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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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The collector's mentality is
that you can never have enough.

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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And that's very dangerous.

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[reporter] Oh, my God,
this is unbelievable!

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It became just an obsession.

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[woman] What do
you think about grown-ups

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jumping out of their
car to get a Beanie Baby?

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Insane. [scoffs]

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Perhaps the biggest
toy craze in history.

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[man] Bigger than
Frank Sinatra, the Beatles

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and Elvis Presley combined.

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[woman] I would've paid
whatever it took

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to get that Beanie Baby
at the time.

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$10,000.

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[man 2] Without the few women

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that started the entire mania,

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Beanie Babies
never would've been.

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Just moms getting together
and creating something.

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We didn't get along,

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there was a lot of competition,
you know. [growls]

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If you don't have a number,
you're not gonna be let in.

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They would just lunge and grab.

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[woman] The Beanie Baby craze
is reaching insane proportions.

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Ty Warner did absolutely
no advertising.

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It was almost as if there
was no guy behind them.

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[man] Have either one
of you ever met Ty Warner?

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- Never.
- No.

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Like the Wizard of Oz.

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Can we come in here and talk
about the Beanie Babies?

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No.

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It was a really nice
thing for a while,

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until the adults
ruined it.

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Today that $1500
investment we are told

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would be worth about $75,000.

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I'm happy. I'm going to get
a lot of money now.

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[woman] There was no evidence
that they would ever

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be worth anything,
we just believed it.

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Something happened with
Beanie Babies,

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that's all everybody wants.

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They are magical,
and you get addicted.

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I never was
addicted to anything,

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and I got addicted
to Beanie Babies.

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And I ran amok.

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[gentle music]

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Hi, I'm Mary Beth Sobolewski.

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Hi, I'm Becky Phillips.

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Hi, I'm Joni Hirsch-Blackman.

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Naperville is a town about
35 miles west of Chicago.

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Very child-friendly,

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we won every 'greatest place to
raise your child' type of awards

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over the years.

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Ha! Colorado Court.

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People in the neighbourhood
would say,

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"Oh, you live on Colorado Court,
you guys have a lot of fun."

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Hi, how you doing?
Glad to see ya.

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Becky Phillips just lives
a few doors down from here.

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Before Beanie Babies, I was
a language-arts teacher.

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Once I had children,
I stopped teaching.

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So I was a full-time mom.

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But I'm very competitive.
I come from a family of 11.

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But I get involved
with something,

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I want to go 100% in.

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I worked for IBM
for about 10 years.

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I was a systems engineer.

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And I loved it.

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But then I turned it all in
to be a full-time mom.

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I've been working from home
almost from the very beginning.

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I was carpooling three
children. A lot of sweat suits.

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Big hair. In the early '90s,
I had a perm.

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I was a journalist
for 'People Magazine'.

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I spent a lot of time with my
kids. It was a great time.

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It was a lot of fun.

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I think of the '90s
as sort of frivolous.

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[song]  Socker Boppers!
Socker Boppers!

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You can sock all day
and bop all night...

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I think it was a very quiet,
non-tumultuous time

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preceding 9/11.

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It just seemed
like a very quiet

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time in our world

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where people were happy.

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We enjoyed collecting.

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Especially in
the Chicagoland area.

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[Mary Beth] Each of my kids
started collecting things early.

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One of them collected
baseballs.

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One of my daughters

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even collected
unsharpened pencils.

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So we collect, we collect.
It was fun.

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The first Beanie Baby
I ever saw was the lobster.

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A Beanie Baby is
a small stuffed animal

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that fits
in the palm of your hand.

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It's very poseable,
so you could sit it,

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you can fix the arms
a little bit.

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It has very expressive eyes.

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You almost feel like the
Beanie Baby is a little person.

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It has a personality.

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The Beanie Babies have a hanging
tag on them that say 'Ty'.

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Now, I didn't know what
exactly that meant.

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I didn't know at the time that
there was one guy

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and that his name was Ty.

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Ty Warner, I like to say
is like the Wizard of Oz.

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Ty Warner
is a real character.

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There were always
rumours about him.

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Not many people knew
Ty Warner the person.

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Including me.

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Deep down, he's very insecure.

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That's why he's so private.

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Ty Warner is a young man
whose father worked for me,

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as a salesman.

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And then Ty began selling our
toys after his father retired.

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He got his training with us
at our company, Dakin Toys.

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And became our
number-one salesman.

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We were doing
over $200 million.

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He had a big ego, and that
was all part of his thing.

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I still beat him on the tennis
courts. [chuckles quietly]

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He left us
and went out on his own.

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He hit the market at a time

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when collectibles
were in vogue.

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The best advice
I gave him was to

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come up with a good name,

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and make a quality product.

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And market the devil out of it.
And that's what he did.

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[man] Ty Products were a
small manufacturing company.

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It wasn't huge, that's for sure

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but Ty Warner had an air
of success.

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And a confidence that he was
going to be more successful.

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Our family owned a small
manufacturing company

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in Canada that was
in the gift trade,

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and wanted to go and look

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for some lines that we could
possibly distribute.

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I used to travel
down to Chicago

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where Ty's head office was.

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And he would show me the new
products he was developing,

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and he passed me
this little green frog.

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He said "Bill, you are gonna
put every dollar you have

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"into that product."

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I needed about $500,000 to
really get this off the ground.

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You know, for a 27-year-old,
that was a lot of money.

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But I thought, "I gotta do this

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"because if I don't do this,
someone else is going to do it."

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[woman] The office was small in
the very beginning.

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And I was employee number 12.

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And I remember I was 12 because

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everybody used to say
"You're the 12th employee!"

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And it was, like, exciting.

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My parents immigrated
here from India in 1972.

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They wanted me to be
a doctor. [giggles]

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The stereotypical
sort of profession.

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But I couldn't stand blood.

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So I started at Ty.

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My job was a telemarketer and
when I walked in,

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I remember I was looking around

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and saw all the stuffed animals
and I was just thinking,

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"This is so cool,
this is a toy company!"

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So we had the first nine
prototypes

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and they didn't have a name

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and there were a lot of
different names bouncing around.

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And then somebody
said 'Beanie Babies'.

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And everyone was like
"Oh! That's it."

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Legs, Chocolate, Pinchers,

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Patti, Flash, Squealer,
Splash, Spot and Cubbie.

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[Joni] In the early days,
Ty went to the stores himself.

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He always drove
a very unusual car.

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And often would drive around
with a full-length fur coat.

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And a top hat...

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..to intrigue people

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into allowing him in
to show his products.

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He's unusual-looking,
I would say.

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He reminded me of Willy Wonka.

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Ty Warner never
sold to the big stores,

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no Wal-Marts, no Kmarts
or anything like that.

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We think he's making a mistake.
We're America's toy store.

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Why not have your product
in our stores?

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It was a big thing for him - 'do
not sell to the majors' -

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the reason being is they will
take your product

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and they will put it on sale,

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and they'll destroy the market
for the little guys.

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Ty was all about
the small retailers.

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He loved the small retailers.

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He found them to be very, very
faithful to him

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and we found the same.

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[woman] The Beanie Babies,
initially, they were not moving.

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It was very difficult to get
retailers to take that plunge

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to even try Beanie Babies.

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Taking a look at the holiday
season's hottest toys.

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What's THE hottest toy
this year?

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Probably Tickle Me Elmo
and Nintendo 64.

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[woman] So then I
was sort of thinking,

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"What would make a consumer
walk into a store,

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look at this wall of plush and
choose this particular piece?

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And I was thinking that there
needs to be a way

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where it connects to people.

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The thought just randomly
popped into my head

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that we should do poems,
that would be kind of cute.

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So immediately upon
getting the thought,

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I just walked into Ty's office

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'cause Ty happened to be there

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and I told him,
I said "I have this idea."

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So he said, "You think you could
write one for all of them?

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"And can you fax me
the poems in 18 hours?"

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There was, like, 80
or so at the time -

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87, I think,
that I had to write.

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My sister, she's
a visionary woman.

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She's ambitious, she has the
ability to think really big.

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And to actually make it happen.

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[Lina] Oh, my God. Look at
that... That is so old.

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This area is where we wrote
most of the poems.

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Right.

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[man reads] "Legs lives
in a hollow log.

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"Legs likes to play leapfrog.

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"If you like to hang out
at the lake

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"Legs will be the one friend
you'll make."

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00:11:21,013 --> 00:11:25,084
I didn't read it right.
I didn't read it very well.

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[man reads] Bongo's a monkey
that lived in a tree.

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00:11:27,887 --> 00:11:30,423
[Lina] "He's the happiest monkey
you'll ever see.

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"In his spare time,
he plays the guitar.

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"One of these days,
he's gonna be a big star."

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[both laugh]

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It was a toy to play with.
To pretend with.

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My daughter was buying one
a week with her allowance money.

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You came to notice them
in the Chicago area,

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you started to seek them out,

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seek more places,
seek more variations.

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[Becky] You know, it started
with my daughter Michelle.

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Michelle got excited about it
so I got excited about it.

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I told my mom about it,

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said "Hey, I'd really like
to collect some of these.

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"Can you help me out?"

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I have such good memories of
her and I together

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racing around looking
for the newer Beanie Babies,

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the rarer Beanie Babies.

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If there was one
that you wanted,

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you had to go look for them

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and there was not an easy way
to look for them

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'cause they were only
in small stores.

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So you had to just sort
of drive around.

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So it was like being on
a perennial scavenger hunt.

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Ty was not giving us any
information whatsoever.

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It was a blank slate.

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We had no idea
what was available,

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how many were available,
when they were produced,

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we had to find this
all out on our own.

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What we did was we would take
every Beanie,

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00:12:55,941 --> 00:13:00,079
list the dates
that they were introduced.

245
00:13:00,146 --> 00:13:01,947
So this is our first attempt

246
00:13:02,014 --> 00:13:05,584
at putting our beanie
chronology together.

