 1931) and Bouncy Bee (Introduced in 1950) and so on and so on.

I suspect that little Jonny and Jill would much prefer to have Samsung’s latest Black Carbon mobile rather than a weird looking phone from pre-history but who can tell? Since the grandparents are buying the thing for themselves, as much for the kid, does it matter? Dick Stroud