For the first time since 2023, the Toy Association put together their usually annual Toy Fair! For 2025, the show is back in its native slot of February, and Kris and Ian attended to share their thoughts on the show. Companies discussed include Mattel, Spin Masters, LEGO, Hasbro, Playmates, Bandai Namco, Funko, Super7, and tons more. Learn about the themes of the year, including foods that you can’t eat (aka snacks that are actually plushies), a large increase of toys and plushies that either have butts, fart, or both (because toys and plushies be classy), miniature worlds, making toys for “kidults” willing to spend money on nostalgia. Plus an easier way to get into Dungeons and Dragons for beginners, Barbie and Play-Doh unite, advances in plush technology (yes, we’re being serious), Toy Story toys mid-pose are creepy as heck, is the bag holding multiple plushies sentient according to Toy Story rules, pinball games for Dungeons & Dragons and Uncanny X-Men, Brooklyn people will find Brooklyn people anywhere they go and will then reminisce for fifteen minutes, and if you’re at the show long enough into the day, you can luck out and get free donuts!

And here’s the video version of this episode:

You can support future releases of Comic Timing and get in on the occasional early releases of the show at http://www.patreon.com/ComicTiming. You can also follow Comic Timing on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/comictiming.bsky.social, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ComicTiming/, on Threads at https://www.threads.net/@comictimingpodcast and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/comictimingpodcast. And please, if you can, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts; it helps attract new listeners! Finally, you can join in on the conversation at our Comic Timing Fans group on Facebook, which is a great place to hang out and talk comics.

Follow Ian on Bluesky, and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/i_am_scifi. Kris is lampbane on Bluesky, and you can check out her various other works at http://linktr.ee/krisnaudus. And here’s the quickie What Funko? game Kris created, since there’s a Funko of literally everything.

Thanks for listening, we’ll catch you next time, and as always, there’s always time for comics!