247
00:13:07,286 --> 00:13:09,155
[Mary Beth] After a while,
though, we started saying,

248
00:13:09,255 --> 00:13:13,192
"Well, there must be a finite
number of these things."

249
00:13:13,292 --> 00:13:16,195
And having that
collector's mentality,

250
00:13:16,295 --> 00:13:19,799
you wanted to check them off
a list and have all of them.

251
00:13:25,604 --> 00:13:29,842
From there on, it became
a multiple trip, do what we can,

252
00:13:29,942 --> 00:13:30,976
keep going until you were tired,

253
00:13:31,043 --> 00:13:33,879
until there were no other
stores in the area

254
00:13:33,979 --> 00:13:35,981
that might have what
we're looking for.

255
00:13:36,048 --> 00:13:40,386
And then my mom took
that to an extreme

256
00:13:40,486 --> 00:13:43,656
and it quickly became
her thing over mine.

257
00:13:45,891 --> 00:13:47,660
[Mary Beth] I am afraid
to say that I was

258
00:13:47,726 --> 00:13:51,730
actually the one
that got so intense

259
00:13:51,831 --> 00:13:55,835
and then it became
almost an obsession.

260
00:13:59,004 --> 00:14:02,141
This is how this
collecting craze happened.

261
00:14:02,208 --> 00:14:04,076
It happened by accident.

262
00:14:04,176 --> 00:14:06,912
By parents, mothers, basically

263
00:14:07,012 --> 00:14:11,984
collecting these
for their children.

264
00:14:12,051 --> 00:14:15,654
I am Peggy Gallagher.
I am from the Chicago area.

265
00:14:15,721 --> 00:14:19,491
I have been a Beanie Baby
collector for many, many years.

266
00:14:19,558 --> 00:14:22,361
Since day one.

267
00:14:22,428 --> 00:14:27,433
Paula, who was my younger sister
and a physician at the time,

268
00:14:27,533 --> 00:14:28,767
she found them in
the hospital gift shop.

269
00:14:28,868 --> 00:14:34,106
She opened the bag
and I go, "Oh!

270
00:14:34,206 --> 00:14:38,510
"Well, I want that one, and that
one, and that one." [laughs]

271
00:14:38,577 --> 00:14:40,179
Totally love at first sight.

272
00:14:40,246 --> 00:14:43,449
I thought they were the cutest
things that were ever created.

273
00:14:43,549 --> 00:14:44,950
And the names,
I love the names.

274
00:14:45,050 --> 00:14:49,388
And I just would giggle.
I mean, I STILL giggle.

275
00:14:49,455 --> 00:14:50,623
[laughs]

276
00:14:50,723 --> 00:14:52,591
They are cute.

277
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:56,262
No. I have stepchildren.

278
00:14:58,063 --> 00:14:58,631
They were not.

279
00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:00,633
No, they were not.

280
00:15:03,202 --> 00:15:06,305
Peggy Toy, how are you?

281
00:15:06,405 --> 00:15:08,641
I'm here to go shopping
for Beanie Babies.

282
00:15:08,741 --> 00:15:10,442
Did you bring the cash?

283
00:15:10,542 --> 00:15:12,411
When I started collecting
the Beanie Babies,

284
00:15:12,478 --> 00:15:15,481
I had just
recently gotten married.

285
00:15:15,581 --> 00:15:17,416
I was hiding them
because I thought

286
00:15:17,483 --> 00:15:18,918
my new husband's
gonna think I'm crazy

287
00:15:18,984 --> 00:15:21,654
buying these
little stuffed toys.

288
00:15:21,754 --> 00:15:24,890
So I'd hide them upstairs
in that office.

289
00:15:24,957 --> 00:15:26,158
And then finally,

290
00:15:26,258 --> 00:15:29,295
I told him about this collection
that I'd been hiding

291
00:15:29,395 --> 00:15:31,797
and I showed him
and he couldn't believe it.

292
00:15:31,897 --> 00:15:36,335
He just said, "Do you collect
all these toys all the time?"

293
00:15:36,435 --> 00:15:39,104
[laughs]
I was like a normal person.

294
00:15:39,171 --> 00:15:41,907
And here I am
not acting normal.

295
00:15:42,841 --> 00:15:44,276
He was a little shocked.

296
00:15:44,343 --> 00:15:45,577
He was a Porsche person

297
00:15:45,644 --> 00:15:48,280
so he kept collecting cars
and Mercedes,

298
00:15:48,347 --> 00:15:51,951
so he had to be a little
empathetic because his toys

299
00:15:52,017 --> 00:15:55,988
were a lot more
expensive than mine.

300
00:15:57,623 --> 00:16:01,126
It was evident very early that
you couldn't get

301
00:16:01,193 --> 00:16:02,594
all the Beanie Babies

302
00:16:02,661 --> 00:16:07,099
by just going to different
stores in your local area.

303
00:16:07,166 --> 00:16:11,537
So then started another phase
of my collecting

304
00:16:11,637 --> 00:16:14,440
which was going outside
of your state

305
00:16:14,506 --> 00:16:17,343
to find the ones
you didn't yet have

306
00:16:17,443 --> 00:16:20,279
that you really needed,
right?

307
00:16:20,346 --> 00:16:23,682
[Becky] We called Ty
and they gave us some stores

308
00:16:23,782 --> 00:16:25,451
that they were available in.

309
00:16:25,517 --> 00:16:27,553
And so we started
calling those stores

310
00:16:27,653 --> 00:16:29,054
and then what we would do

311
00:16:29,154 --> 00:16:32,324
is say, "OK, do you know any
other gift shops in your area?"

312
00:16:36,195 --> 00:16:37,696
[phone line trills]

313
00:16:37,796 --> 00:16:39,531
[woman] You're gonna
have to wait for a second, OK?

314
00:16:39,631 --> 00:16:41,333
Then we called
the Chamber of Commerce

315
00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:46,505
in those cities, and they would
tell us all the gift shops.

316
00:16:46,572 --> 00:16:50,242
We called every shop
over the United States.

317
00:16:50,342 --> 00:16:55,748
Our phone bills for one month
were almost $2000.

318
00:16:58,217 --> 00:17:01,020
So now you're creating a market

319
00:17:01,086 --> 00:17:05,557
innocently by women calling
all over the United States.

320
00:17:05,657 --> 00:17:06,992
I wasn't the only one.

321
00:17:07,059 --> 00:17:09,762
You got Becky
from Naperville,

322
00:17:09,862 --> 00:17:13,098
buying Beanie Babies,
paying with a credit card,

323
00:17:13,198 --> 00:17:14,533
shipping them all.

324
00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:17,436
Mary Beth Sobolewski.
She was one.

325
00:17:17,536 --> 00:17:19,338
Gift shop owners,
they would even say to me,

326
00:17:19,405 --> 00:17:23,542
"There's these women in
Naperville..." I said, "Becky?"

327
00:17:23,609 --> 00:17:25,377
And they knew the names,
they go "Oh, yes,

328
00:17:25,444 --> 00:17:27,046
"we just ran her credit card."

329
00:17:27,112 --> 00:17:30,382
and I thought, they cleaned me
out before I got to them."

330
00:17:30,449 --> 00:17:32,551
I never felt like
there was a competition

331
00:17:32,618 --> 00:17:34,386
between the other collectors.

332
00:17:34,453 --> 00:17:36,455
No, it was plenty of room
for everybody.

333
00:17:36,555 --> 00:17:39,925
We didn't get along, there was
a lot of competition, you know?

334
00:17:40,025 --> 00:17:42,895
[growls]
And women are the worst.

335
00:17:42,961 --> 00:17:45,931
I'd deal with men any time,
women and... Oh, my gosh.

336
00:17:46,031 --> 00:17:48,767
Yeah, there was competition.

337
00:17:48,867 --> 00:17:50,302
[man] One of the real sleepers
in the industry this year,

338
00:17:50,402 --> 00:17:53,205
these cute little animals
called the Beanie Babies

339
00:17:53,272 --> 00:17:57,309
from an unknown company
called Ty Toys.

340
00:17:57,409 --> 00:17:59,778
It was going here in Chicago,

341
00:17:59,878 --> 00:18:03,482
but it hadn't really hit
nationally as much yet.

342
00:18:03,582 --> 00:18:04,716
We had about a year before

343
00:18:04,783 --> 00:18:08,620
people started finding out
about Beanie Babies.

344
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:10,989
The kids like them so if
he keeps them happy,

345
00:18:11,090 --> 00:18:12,324
that's why I buy them.

346
00:18:12,424 --> 00:18:17,496
It was steady growth until Ty
had the article

347
00:18:17,596 --> 00:18:19,131
in 'People Magazine'.

348
00:18:19,231 --> 00:18:22,468
I'm the only journalist
who ever interviewed Ty Warner

349
00:18:22,568 --> 00:18:23,936
about Beanie Babies.

350
00:18:24,603 --> 00:18:25,971
In those days, if
'People Magazine' was calling,

351
00:18:26,071 --> 00:18:28,941
people wanted to talk to you
because they knew the magazine.

352
00:18:29,007 --> 00:18:30,242
If I think back,

353
00:18:30,642 --> 00:18:33,512
I just kind of remember him
being almost like a young child

354
00:18:33,612 --> 00:18:36,315
showing you things, you know?

355
00:18:36,415 --> 00:18:38,484
Like, "Look here and look
what we did here!"

356
00:18:38,584 --> 00:18:40,786
and he was just very,
very proud of what he'd done.

357
00:18:40,853 --> 00:18:43,622
Ah! Here we go.

358
00:18:43,689 --> 00:18:45,357
[Reads]
"Ty Warner's Beanie Babies

359
00:18:45,457 --> 00:18:47,092
"are the new gotta-have toys."

