Wiki entry on 'Crazy Bones'
Crazy Bones are small, plastic figurines that became a popular fad during the 1990's and 2000's in the USA.
Crazy Bones were inspired by a game played in Ancient Greece called astragals, where children played with sheep's knucklebones. This ancient pastime is also known as Tabas. Crazy Bones is a modernization of this game that is made of characters moulded from plastic. There were hundreds of individual characters, each character had a unique face and name. The different shapes of the figures caused them to bounce in different patterns, making some crazy bones more advantageous to own.
Crazy Bones were banned in many schools, because of being the start of many playground arguments and being a distraction during class.
During the mid 1990's, Cola-Cola of Mexico released a similar brand of toys named "Hielocos".
In early 2008, new Gogo's Crazy Bones were launched in the UK. There are 80 different types of Gogo's to collect as well as stickers.
The CEO and co-founder Scott Harris launched Crazy Bones after witnessing the success of GoGos, which had sold over 350 million packs from its inception in 1996 to 1997. Harris formed Toy Craze in December 1997 with his partners Bill Flaherty and Peter Gantner. Crazy bones first launched after a manufacturer in Barcelona agreed to provide him with inventory for no money down in return for 50% of all profits. This deal was later renegotiated, and the manufacturer is now paid a royalty.
A small company at the time of inception, Crazy Bones became a popular fad in the late 90s. The product was aggressively marketed to children, and promotional events took place in scout meetings, club groups, fairs, and shows. Toy demos have also taken place in SkyDome. In these demos, children were given free packs and taught how to play Crazy Bones. Nearly four million free packs have been distributed. Eventually, McDonald's agreed to give Crazy Bones in their Happy Meal. However, these Crazy Bones were signifigately larger than the normal toys, possibly to reduce risk of choking among young children.
Within two years, the company's revenues had grown to nearly $17 million. By favouring tours of scout meetings and the like over television and print advertisements, Toy Craze has also kept its marketing costs to around 10%.
There are three types of Crazy Bone pieces that are very rare. These pieces include Whistlers, Metallic Gold, and Metallic Bronze.
Smiley Eggy is considered to be the rarest and most popular Crazy Bone piece alongside Sharkey, which is pictured on the front of many packets with the caption "Have you found Sharkey?"
There have been 11 different sets of Crazy Bones released since its start:
Original GoGos's - Discontinued
Things
Sports
Aliens
Mutants
Buddies
Toy Story 2 (no longer on sale)
Sean Soltys'
Dragonball Z
New Generation
Marvel Heroes
Ghost
The following is the official list of games that can be played with Crazy Bones, printed on all Crazy Bones packaging:
Traditional game: Player tosses a Crazy Bone into the air. Points are scored depending on which side it lands on, with less likely sides (for example, landing straight up, or upside down) receiving more points.
Battle: Two players arrange their Crazy Bones in parallel rows a distance apart. Players take turns trying to knock their opponent's Crazy Bones out of the row. This is often the most popular game for school crazes as it can be played quickly and easily without much need to set up and without such a high chance of Crazy Bones being stolen.
The Bomber: Players take turns throwing a single Crazy Bone into a circle containing all player's Crazy Bones, attempting to remove them from the circle.
Airborne: Throw your bone as high as you can being able to still catch it.
Basket: Players try to get their Crazy Bones into a shoebox by bouncing it against the floor and into the box.
Wall: Flip a coin to decide who goes first. The person who goes first rolls, not throws, a Crazy Bone towards the wall. The person with the Crazy Bone closest to the wall wins.