I have to admit I too played with the Star Wars Speeder bike under the table legs of my mum’s dining room table, just like in this advert. Table legs made for an excellent substitute for the Forest Moon of Endor.

I’m not too sure though from this advert quite how the arms of the kids playing with the Speeder Bikes are able to navigate through the legs themselves?

I still have my Speeder Bikes, though sadly I don’t actually have a table under which to drive them.

Figures from £1.89? I wish they were that cheap now, carded vintage Star Wars figures will cost you upwards of £10 to anything around the £500 mark, depending on the figure.

Hornby, the makers of the famous railway toys, are buying out Corgi in a £7.5 million deal.

Corgi marks the latest in a long line of toy brands that Hornby has been adding to its cannon over the last few years.

Hornby also own the slot car racing phenomenon Scalextric, and two years ago they bought up the model company Airfix. To complete its domination of the model industry Hornby also own Humbrol paints, who are a favourite with model and train enthusiasts.

Hornby chief executive Frank Martin said:

We are pulling together the hobby elements of the British toy industry. We know there is huge untapped demand out there.

If you’ve got more money than sense (like anyone would admit to that) and you’ve got kids who just love to be spoiled, why not get them one of these £1,239 Ferraris? Peddle powered (so has a total of 1 kid power, instead of 600 horse power) the car will go from 0-quite slow in no time.

It’s called the Ferrari FXX Exclusive pedal go-kart and has been inspired by the limited edition Ferrari FXX.

Even though it’s pedal powered, it still comes with a seven speed transmission and an on-board computer that can be used to monitor your all important lap times. It has disc breaks, 12 inch rims and some bling 12 inch rims and racing slicks.

Just in case your toddler speeds too fast round a bend it also comes armed with aerodynamic spoilers.

The £1,239 also gets you a leather look steering wheel, racing seat, seat belts and some sleek body skirts.

If you’re a bit cheap and don’t love your child quite so much you could buy the cut down version for £415.

Six year old Jeorgia Blythin from Chester was part of an ‘elite’ child testing panel that put some of the most sought after toys for next Christmas through their paces. In exchange for playing with the toys, she and her fellow panellists were presented with a free toy and a certificate.

In addition to testing out the Christmas toys the children were invited to Rochdale (yay) to a toy factory to test out this year’s Summer toys, before they hit the shops in June. The kids will get to play in the factory’s custom built toy test-shop on such toys as Bob the Builder and Rupert Bear.

The idea is that the children will be able to show which toys will be in most demand this Summer.

Martin Yaffe’s toy director, Peter Hatton, said:

The first Play Panel gave us such great insight into what children really want last year that we can’t wait for them to be let loose on the outdoor toys! Who better to trial toys and give us honest feedback than the children they have been designed for?

We plan to use the information to compile a definitive ‘top outdoor toys’ list for summer 2008 – ensuring that parents are left in no doubt as to what their young ones will love to play with and what will get them out into the fresh air this season.

OK, so the Teletubbies haven’t ‘actually’ killed anyone, that we know of. Though of course we can’t be certain they haven’t, but we don’t have any evidence to suggest otherwise, so we’re going with they’re all perfectly innocent.

That yellow one looks a bit suspect though, don’t you think?

Anyway, back to the point of the story. Fake Teletubbies were seized by Trading Standards in the UK, and they were found to be potentially very dangerous to children.

A spokesman for Trading Standards said:

Tests showed one toy, which cost less than £5, contained more that 10 times the legal limit of lead.

Personally I wouldn’t go near a real Teletubby, never mind one these little trolls, but I guess kids like ‘em.

via

Following on from our recent article about McFarlane Toys and the series of Halo 3 action figures, they have now released pictures of the figures. You can see the photos of the whole series here.

Our Halo 3 Series 3 figures are making their way to stores, but until they get there, feast your eyes on these latest images.

Our good friends at Microsoft have generously given us the opportunity to contribute some McFarlane Toys/Halo 3 downloadable content on Xbox Live.

Starting Monday, April 14, you will be able to download a free dashboard theme and gamer picture pack featuring your two favorite things: McFarlane and Halo. Just in time to gear up for the new Map Packs releasing Tuesday.

These are an excellent set of figures and a worthy addition to any toy collector’s, well, er collection.

It sounds like we’ve made it up doesn’t it? However we haven’t, Hollywood tough guy Matt Damon went postal on a child’s dolls house, brandishing a baseball bat and smashing the toy to pieces.

No, this wasn’t the latest outburst from a Hollywood brat upset at someone who’d cut him up in his car, it’s part of an awareness campaign where celebrities are destroying toys to highlight the growing number of deaths in Darfur, Sudan.

Nip Tuck actress Joely Richardson can be seen ripping apart a teddy-bear.

Matt Damon said:

After the genocide in Rwanda we all shook our heads and said never again.

Today, as killings mount in Darfur, we need to make never again a reality and demand protection for the most vulnerable.

I just hope that no children were around to see the stars destroying toys. Imagine being a little girl who wanted a dolls house, only for Matt Damon to smash one up in front of you.

In what could be one of the most pointless (yet entertaining) experiments to date, scientists have discovered that male monkeys prefer boys toys such as cars and blocks.

In a series of interesting and rather stupid experiments the male monkies were seen to play with boys toys over girls toys, supposedly proving that the desire to play with male orientated toys is an inerrant genetic trait.

The full story can be seen on the Telegraph website.

This video is from the 2008 Toy Fair and shows the latest toy car range from Corgi, the H2Go cars. These are powered by water, Hydrogen powered Powered cars. Who needs batteries when you have water?

This could make Duracell  a little nervous.

The quality of Chinese toys has been in the news a lot recently, especially with some very high profile product recalls just before Christmas causing massive losses in profits and leaving parents disappointed. The UK and the USA have joined together to pledge to keep a closer eye on the quality of Chinese toy products and to persuade the Chinese to increase their quality.

via the BBC