360
00:18:48,494 --> 00:18:49,928
He didn't want to be the story,

361
00:18:49,995 --> 00:18:52,197
he wanted the toys
to be the story,

362
00:18:52,297 --> 00:18:52,931
and they certainly were.

363
00:18:52,998 --> 00:18:56,535
Ty Warner and Ty Inc.

364
00:18:56,635 --> 00:19:02,374
did absolutely no advertising
and they did no media.

365
00:19:02,474 --> 00:19:04,510
There was nothing
that came from the company.

366
00:19:04,610 --> 00:19:08,547
People wanted someone who was
associated with Beanie Babies

367
00:19:08,647 --> 00:19:09,882
to connect with.

368
00:19:09,982 --> 00:19:11,683
It goes from the child
to the parents

369
00:19:11,783 --> 00:19:14,386
to the aunts and uncles
and grandparents.

370
00:19:14,486 --> 00:19:15,554
So we would have people

371
00:19:15,654 --> 00:19:18,857
from magazines and
radio shows calling us,

372
00:19:18,957 --> 00:19:23,896
so we became the Beanie Baby
advocates for collectors.

373
00:19:23,996 --> 00:19:26,665
The brand-new current ones
are really hot demand

374
00:19:26,732 --> 00:19:28,567
right here in the Chicago area.

375
00:19:28,667 --> 00:19:30,569
This is actually where
the craze began.

376
00:19:30,669 --> 00:19:34,840
I can say, hey, I think Becky
and I and Peggy and Mary Beth

377
00:19:34,907 --> 00:19:36,408
really did a lot for it Ty

378
00:19:36,508 --> 00:19:39,845
to get this moving
in the right direction.

379
00:19:48,086 --> 00:19:50,756
[reporter] Open any newspaper
to the classified ads

380
00:19:50,856 --> 00:19:52,925
and you're likely to find
at least a half-dozen ads

381
00:19:53,025 --> 00:19:56,895
from people selling, buying
or trading Beanie Babies.

382
00:19:56,995 --> 00:19:59,665
[man] Each day, they come
to Hamilton Place Mall

383
00:19:59,731 --> 00:20:01,600
searching for these -
Beanie Babies.

384
00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:03,936
[woman] I think the girls
really liked it at first

385
00:20:04,036 --> 00:20:07,439
but now I think the adults
have got into it, you know?

386
00:20:08,874 --> 00:20:10,909
[Joni]
This was supposed to be a toy

387
00:20:11,009 --> 00:20:12,711
and we were all having
a lot of fun with it,

388
00:20:12,778 --> 00:20:15,781
but now it's moving
into a different realm.

389
00:20:15,881 --> 00:20:17,115
What is a Beanie Baby?

390
00:20:17,216 --> 00:20:20,953
It's a beanbag toy
meant to be played with.

391
00:20:22,287 --> 00:20:25,123
My name is Harry Rinker,
and during my career,

392
00:20:25,224 --> 00:20:27,693
I was
known as the Beanie Meanie.

393
00:20:29,628 --> 00:20:32,731
What makes The Beanie Baby come
alive is the secondary market.

394
00:20:32,798 --> 00:20:34,933
Not the primary market
where it first is sold,

395
00:20:35,033 --> 00:20:37,970
but what happens to it when
somebody tries to resell it.

396
00:20:39,471 --> 00:20:40,739
Kids started demanding

397
00:20:40,806 --> 00:20:42,608
that their parents
buy Beanie Babies for them

398
00:20:42,708 --> 00:20:44,276
because their friends
had them.

399
00:20:44,376 --> 00:20:45,777
Parents said "Oh, my gosh,

400
00:20:45,877 --> 00:20:47,546
"I need to get that
this Beanie Baby for my kids,"

401
00:20:47,613 --> 00:20:49,414
and they went to the store
and it wasn't there,

402
00:20:49,481 --> 00:20:50,582
so then they went onto
the secondary market,

403
00:20:50,649 --> 00:20:53,485
the newspaper columns and
all the rest of them

404
00:20:53,585 --> 00:20:56,154
and they paid double,
triple, quadruple.

405
00:21:02,761 --> 00:21:04,896
Essentially, with any bubble,
what it starts with

406
00:21:04,963 --> 00:21:08,567
is enthusiasm
from a small group.

407
00:21:11,003 --> 00:21:13,238
I'm Dave Sobolewski,

408
00:21:13,305 --> 00:21:15,907
I am the middle child
of Mary Beth Sobolewski,

409
00:21:15,974 --> 00:21:18,777
one of the original
Beanie Ladies.

410
00:21:20,445 --> 00:21:26,351
So my background, my education,
my profession, it's all finance.

411
00:21:27,786 --> 00:21:29,855
You know, Beanie Babies
is a case study

412
00:21:29,955 --> 00:21:36,862
in just how a few people
pushing an idea and enthusiasm,

413
00:21:36,962 --> 00:21:38,630
crazy things can happen.

414
00:21:42,167 --> 00:21:45,871
Well, they started lining up at
1:30 in the afternoon yesterday

415
00:21:45,971 --> 00:21:49,441
for our 8 o'clock sale,
so they waited about 18.5 hours.

416
00:21:49,508 --> 00:21:52,144
- Have you got them all?
- Yeah. All of them.

417
00:21:52,210 --> 00:21:53,679
- And more.
- And more.

418
00:21:53,779 --> 00:21:55,814
- Oh, it gets worse.
- All of them and more.

419
00:21:55,881 --> 00:21:58,784
OK. Well, you made
it hard, didn't you?

420
00:21:58,850 --> 00:22:02,688
You know, you have...
[audio fades]

421
00:22:07,159 --> 00:22:12,864
Oh, I think Jeannine Twardus,
she was over the edge. [laughs]

422
00:22:13,999 --> 00:22:17,703
I had wrote a song,
'It's a Beanie Rap',

423
00:22:17,803 --> 00:22:21,039
and the words just flowed
through my fingers

424
00:22:21,139 --> 00:22:24,409
as I typed them into a computer.

425
00:22:24,509 --> 00:22:26,078
People have told me it's catchy.

426
00:22:26,178 --> 00:22:30,082
[hip-hop beat plays]

427
00:22:30,182 --> 00:22:31,583
Let me tell you a story
about a guy named Ty

428
00:22:31,683 --> 00:22:33,652
He created these beanies that
make me high

429
00:22:33,719 --> 00:22:37,022
Little beans in their bodies
and cute little faces

430
00:22:37,089 --> 00:22:38,690
I'm addicted to them
been to all kinds of places

431
00:22:38,757 --> 00:22:41,593
Smuggling beanies upstairs
It's no lie

432
00:22:41,693 --> 00:22:43,762
And I blame it all on a guy
named Ty

433
00:22:43,862 --> 00:22:48,567
[sings]  It's a beanie rap
It's a beanie rap

434
00:22:48,667 --> 00:22:50,569
It's a beanie rap

435
00:22:50,669 --> 00:22:53,739
I'm all tied up.

436
00:22:53,839 --> 00:22:57,676
I actually sold some in my
store and on the Internet.

437
00:22:57,743 --> 00:23:01,913
I even tried sending a copy
to a local radio station

438
00:23:02,013 --> 00:23:03,715
but they never played it.

439
00:23:03,782 --> 00:23:06,718
Back in the 1990s,
I was in the Navy.

440
00:23:06,785 --> 00:23:08,553
I was a cryptological
technician.

441
00:23:08,620 --> 00:23:12,391
When I left the Navy,
I was working for a bank

442
00:23:12,457 --> 00:23:15,394
and then I worked at the FBI
for three years. [chuckles]

443
00:23:15,460 --> 00:23:16,762
Like... [imitates Morse code]

444
00:23:16,862 --> 00:23:20,298
"Do I want to do this for
the rest of my life?" You know?

445
00:23:20,399 --> 00:23:23,235
And so I eventually
left the FBI.

446
00:23:23,301 --> 00:23:25,704
I'm all tied up.

447
00:23:25,771 --> 00:23:31,376
I think it was around '96,
'cause AOL just had come out.

448
00:23:31,443 --> 00:23:33,545
[voice] You've got mail!

449
00:23:33,612 --> 00:23:36,615
And I saw an article about
Beanie Babies

450
00:23:36,715 --> 00:23:37,916
in a Chicago newspaper.

451
00:23:37,983 --> 00:23:41,586
And it described how people
were both going crazy

452
00:23:41,653 --> 00:23:43,422
over these little animals and
I got on the Internet

453
00:23:43,488 --> 00:23:46,124
to see if anybody else was
collecting them

454
00:23:46,224 --> 00:23:50,295
and back then, they
had little chat rooms on AOL,

455
00:23:50,395 --> 00:23:53,064
and it was not formalised like
it is now in the Internet world,

456
00:23:53,131 --> 00:23:54,466
it was very rudimentary.

457
00:23:54,566 --> 00:23:56,902
[man on TV] Can you believe
what's possible these days?

458
00:23:56,968 --> 00:23:58,437
Conversations through
your computer!

459
00:23:58,503 --> 00:24:01,940
Worlds of information
one click away.

460
00:24:02,007 --> 00:24:02,941
Everyone I know is on it.

461
00:24:03,008 --> 00:24:04,576
- Email.
- Instant messages.

462
00:24:04,643 --> 00:24:06,178
There's no better way
to keep in touch.

463
00:24:06,278 --> 00:24:07,779
[voice] You've got mail.

464
00:24:07,846 --> 00:24:12,117
[Imitates dial-up
modem connection]

465
00:24:13,585 --> 00:24:15,987
It was, like, a very
characteristic sound

466
00:24:16,087 --> 00:24:18,256
of logging onto
the Internet in the '90s.

467
00:24:18,323 --> 00:24:21,426
And you could hear it through
the whole house!

