Witnessing the rise and fall of Beanie Babies from behind the retail counter

Crystal Schelle

When the Beanie Babies craze was in full swing in the mid-’90s, I worked at Matthew’s Hallmark at the Valley Mall in Hagerstown. From behind the retail counter, I saw the bloodbath that happened with every new shipment. And dear readers, it wasn’t pretty.

A new movie on Apple TV+ called “The Beanie Bubbles” gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the stuffed animals that some have called the first internet sensation. Zach Galifianakis plays Ty Warner, who created the Beanie Babies and loved stuffed animals as much as he loved women, money and facelifts.

Throughout the movie, we are introduced to his first girlfriend Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), who helped start the company; his other girlfriend, Sheila (Sarah Snook), whose children gave him the idea to make the Beanie Babies small and helped to design a few, and his employee Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan) who saw the genius of eBay helping the brand.

I graduated college in 1994, and my first journalism job wasn’t a match, so I entered Retail Hell, eventually landing at the Hallmark store, where I would later become a key manager.

By this time in my life, I had already seen grown men and women beat each other up for a Cabbage Patch Doll back in the ’80s. When I was working at the mall, there was a Holiday Barbie doll incident at K·B Toys that resulted in 8-foot shelves being knocked down like dominoes (no Barbies or humans were hurt). So I know what lengths people who call themselves adults will go to.

But Beanie Babies, oh, they were in a class by themselves. Introduced in 1993, Beanies didn’t really start to become popular until ‘94, when they slowly began to be distributed in retail shops. They were also fairly inexpensive at $5 each.

Beanies were super soft and could fit in the palm of an adult’s hand. They were filled with plastic beans, which made them more pliable. Each one was a character or animal, and they each came with a heart-shaped tag that read “Ty” because Warner named the company after himself.

The nine original Beanies included Chocolate the Moose, Cubbie the Bear, Legs the Frog, Flash the Dolphin, Patti the Platypus, Pinches the Lobster, Splash the Orca Whale, Spot the Dog and Squealer the Pig. Each tag said the Beanie’s name and a poem. Warner also used fun colors, like the bright pink of Patti.

At first, I thought they were cute small toys perfect for kids. But I was oh so wrong.

By 1995, Ty had come up with a brilliant marketing ploy of limiting certain characters while retiring others. On the then-new online auction house eBay, people were reselling the Beanies, some for thousands of dollars. That’s when people thought that maybe they were collectibles, which some took as “investments.”

And that’s when the hunts began. At our shop, the Beanie Baby lovers soon realized what day of the week shipments would arrive and swarmed the store. We kept the Beanies in a white wire half-circle shelving unit right at the check-out counter. That meant we got a front-row seat to the Beanie show.

Most came with lists either in notebooks or a list printed off the internet. They knew exactly what they needed and which Beanie they felt was the most sought-after. Oh, sure, many claimed it was for their kids.

Every week the adults came. Every week these grown-ups would spend hundreds at a time trying to buy all the Beanies they could. They would stand there, holding Beanies in both hands, before going to the counter. It reminded me of someone sitting at a casino and continuing to play until they were broke.

I saw arguments break out. Some women in their 40s were ripping Beanies out of the hands of older women. Some accused us of saving Beanies for ourselves or other customers. We even had some shoving — but nothing to the level of Cabbage Patch.

While watching “Beanie Bubble,” I was reminded of how grateful I am that I managed to live through it without a scrape or even a paper cut from the tags.

The obsession became national news when Ty produced mini Beanies for McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. Customers would buy large numbers of Happy Meals only for the prize and then discard the uneaten meals in the parking lot.

But Ty fed into this; after all, it made them money. They even made these little clear covers to protect the tags because, of course, a worn tag devalued the Beanies.

There are a few Beanie Babies that might still make some extra money: Chef Robuchon Beanie can go for $150,000, and Bubbles can be worth as much as $129,000. Pinchers can fetch up to $35,000. Princess the Bear, which was released in memory of Princess Di, can bring in $10,000 (although this figure was much higher right after her death). But if you go online, these numbers on how much each can bring in depends on which generation, condition and more.

I admit it: I have a few that were either gifts or purchases. But I’ve never gone online to see how much they’re worth. Now that I need a new car, maybe I’ll pop on eBay soon.

Crystal Schelle is a journalist whose work has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She enjoys trivia, cats and streaming movies.

all any business has to say is "its a collectable" & people will buy it thinking they are going to make a fortune down the line.

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