The Marketplace: It Won’t Be Make-Believe

It’s only 92 days till Christmas, and if the U.S. Toy Manufacturers’ exhibit, which opened in New York this week, is any indication, it’s going to be a mechanized holiday this year. Make-believe is out, if not actually forbidden.

“Trassy’s” hair really GROWS when a key is turned in her back. The puppets have their own lines—eight or ten deathless phrases at the pull of a string. The toy car is not pulled by a string, not even attached to an electric cord with controls on one end, but operated by the young master by shining a flashlight on a built-in solar cell. The bear flees the juvenile hunter aimlessly around the room, uttering real bellows of pain when the blunted bullets find their mark. And while six-year-old space cadets are blasting off rockets with water pressure, their knee-high girl friends (with whom they are presumably going steady) will be usefully engaged in the dark arts of maquillage, practicing with a Charm Girl Beauty Bar on a long-tressed plastic head—dyeing, bleaching, creaming, rouging, eye-shadowing, and getting the fake eyelashes on straight.