468
00:24:21,493 --> 00:24:22,928
[dial-up modem starts up]

469
00:24:24,963 --> 00:24:26,631
I went to Ty and I told him

470
00:24:26,698 --> 00:24:29,534
there's this thing
called the Internet.

471
00:24:29,634 --> 00:24:34,439
If we build something that has
a list of all of our products

472
00:24:34,506 --> 00:24:35,607
and a guestbook,

473
00:24:35,674 --> 00:24:37,509
just like you would
think at a wedding,

474
00:24:37,609 --> 00:24:38,677
when you have
a guestbook at a wedding,

475
00:24:38,777 --> 00:24:43,148
and he asked a bunch
of questions, I remember,

476
00:24:43,215 --> 00:24:45,951
and said, "Let's build this,

477
00:24:46,017 --> 00:24:48,220
"this might be something
cool to build."

478
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:50,288
[reporter] Would you believe
Beanie Babies

479
00:24:50,355 --> 00:24:52,390
have their own website?

480
00:24:52,491 --> 00:24:56,061
And that was when
the journey began.

481
00:24:56,161 --> 00:24:58,497
Jillian and Reed
regularly go on the Internet.

482
00:24:58,563 --> 00:24:59,631
[child] We go on the Internet

483
00:24:59,698 --> 00:25:02,534
and we go to what they call
the guestbook...

484
00:25:02,634 --> 00:25:06,004
It was maybe one of
the first blogs

485
00:25:06,071 --> 00:25:07,706
that ever existed
on the Internet.

486
00:25:07,806 --> 00:25:11,543
As maybe a predecessor to the
sentiments that early Facebook

487
00:25:11,643 --> 00:25:12,911
was asking for people to share

488
00:25:13,011 --> 00:25:14,579
"what are you doing right
now in this moment?"

489
00:25:14,679 --> 00:25:17,249
You can see it
has Beanie Baby games,

490
00:25:17,349 --> 00:25:18,550
it has a list with graphics

491
00:25:18,650 --> 00:25:21,253
and also a text version
of the list.

492
00:25:21,353 --> 00:25:24,556
That was so far ahead, it's only
in looking back,

493
00:25:24,656 --> 00:25:29,895
that you see,
"Wow, they were really early."

494
00:25:29,995 --> 00:25:32,264
But this is the Ty one that
we're going to see first.

495
00:25:32,364 --> 00:25:33,932
It's the mother of all of them.

496
00:25:34,032 --> 00:25:34,699
Let's take a look at that.

497
00:25:34,766 --> 00:25:37,769
- Mm-hm.
- Not many hits.

498
00:25:37,869 --> 00:25:39,671
Look at the number of hits.
Back up.

499
00:25:39,738 --> 00:25:41,439
Oh, my God.

500
00:25:41,540 --> 00:25:43,108
Over 1 billion hits.

501
00:25:44,709 --> 00:25:46,411
The page was constantly
crashing

502
00:25:46,511 --> 00:25:50,682
because of the amount
of traffic that it was getting.

503
00:25:50,749 --> 00:25:52,250
This craze never
would've happened

504
00:25:52,350 --> 00:25:53,718
if there wasn't an Internet.

505
00:25:53,785 --> 00:25:55,086
But the Internet
in and of itself

506
00:25:55,186 --> 00:26:00,058
was not enough to make
Beanie Babies what they became.

507
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:03,895
On the guestbook, Ty Warner
allows us

508
00:26:03,962 --> 00:26:07,432
to talk to each
other about the Beanie Babies

509
00:26:07,532 --> 00:26:08,767
and to sell Beanie Babies.

510
00:26:08,867 --> 00:26:12,604
Now you've got people
from America Online

511
00:26:12,704 --> 00:26:15,273
trying to hook up with people

512
00:26:15,373 --> 00:26:17,976
that are buying
and selling Beanie Babies.

513
00:26:18,076 --> 00:26:22,213
"Here, if you want this, I can
sell it to you for 25 bucks."

514
00:26:30,989 --> 00:26:32,390
Beanie Babies would go
to production

515
00:26:32,457 --> 00:26:36,227
and they'd be in production
for a certain amount of time...

516
00:26:36,294 --> 00:26:37,829
Suddenly, they weren't able

517
00:26:37,929 --> 00:26:40,165
to make a particular
one of the Beanies

518
00:26:40,265 --> 00:26:44,336
or the fabric ran out or they
just couldn't get that shipment

519
00:26:44,436 --> 00:26:48,073
and they found when a particular
item was less available,

520
00:26:48,139 --> 00:26:49,674
that people wanted it more.

521
00:26:49,774 --> 00:26:51,843
I don't think he
did that on purpose.

522
00:26:51,943 --> 00:26:55,113
I think it was just a fluke
and the collectors caught it.

523
00:26:55,180 --> 00:26:56,615
[reporter] Bob Howard picked up

524
00:26:56,681 --> 00:26:57,682
three new retirees
for his grandson.

525
00:26:57,782 --> 00:27:00,952
He chose Rover, Ziggy
and Squealer.

526
00:27:01,019 --> 00:27:03,355
Ty wanted to capitalise on that

527
00:27:03,455 --> 00:27:06,791
and not just quietly
let one of the beanies retire,

528
00:27:06,858 --> 00:27:09,194
but to actually start
letting people know.

529
00:27:09,294 --> 00:27:12,430
[phone chimes]

530
00:27:14,633 --> 00:27:19,704
[Becky] Two weeks before
January, 1997,

531
00:27:19,804 --> 00:27:23,942
Ty closes down his website.

532
00:27:24,009 --> 00:27:27,278
And he puts a clock
on the website.

533
00:27:27,345 --> 00:27:31,316
[clock ticks]

534
00:27:31,383 --> 00:27:32,651
So we're all waiting.

535
00:27:32,717 --> 00:27:37,355
And then, all of a sudden,
January 1...

536
00:27:38,857 --> 00:27:40,725
..he tells us all
about the beanie babies

537
00:27:40,825 --> 00:27:42,360
that were going to be retired.

538
00:27:42,460 --> 00:27:43,895
[cries]

539
00:27:43,995 --> 00:27:45,463
So you had people in stores

540
00:27:45,530 --> 00:27:49,334
so they can go and pick them up
before they're all gone.

541
00:27:49,401 --> 00:27:51,736
It was like you didn't
want to miss out.

542
00:27:51,836 --> 00:27:54,673
[child] Mom, I want this one!

543
00:27:54,739 --> 00:27:57,976
[reporter] Behind all this
is a carefully crafted strategy,

544
00:27:58,043 --> 00:28:02,080
add one new beanie
to the market, and take one away

545
00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:03,715
and one by one

546
00:28:03,815 --> 00:28:06,818
the beanies move into
the Endangered Species category.

547
00:28:09,521 --> 00:28:11,356
The collectors loved it.

548
00:28:11,423 --> 00:28:14,025
Nothing to spark
a collector's interest

549
00:28:14,092 --> 00:28:16,561
more than
"You can't have it anymore."

550
00:28:16,661 --> 00:28:19,097
So then people now are going in

551
00:28:19,197 --> 00:28:22,100
and if they see one of
the ones they've just retired,

552
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:23,101
they buy the whole bunch.

553
00:28:23,201 --> 00:28:25,003
[reporter]
Once they retire them,

554
00:28:25,070 --> 00:28:26,337
they become very hard to get?

555
00:28:26,404 --> 00:28:27,572
Exactly.

556
00:28:29,207 --> 00:28:31,843
Well, then what you saw
with Beanie Babies

557
00:28:31,910 --> 00:28:33,611
is the supply went even lower,

558
00:28:33,712 --> 00:28:36,681
as these beanies
kept getting retired.

559
00:28:36,748 --> 00:28:39,884
So then you've got demand
going way higher.

560
00:28:39,951 --> 00:28:43,288
So prices will rise.

561
00:28:44,389 --> 00:28:46,391
You see how the psychology

562
00:28:46,458 --> 00:28:49,260
of both Ty Warner
and the collectors

563
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:53,231
played hand-in-hand
to really fuel this mania.

564
00:28:53,298 --> 00:28:55,200
[reporter] What happens
to a Beanie Baby

565
00:28:55,266 --> 00:28:56,301
once a Beanie Baby retires?

566
00:28:56,401 --> 00:28:59,270
- The price of it goes up.
- No kidding!

567
00:28:59,370 --> 00:29:04,609
$350, $450, $900.

568
00:29:04,709 --> 00:29:07,212
The prices went up and
up and up.

569
00:29:07,278 --> 00:29:09,414
A complete collection
of Beanie Babies

570
00:29:09,481 --> 00:29:11,616
could go as high as $100,000.

571
00:29:11,716 --> 00:29:15,487
Somebody offered me
$100,000 dollars.

572
00:29:15,587 --> 00:29:18,757
$100,000. 20 years ago, right?

573
00:29:18,823 --> 00:29:20,592
I said no.

574
00:29:20,658 --> 00:29:23,161
In comes the people who
said "They're an investment.

575
00:29:23,261 --> 00:29:28,399
"I can buy Beanie Babies and
send my kids through college."

576
00:29:28,466 --> 00:29:30,735
[Joni] This was becoming
something different.

577
00:29:30,802 --> 00:29:32,737
We don't play with these things

578
00:29:32,804 --> 00:29:34,639
because they're going
to be worth money.

579
00:29:34,739 --> 00:29:40,578
If the tag was creased, you'd
ruin the value of your beanie.

580
00:29:40,645 --> 00:29:44,482
People were starting to do it
for financial investment.

581
00:29:44,582 --> 00:29:47,018
There were the collectors

582
00:29:47,118 --> 00:29:49,420
that made it into a business

583
00:29:49,487 --> 00:29:52,090
and there were others
that weren't collectors at all

584
00:29:52,157 --> 00:29:53,691
that just made it a business.

585
00:29:53,792 --> 00:29:56,594
I call myself
the monkey in the middle.

586
00:30:01,132 --> 00:30:03,101
My name is Phyllis Miceli.

587
00:30:03,168 --> 00:30:07,705
I've been known as
Queenie Beanie for 20 years.

588
00:30:07,806 --> 00:30:09,774
I didn't collect 'em,
I sold 'em.

589
00:30:09,841 --> 00:30:11,876
I was crazy about the money in
the bank,

590
00:30:11,976 --> 00:30:13,878
not about the Beanie Babies.

591
00:30:16,214 --> 00:30:18,449
I sold to accountants,

592
00:30:18,516 --> 00:30:22,353
actuaries, airplane pilots,

593
00:30:22,453 --> 00:30:26,457
they were all
into Beanie Babies.

594
00:30:28,293 --> 00:30:29,694
A gentleman emailed me

595
00:30:29,794 --> 00:30:31,996
and he said, "Can you handle
a large account?"

596
00:30:32,063 --> 00:30:35,133
And I said, "No problem.
Send me the money."

597
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:44,142
And he sent me $20,000.
to buy Beanie Babies for him.

598
00:30:45,543 --> 00:30:50,248
He was stationed
in the Marines in Hawaii.

599
00:30:50,348 --> 00:30:52,483
I didn't trust
the Beanie Babies

600
00:30:52,550 --> 00:30:55,520
being sent through the mail.

601
00:30:55,587 --> 00:31:00,592
So we hopped on a plane and
handcarried them to Hawaii.

602
00:31:00,692 --> 00:31:06,197
His wife went to the bathroom
and he handed me 20,000 cash.

603
00:31:06,264 --> 00:31:09,734
And he said, "Don't tell my wife
what I paid for these."

604
00:31:09,834 --> 00:31:11,502
[laughs]

605
00:31:11,569 --> 00:31:15,773
My husband and I both thought
it was totally crazy. [chuckles]

606
00:31:15,874 --> 00:31:17,942
And when we got back
to the hotel

607
00:31:18,042 --> 00:31:20,712
I remember we threw
the money on the bed.

608
00:31:20,778 --> 00:31:23,348
[laughs]

609
00:31:25,550 --> 00:31:28,119
[footage rushes]

610
00:31:28,219 --> 00:31:32,624
First ever international
Beanie Baby convention.

611
00:31:32,724 --> 00:31:34,259
How do you like that?

612
00:31:34,359 --> 00:31:36,461
[reporter] 1000 people milled
through the convention centre

613
00:31:36,561 --> 00:31:40,031
to get a closer look
at current and retired Beanies.

614
00:31:52,277 --> 00:31:54,979
[Becky] I realised
going to the collector shows

615
00:31:55,079 --> 00:31:56,748
that there were people out there

616
00:31:56,814 --> 00:32:00,485
who were buying the beanies
and this was their livelihood.

617
00:32:00,585 --> 00:32:02,287
This was their job.

618
00:32:02,387 --> 00:32:06,491
I know some of them that would
make $30,000 at a show.

619
00:32:07,592 --> 00:32:09,994
And so we started doing
the same thing.

620
00:32:11,596 --> 00:32:15,667
And so we were shipping boxes
of Beanies and selling them.

621
00:32:15,767 --> 00:32:20,238
I would get, like,
50 Patti the Platypus.

622
00:32:20,305 --> 00:32:21,506
I remember thinking,

623
00:32:21,606 --> 00:32:24,008
"I just paid 10 bucks for
each one of these,"

624
00:32:24,108 --> 00:32:27,679
and my husband said, how much
are you gonna sell these for?"

625
00:32:27,779 --> 00:32:29,514
I said, "$300."

626
00:32:29,614 --> 00:32:32,350
Right away,
I'm not good in math

627
00:32:32,450 --> 00:32:34,018
but he's, like, calculating,

628
00:32:34,118 --> 00:32:36,187
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God!"

629
00:32:36,287 --> 00:32:38,456
He's, like, jumping around.
[laughs]

630
00:32:38,523 --> 00:32:40,625
He thought I was just a genius.

631
00:32:44,329 --> 00:32:46,798
I might have bought
a newer Mercedes.

632
00:32:48,366 --> 00:32:52,270
I had 'B BABIES'
Yeah, I got the plates,

633
00:32:52,337 --> 00:32:54,205
I thought "Oh, my God,
this is so cute."

634
00:32:54,305 --> 00:32:58,476
It was on my Mercedes
and I was proud of that.

635
00:32:58,543 --> 00:32:59,978
[laughs]

636
00:33:00,044 --> 00:33:01,179
[reporter] Becky Phillips

637
00:33:01,279 --> 00:33:02,613
and Becky Estenssoro
of Naperville

638
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:03,881
have turned Beanies
into a career.

639
00:33:03,982 --> 00:33:06,617
They've even written a book
called 'Beanie Mania'.

640
00:33:06,684 --> 00:33:08,619
We want to concentrate on the
collectors,

641
00:33:08,686 --> 00:33:11,189
so they know what's available,
so they don't get ripped off.

642
00:33:11,289 --> 00:33:12,890
[reporter 2] Out of her home
where she and her husband

643
00:33:12,991 --> 00:33:15,059
are raising several children,

644
00:33:15,159 --> 00:33:17,061
she puts out 'Mary Beth's
Beanie World Magazine'.

645
00:33:17,161 --> 00:33:22,233
A publisher gave me a call
out of the absolute blue

646
00:33:22,333 --> 00:33:25,370
and said, "We would like
to do a magazine

647
00:33:25,470 --> 00:33:27,572
"all about Beanie Babies."

648
00:33:27,672 --> 00:33:30,174
By the end of the time
the first issue was out,

649
00:33:30,241 --> 00:33:31,409
they made it a bimonthly.

650
00:33:31,509 --> 00:33:34,012
It just kept going
and going and going.

651
00:33:34,078 --> 00:33:37,215
[reporter] They're going to be
turning out 600,000 copies

652
00:33:37,315 --> 00:33:38,249
of the May issue.

653
00:33:38,349 --> 00:33:40,251
I couldn't believe it.
I was like,

654
00:33:40,351 --> 00:33:42,186
"Oh, my gosh,
this is my name on here.

655
00:33:42,253 --> 00:33:46,657
"Are you kidding?"
This is just me from suburbia.

656
00:33:46,724 --> 00:33:49,761
I think in the Beanie Baby
world, I was famous.

657
00:33:49,861 --> 00:33:53,164
I was pretty famous.

658
00:33:54,198 --> 00:33:55,600
We all want that one moment

659
00:33:55,700 --> 00:34:00,371
where we feel that maybe
this is just our special time.

660
00:34:05,209 --> 00:34:08,413
[Rinker] Ty did not
manipulate this market.

661
00:34:08,513 --> 00:34:11,282
Let's talk about what it takes
to manipulate a market.

662
00:34:11,382 --> 00:34:14,118
First of all, there needs to be
a secondary market

663
00:34:14,218 --> 00:34:18,122
and a craze -
that we already established.

664
00:34:18,222 --> 00:34:22,293
This is the highest price I have
heard. For $2000 at a show...

665
00:34:22,393 --> 00:34:24,028
[Rinker] Then you
need the media,

666
00:34:24,095 --> 00:34:26,864
they're the best suckers to
manipulating a market out there

667
00:34:26,931 --> 00:34:28,366
if you can get them to do it.

668
00:34:28,433 --> 00:34:30,401
There are so many collectors
all around the world,

669
00:34:30,468 --> 00:34:32,303
this, of course,
is a phenomenon.

670
00:34:32,403 --> 00:34:34,639
[Translator speaks German]

671
00:34:34,739 --> 00:34:40,278
I got paid to go to England,
I was all over Germany.

672
00:34:40,378 --> 00:34:43,448
You start out with a finite
list of Beanie Babies

673
00:34:43,548 --> 00:34:44,882
where you can check them off.

674
00:34:44,949 --> 00:34:49,620
I was doing so much media,
it was truly 24/7.

675
00:34:49,720 --> 00:34:52,123
[reporter] The books and
magazines explain their worth.

676
00:34:52,223 --> 00:34:54,625
They needed the price guides
that come out.

677
00:34:59,897 --> 00:35:02,266
These ladies that wrote
these price guides

678
00:35:02,333 --> 00:35:03,968
made a lot of
money off of it - why?

679
00:35:04,068 --> 00:35:06,170
Because they raise the price
in every price guide

680
00:35:06,270 --> 00:35:07,405
and people took that as
a price absolute.

681
00:35:07,472 --> 00:35:10,675
[reporter] People pay hundreds,
even thousands

682
00:35:10,775 --> 00:35:13,010
for hard-to-find beanies
on the secondary market.

683
00:35:13,111 --> 00:35:15,480
But to spend that much money...

684
00:35:15,580 --> 00:35:19,417
The feeling is just very intense
in this collectibles market.

685
00:35:19,484 --> 00:35:21,152
There was such a frenzy.

686
00:35:21,252 --> 00:35:23,921
Oh, gosh!

687
00:35:23,988 --> 00:35:26,357
Just the electricity.

688
00:35:26,457 --> 00:35:28,192
[crowd clamours]

689
00:35:28,292 --> 00:35:29,827
[woman] They would
just lunge and grab

690
00:35:29,927 --> 00:35:31,162
and somebody was yelling,
"I need, I need,"

691
00:35:31,262 --> 00:35:34,432
and it would
go flying across the store.

692
00:35:37,835 --> 00:35:41,038
[Mary Beth] You'll start
to do anything you can

693
00:35:41,139 --> 00:35:44,375
to 'complete your collection'.

694
00:35:44,475 --> 00:35:47,445
That's when things
got out of control.

695
00:35:52,283 --> 00:35:55,386
[reporter] Don't be fooled,
these are not the real thing.

696
00:35:55,486 --> 00:35:58,222
US Customs officers
at O'Hare Airport

697
00:35:58,322 --> 00:36:01,492
confiscated over
400 fake Beanie Babies.

698
00:36:01,559 --> 00:36:03,227
[Mary Beth] People knew
they could start

699
00:36:03,327 --> 00:36:04,395
making money on this stuff,

700
00:36:04,495 --> 00:36:06,130
that's when the counterfeits

701
00:36:06,197 --> 00:36:10,168
started oozing
into the environment

702
00:36:10,234 --> 00:36:12,336
and ruining everything.

703
00:36:12,403 --> 00:36:14,338
[reporter]
The stash of cute creatures

704
00:36:14,405 --> 00:36:17,341
was initially mistaken for
a different kind of stash.

705
00:36:17,408 --> 00:36:19,844
We suspected that there
may be narcotics in it.

706
00:36:19,911 --> 00:36:21,045
When the inspectors
opened the boxes,

707
00:36:21,145 --> 00:36:23,247
lo and behold, stuffed animals.

708
00:36:23,347 --> 00:36:25,249
[woman] There are some
Beanie Babies out there

709
00:36:25,349 --> 00:36:27,485
that sport a $5000 price tag.

710
00:36:27,552 --> 00:36:28,819
With that kind
of money at stake,

711
00:36:28,886 --> 00:36:32,590
Customs officials say
despite this huge Beanie bust,

712
00:36:32,690 --> 00:36:36,093
keeping fake ones off the street
may be nearly impossible.

713
00:36:36,194 --> 00:36:37,929
[Becky] We know
of several collectors

714
00:36:38,029 --> 00:36:41,432
who lost at least $10,000
or more on Beanies

715
00:36:41,532 --> 00:36:42,333
because they were counterfeit.

716
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:44,235
The first thing that we noticed

717
00:36:44,335 --> 00:36:46,437
when we open the box was
the material.

718
00:36:46,537 --> 00:36:48,272
You can see that the material

719
00:36:48,372 --> 00:36:50,508
on the fake,
counterfeit Beanies

720
00:36:50,575 --> 00:36:53,911
are not as plush as the
regular Beanie Babies are.

721
00:36:54,011 --> 00:36:57,281
In the beginning, counterfeit
Beanie Babies,

722
00:36:57,381 --> 00:37:00,284
it was obvious
they were counterfeit.

723
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,622
But then they were starting to
look better and better

724
00:37:04,722 --> 00:37:07,458
so that
is when you had people

725
00:37:07,558 --> 00:37:09,560
like Peggy Gallagher

726
00:37:09,627 --> 00:37:13,397
starting to do authentication
of beanies.

727
00:37:13,464 --> 00:37:15,800
They are picking
these up for 70c

728
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:17,034
but these are rejects,

729
00:37:17,101 --> 00:37:18,936
these are not the authentic Ty
Beanie Babies.

730
00:37:19,036 --> 00:37:20,771
- So they're frauds?
- They are frauds.

731
00:37:20,871 --> 00:37:22,974
They were coming from Beijing

732
00:37:23,074 --> 00:37:26,043
and the people in China knew
that these Americans are crazy,

733
00:37:26,110 --> 00:37:27,645
they're paying all this money...

734
00:37:27,745 --> 00:37:30,548
Well, of course they're gonna
start counterfeiting them!

735
00:37:30,615 --> 00:37:32,250
'Cause there gonna
make a fortune

736
00:37:32,316 --> 00:37:34,485
because these people don't even
know what they look like.

737
00:37:34,585 --> 00:37:38,990
You know what, you have
a service that you offer.

738
00:37:39,090 --> 00:37:40,291
Yes - on my website,

739
00:37:40,391 --> 00:37:42,927
I have the first
authenticating business

740
00:37:42,994 --> 00:37:45,296
for Beanie Babies.

741
00:37:45,396 --> 00:37:49,133
People were sending these
to me from all over the country,

742
00:37:49,233 --> 00:37:50,735
and I think I charged 20 bucks

743
00:37:50,801 --> 00:37:53,170
and then I started
getting a lot of competition

744
00:37:53,271 --> 00:37:56,574
but I was still the main one.

745
00:37:56,641 --> 00:37:59,844
They knew they could trust me.

746
00:37:59,944 --> 00:38:04,515
So that has a lot
to do with my success.

747
00:38:07,151 --> 00:38:08,686
For a little item,

748
00:38:08,786 --> 00:38:10,855
it's amazing how much
of a back story there is.

749
00:38:10,955 --> 00:38:12,857
You can't even imagine.

750
00:38:15,293 --> 00:38:16,694
Initially, I don't even
remember

751
00:38:16,794 --> 00:38:19,096
having a title at the time -
it was just sales,

752
00:38:19,163 --> 00:38:20,598
and then, within six months,

753
00:38:20,665 --> 00:38:24,201
he had asked me to become
general manager for the company.

754
00:38:30,541 --> 00:38:32,977
It seems so much smaller
than I remember.

755
00:38:34,312 --> 00:38:35,146
We were all young at the time,

756
00:38:35,212 --> 00:38:37,682
and everyone was
open to change.

757
00:38:37,782 --> 00:38:39,483
So I think that
was really exciting

758
00:38:39,550 --> 00:38:42,853
to be able to hit the dragon's
tail and it actually moved.

759
00:38:46,824 --> 00:38:51,195
It was insane. You couldn't get
through on the phone.

760
00:38:51,295 --> 00:38:53,731
Ty was very frustrated when
he couldn't get through.

761
00:38:53,831 --> 00:38:56,233
So he installed we called it
the bat phone.

762
00:38:56,334 --> 00:38:57,902
The big red phone.

763
00:38:58,002 --> 00:39:02,206
If that rang, whoever was there
had to run and get the phone.

764
00:39:05,142 --> 00:39:06,544
My name is Mark Jeremias

765
00:39:06,644 --> 00:39:11,749
and I was executive VP
over merchandising for Ty Inc.

766
00:39:14,552 --> 00:39:16,520
I started in
the fashion business.

767
00:39:16,587 --> 00:39:17,588
I spent my life
watching supermodels

768
00:39:17,688 --> 00:39:19,857
take their clothes
off in front of me

769
00:39:19,924 --> 00:39:22,560
and then I came back and worked
with little teddy bears,

770
00:39:22,660 --> 00:39:24,829
so that's a rather big
difference.

771
00:39:27,164 --> 00:39:32,870
When your secondary market
becomes so, so, so much greater

772
00:39:32,937 --> 00:39:34,405
than your primary market,

773
00:39:34,505 --> 00:39:37,108
that's when a brand
has problems.

774
00:39:39,777 --> 00:39:41,545
- Yes.

775
00:39:42,246 --> 00:39:46,851
He's protecting the brand,
the trademark, the copyrights.

776
00:39:46,917 --> 00:39:51,856
You know, on the other hand,
I think that some aspects of it,

777
00:39:51,922 --> 00:39:55,926
um, it's just become
a part of his nature.

778
00:40:01,932 --> 00:40:03,300
Well, what kind of people?

779
00:40:03,401 --> 00:40:05,870
I'm just asking what kind of
people you talking about?

780
00:40:11,108 --> 00:40:13,144
That's all true.

781
00:40:13,244 --> 00:40:17,648
[Mary Beth] We had to tiptoe
around the Ty company itself.

782
00:40:17,748 --> 00:40:22,153
Because we were treated much
of the time as an enemy,

783
00:40:22,253 --> 00:40:24,255
which is really crazy

784
00:40:24,321 --> 00:40:27,992
because, um, we were
their mouthpiece

785
00:40:28,092 --> 00:40:32,563
and due to our media presence
and our magazines,

786
00:40:32,630 --> 00:40:36,400
that they sold, you know,
millions more Beanie Babies

787
00:40:36,467 --> 00:40:38,602
than they may be would have.

788
00:40:38,669 --> 00:40:40,638
[voiceover] Everybody
is selling something.

789
00:40:40,738 --> 00:40:42,673
Beanie hats, Beanie shirts,

790
00:40:42,773 --> 00:40:46,510
Beanie jewellery, even
Beanie computer software.

791
00:40:46,610 --> 00:40:48,646
The one thing all these
people have in common

792
00:40:48,746 --> 00:40:51,849
is that none of them have
anything to do with Ty Inc.

793
00:40:51,949 --> 00:40:54,518
Probably the biggest
entrepreneur of all

794
00:40:54,618 --> 00:40:57,755
is Mary Beth Sobolewski.

795
00:40:57,822 --> 00:40:59,990
[Mark] Originally,
Mary Beth was a collector,

796
00:41:00,090 --> 00:41:06,096
as her collecting increased,
she decided to do the magazine.

797
00:41:06,163 --> 00:41:07,765
The magazine
at the time I believe

798
00:41:07,832 --> 00:41:11,669
was starting to make
a lot of money.

799
00:41:11,769 --> 00:41:13,971
'Mary Beth's
Beanie World Monthly'

800
00:41:14,038 --> 00:41:15,706
was out for about 1.5 years

801
00:41:15,806 --> 00:41:18,342
and things were
going so smoothly

802
00:41:18,442 --> 00:41:22,046
and then all of a sudden, one
day, I'm working from my home

803
00:41:22,146 --> 00:41:24,215
and the doorbell rings.

804
00:41:24,315 --> 00:41:27,885
And I open the door and they
said, "Mary Beth Sobolewski?"

805
00:41:27,985 --> 00:41:32,323
Really nice, cheery young guy.
I said, "Yes, that's me."

806
00:41:32,389 --> 00:41:35,159
And he says, "Here,"
and I'm like, "What are these?"

807
00:41:35,226 --> 00:41:37,161
"You're being served."

808
00:41:37,228 --> 00:41:39,129
"Served? Oh, my gosh."

809
00:41:39,196 --> 00:41:41,398
You know, Mary Beth
was profiting

810
00:41:41,499 --> 00:41:44,401
off of our likeness and image.

811
00:41:44,502 --> 00:41:49,039
Well, that was an issue for us.

812
00:41:49,139 --> 00:41:51,909
[Mary Beth] So I was being sued
by Ty Inc

813
00:41:52,009 --> 00:41:59,183
for infringement on using
the word 'Beanie' in our title.

814
00:41:59,250 --> 00:42:01,652
I had spent my last 1.5 years

815
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:06,090
being a cheerleader
for this man and his products.

816
00:42:07,725 --> 00:42:10,361
And to get served,

817
00:42:10,427 --> 00:42:14,932
I felt like it was kind of a
thorn in my side.

818
00:42:15,032 --> 00:42:17,434
She took advantage of the
situation,

819
00:42:17,535 --> 00:42:21,939
of benefiting by infringing on
copyright and trademark,

820
00:42:22,039 --> 00:42:25,776
to me, it's not an ethical...
thing to do.

821
00:42:32,683 --> 00:42:34,285
[woman] What do you think
my chances are

822
00:42:34,385 --> 00:42:36,453
of getting an interview
with Ty for this documentary?

823
00:42:36,554 --> 00:42:40,624
- Absolutely zero.
- Why?

824
00:42:40,724 --> 00:42:45,129
He doesn't like to interview.

825
00:42:45,229 --> 00:42:47,298
[reporter] Stores say
when they get them,

826
00:42:47,398 --> 00:42:48,933
they're as good as sold.

827
00:42:49,033 --> 00:42:52,903
It's a nationwide frenzy and
a multimillion-dollar business.

828
00:42:55,039 --> 00:42:56,540
[woman] It was insane.

829
00:42:56,607 --> 00:42:59,643
We couldn't get the product
in fast enough to ship it out.

830
00:42:59,743 --> 00:43:01,645
I think at one point
in the late '90s,

831
00:43:01,745 --> 00:43:03,747
they were shipping
$1 million a day.

832
00:43:03,814 --> 00:43:05,950
[chuckles] It was crazy.

833
00:43:06,050 --> 00:43:11,322
My sales in 1996... Um...
I don't care, I'll tell you.

834
00:43:11,422 --> 00:43:13,157
They were $2.6 million.

835
00:43:13,257 --> 00:43:15,960
And in 1997 they
were $23 million.

836
00:43:16,060 --> 00:43:19,663
So yeah, it was
pretty straight up.

837
00:43:19,763 --> 00:43:23,901
I don't know how
many are sold but...

838
00:43:27,137 --> 00:43:29,073
[laughs]

839
00:43:29,139 --> 00:43:32,776
Yep. Yep, I did.
I bought a crazy car.

840
00:43:33,677 --> 00:43:36,246
It was a Porsche 911.

841
00:43:36,313 --> 00:43:38,015
Pretty sweet car.
I was pretty lucky.

842
00:43:38,115 --> 00:43:39,350
So as it goes out the door,

843
00:43:39,450 --> 00:43:41,685
there's another container
coming in the door.

844
00:43:41,785 --> 00:43:43,020
So...

845
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,688
[man] All gone in two months.
That's the turnover.

846
00:43:44,788 --> 00:43:46,490
And then it will
all fill up again.

847
00:43:46,590 --> 00:43:50,260
My estimates are that we sold
over 40 million Beanie Babies.

848
00:43:50,961 --> 00:43:52,363
It's ridiculous.

849
00:43:52,463 --> 00:43:57,301
But think of how many he did,
if he did maybe 10 times that.

850
00:43:57,368 --> 00:43:59,303
You know, you can do the math.

851
00:44:00,337 --> 00:44:01,372
[somber music]

852
00:44:01,472 --> 00:44:04,141
The world has lost
Princess Diana at age 36

853
00:44:04,208 --> 00:44:05,309
in a car crash in Paris,

854
00:44:05,376 --> 00:44:08,979
along with her companion...
[voice fades out]

855
00:44:09,046 --> 00:44:14,485
[Joni] She was an iconic figure
in the world, I think.

856
00:44:14,551 --> 00:44:16,153
And it was covered endlessly.

857
00:44:16,220 --> 00:44:19,890
[reporter] No-one could've
required this ocean of flowers.

858
00:44:19,990 --> 00:44:22,493
[Joni] I think people were very,
very sad about

859
00:44:22,559 --> 00:44:27,064
the loss of such a positive
person at such a young age.

860
00:44:27,164 --> 00:44:30,868
People can understand now
what Diana did for them.

861
00:44:40,911 --> 00:44:43,047
For those who love and collect
Beanie Babies,

862
00:44:43,147 --> 00:44:45,349
there's a new one hitting the
stores today,

863
00:44:45,416 --> 00:44:46,750
it's a bear called Princess

864
00:44:46,850 --> 00:44:48,585
in honour of Diana,
the Princess of Wales.

865
00:44:48,686 --> 00:44:51,755
NBC's David Gregory
this morning

866
00:44:51,855 --> 00:44:52,656
is in a shop in Chicago.

867
00:44:52,723 --> 00:44:54,758
- Hi, David.
- Hi, Katie.

868
00:44:54,858 --> 00:44:56,360
I wish you knew
how nervous I was

869
00:44:56,427 --> 00:44:57,828
on the train coming down here

870
00:44:57,895 --> 00:45:00,264
with this little
purple bear in my pocket.

871
00:45:00,364 --> 00:45:02,199
Do you know that if people
knew I had this,

872
00:45:02,266 --> 00:45:04,401
I could be mugged on
the streets of Chicago?

873
00:45:04,501 --> 00:45:06,403
Here it is.
This is the Princess bear.

874
00:45:06,503 --> 00:45:07,938
It's got the little yellow rose
on the chest there

875
00:45:08,038 --> 00:45:11,408
and a little inscription
from the Ty toy company

876
00:45:11,508 --> 00:45:13,577
saying "Like an angel,
she came from heaven above,

877
00:45:13,677 --> 00:45:16,046
"she shared her compassion
her pain, and her love."

878
00:45:16,113 --> 00:45:17,081
It goes on and on.

879
00:45:17,181 --> 00:45:19,349
All profits of Ty from
this collectible

880
00:45:19,416 --> 00:45:23,287
will be donated to the Diana,
Princess of Wales Memorial fund.

881
00:45:23,387 --> 00:45:27,958
Princess bear was hard to get,
so that's why they were popular.

882
00:45:28,058 --> 00:45:29,626
[reporter] Each store will
receive 12

883
00:45:29,727 --> 00:45:31,528
of these special Beanie Babies.

884
00:45:31,595 --> 00:45:35,866
And that will only add
to the collectability.

885
00:45:41,472 --> 00:45:43,540
That's what credit cards
are made for.

886
00:45:44,775 --> 00:45:47,044
Mm-hm. Credit card debt.

887
00:45:47,111 --> 00:45:50,147
There was thousands of dollars
people were spending.

888
00:45:50,247 --> 00:45:52,382
I will just give my credit card
number, just say,

889
00:45:52,449 --> 00:45:54,985
"Here, just send me every one
of those little Beanie Babies

890
00:45:55,085 --> 00:45:58,322
"with the red Ty heart
and just send it to me."

891
00:46:00,424 --> 00:46:03,260
It became an addiction.

892
00:46:03,327 --> 00:46:06,163
I got addicted. [laughs]

893
00:46:06,263 --> 00:46:07,765
I never was addicted to
anything.

894
00:46:07,831 --> 00:46:10,334
And I got addicted
to Beanie Babies.

895
00:46:10,434 --> 00:46:14,772
And I ran amok,
is what happened.

896
00:46:17,107 --> 00:46:18,308
That's a hard line to say.

897
00:46:18,408 --> 00:46:21,411
I mean, when does
it turn into addiction?

898
00:46:21,478 --> 00:46:23,347
When it becomes excessive?

899
00:46:23,447 --> 00:46:26,517
Where it affects your
normal life? Could be.

900
00:46:26,617 --> 00:46:28,185
What if your normal life
becomes part of the addiction,

901
00:46:28,285 --> 00:46:31,455
you know what I mean?
It's supporting the addiction?

902
00:46:31,522 --> 00:46:33,857
You just get the store, does
that become your normal life?

903
00:46:33,957 --> 00:46:36,593
Or is that part of
the addict's life?

904
00:46:36,660 --> 00:46:38,195
So... [chuckles]

905
00:46:38,295 --> 00:46:43,267
I could've been a Beanie Baby
addict at one point.

906
00:46:43,333 --> 00:46:48,205
The addiction is there.
And it's catching.

907
00:46:48,305 --> 00:46:50,007
I don't know why you
can't cure it.

908
00:46:50,107 --> 00:46:52,776
I'd have 36 teddy bears
sitting here,

909
00:46:52,843 --> 00:46:55,112
the brown teddy,
and I go to turn

910
00:46:55,179 --> 00:46:56,713
and then I'd see
one sitting there

911
00:46:56,814 --> 00:46:57,881
looking at me on the shelf.

912
00:46:57,981 --> 00:47:00,884
"Oh, look, he's cute.
I'll buy him."

913
00:47:02,386 --> 00:47:04,521
There's always a little bit of
financial problems

914
00:47:04,621 --> 00:47:07,291
and it's still haunting me to
this date

915
00:47:07,357 --> 00:47:10,894
so I get by but it's
hard, yeah, it's been hard.

916
00:47:10,994 --> 00:47:14,731
We should start a group
called BA instead of AA,

917
00:47:14,832 --> 00:47:16,066
Beanies Anonymous.

918
00:47:16,166 --> 00:47:17,501
We could stand up and say,

919
00:47:17,568 --> 00:47:20,571
"Hi, my name is Johnny,
and I have to have Gigi."

920
00:47:20,671 --> 00:47:23,841
- It's is it a 12-step?
- No, it's a 32-step program.

921
00:47:23,907 --> 00:47:25,075
- 12 won't cover it.
[they laugh]

922
00:47:25,175 --> 00:47:29,513
This thing is so big
that I can't even imagine.

923
00:47:35,752 --> 00:47:39,156
I met Ty through
my hairdresser,

924
00:47:39,223 --> 00:47:40,891
who offered to
make an introduction

925
00:47:40,991 --> 00:47:43,193
and asked me to
bring in my resume

926
00:47:43,260 --> 00:47:47,064
and he faxed over my resume
to Ty to take a look at.

927
00:47:47,164 --> 00:47:49,566
[phone chimes]

928
00:47:49,666 --> 00:47:53,237
Hundreds of companies
wanted to dance with us.

929
00:47:53,337 --> 00:47:55,539
Virtually every category
that you can imagine,

930
00:47:55,606 --> 00:47:58,675
from fragrance
to children's apparel

931
00:47:58,742 --> 00:48:00,744
to Beanie Baby backpacks.

932
00:48:00,844 --> 00:48:02,112
[phone chimes]

933
00:48:02,212 --> 00:48:05,449
Steven Spielberg's office
called regularly.

934
00:48:05,549 --> 00:48:09,119
They wanted Beanie Babies
for their movies. [chuckles]

935
00:48:09,219 --> 00:48:11,221
[phone chimes]

936
00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:16,760
Virtually none.

937
00:48:19,062 --> 00:48:21,298
Ty was a very smart man.

938
00:48:21,398 --> 00:48:26,803
He understands that the greater
you diffuse your product,

939
00:48:26,904 --> 00:48:28,906
the less you can control it.

940
00:48:30,407 --> 00:48:31,875
They chase me around all day,
looking around my cart.

941
00:48:31,942 --> 00:48:34,144
I'll come out the back
of the store

942
00:48:34,244 --> 00:48:35,379
and there'll be five people
waiting on me.

943
00:48:35,445 --> 00:48:38,548
And they'll just smile,
I know what they want.

944
00:48:39,950 --> 00:48:44,421
People were following
UPS trucks all over the suburbs,

945
00:48:44,488 --> 00:48:46,924
from one Hallmark store
to another.

946
00:48:46,990 --> 00:48:49,226
It was obvious
where it was going

947
00:48:49,293 --> 00:48:54,464
and it was kind of obvious
how to throw fuel on it.

948
00:48:54,564 --> 00:48:55,632
[roaring in distance]

949
00:48:55,732 --> 00:48:57,100
- Dinosaur?
- Nope. Stomach. I'm starving.

950
00:48:57,167 --> 00:49:00,337
- Hey, let's get a Happy Meal.
- Cool.

951
00:49:00,437 --> 00:49:03,840
[Joni] In the 1990s,
a Happy Meal was a staple

952
00:49:03,941 --> 00:49:04,942
in every mom's life.

953
00:49:05,008 --> 00:49:08,345
A Happy Meal
made your kid happy.

954
00:49:08,445 --> 00:49:10,847
The first license that was
secured was a license

955
00:49:10,948 --> 00:49:14,685
with McDonald's Corporation
for a line of Teenie Beanies.

956
00:49:14,785 --> 00:49:16,920
- First I got Pinky.
- Then I got Pinky!

957
00:49:16,987 --> 00:49:19,122
I got Pinky And Patti
in the same week!

958
00:49:19,189 --> 00:49:20,791
What, did Vanessa
catch something?

959
00:49:20,857 --> 00:49:22,426
Teenie Beanie Baby-itis.

960
00:49:22,492 --> 00:49:24,027
[voiceover] Now at McDonald's,

961
00:49:24,127 --> 00:49:26,129
your kids can get Teenie Beanie
Babies in a Happy Meal.

962
00:49:26,196 --> 00:49:29,333
Real Ty Beanie Babies
in a mini size.

963
00:49:29,433 --> 00:49:31,501
[singer]  Teeny Beanies.

964
00:49:32,936 --> 00:49:35,038
[reporter] The Beanie Babies
officially went out

965
00:49:35,138 --> 00:49:36,540
with Happy Meals
at 10:30 this morning

966
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,376
and that's when
the onslaught began.

967
00:49:39,476 --> 00:49:41,311
Can I get the purple
Beanie Baby?

968
00:49:41,378 --> 00:49:43,480
She's already got the pink one.

969
00:49:49,519 --> 00:49:51,455
[reporter] McDonald's is selling
out in Chicago

970
00:49:51,521 --> 00:49:52,990
and throughout the Midwest.

971
00:49:53,056 --> 00:49:56,193
Parts of New York City
and Connecticut and the South.

972
00:49:56,293 --> 00:49:59,329
Maybe if there was a few people
left that hadn't heard

973
00:49:59,396 --> 00:50:01,064
of Beanie Babies or Ty Inc.,

974
00:50:01,164 --> 00:50:03,233
this was the way to make sure
everybody knew.

975
00:50:03,333 --> 00:50:04,501
[reporter 2]
McDonald's thought the Babies

976
00:50:04,568 --> 00:50:08,739
would last five weeks -
they were gone in two.

977
00:50:08,839 --> 00:50:11,041
If you want one of these little
cuddly characters,

978
00:50:11,141 --> 00:50:12,075
you better
get to McDonald's fast.

979
00:50:12,175 --> 00:50:16,313
The kids say they have
to have them all.

980
00:50:16,380 --> 00:50:18,582
The little Teenie Beanie Babies,

981
00:50:18,682 --> 00:50:22,886
that became a whole
collecting frenzy too.

982
00:50:22,986 --> 00:50:25,422
I got the cat. Two to go.

983
00:50:25,522 --> 00:50:29,159
[woman] The woman in front of
me, they had turned over a card

984
00:50:29,226 --> 00:50:30,727
that they were out of something

985
00:50:30,827 --> 00:50:33,563
and she must've been waiting
for it and she went nuts.

986
00:50:33,663 --> 00:50:36,500
Mom, I want this.

987
00:50:36,566 --> 00:50:38,902
I hate to admit
some of this stuff

988
00:50:39,002 --> 00:50:42,773
but I got a number of sets,
full sets of Teenie Beanies

989
00:50:42,873 --> 00:50:47,377
by no other way but going
through the drive-through.

990
00:50:47,444 --> 00:50:50,213
We would take all of the kids.

991
00:50:51,214 --> 00:50:52,282
And we would put them in line,

992
00:50:52,382 --> 00:50:54,217
"Here's $20.
Here's $20. Here's $20."

993
00:50:54,284 --> 00:50:56,720
Get in line, get a set
of the Teenie Beanies

994
00:50:56,787 --> 00:50:58,055
and out they would go.

995
00:50:58,121 --> 00:51:00,390
And we would go
to a different store,

996
00:51:00,457 --> 00:51:02,125
and we put them in line again.

997
00:51:02,225 --> 00:51:04,094
[reporter] McDonald's says it
has ordered more Beanie Babies

998
00:51:04,194 --> 00:51:08,198
than it did
for its last largest promotion.

999
00:51:08,265 --> 00:51:10,400
[reporter 2]
Sets of the 12 new Beanies

1000
00:51:10,467 --> 00:51:12,469
are already being
auctioned on eBay

1001
00:51:12,569 --> 00:51:14,538
for twice the retail price.

1002
00:51:14,604 --> 00:51:17,374
I figured $125
would be reasonable

1003
00:51:17,441 --> 00:51:19,543
for a set of 10 Teenie Beanies

1004
00:51:19,609 --> 00:51:22,913
and I sold 28 sets
the first weekend.

1005
00:51:24,581 --> 00:51:25,816
[man] The happiest meal of all

1006
00:51:25,916 --> 00:51:28,118
is the profits
the company is reeling in.

1007
00:51:28,218 --> 00:51:29,553
[woman] McDonald's expects

1008
00:51:29,619 --> 00:51:32,823
to double its usual
sales of Happy Meals.

1009
00:51:32,923 --> 00:51:34,391
Beanie Baby this,
Beanie Baby...

1010
00:51:34,458 --> 00:51:36,426
And they're not
only ordering two or three,

1011
00:51:36,493 --> 00:51:38,562
they're ordering
like 10, 15, 20.

1012
00:51:40,263 --> 00:51:41,665
This is our fourth McDonald's.

1013
00:51:41,765 --> 00:51:44,734
I was only buying food in
order to get Beanie Babies.

1014
00:51:44,801 --> 00:51:46,970
She doesn't want to eat all
these Happy Meals.

1015
00:51:47,070 --> 00:51:48,672
Who could? Who would?

1016
00:51:48,772 --> 00:51:51,441
It was, like, ridiculous.
People were throwing away food.

1017
00:51:51,508 --> 00:51:53,844
That part I didn't like.

1018
00:51:53,944 --> 00:51:56,480
[helicopter whirrs]

1019
00:51:56,580 --> 00:52:00,650
[man] Oh, my God. A guy's
stopping. This is unbelievable.

1020
00:52:00,750 --> 00:52:03,854
[reporter] Several hundred
little international bears

1021
00:52:03,954 --> 00:52:05,288
headed to McDonald's

1022
00:52:05,355 --> 00:52:08,425
dumped accidentally
in the middle of five lanes

1023
00:52:08,492 --> 00:52:09,626
of 285 rush-hour traffic.

1024
00:52:09,693 --> 00:52:13,330
The Golden Arches' loss
was someone's gain.

1025
00:52:13,430 --> 00:52:14,865
And it wasn't pretty.

1026
00:52:14,965 --> 00:52:19,469
[man] There it is! There it is!
Oh, my God. Look at this.

1027
00:52:19,536 --> 00:52:20,937
They're rolling on this, right?

1028
00:52:21,004 --> 00:52:23,006
[woman] Would you ask your mom
to pull over?

1029
00:52:23,106 --> 00:52:26,710
- Yeah.
- You think she would?

1030
00:52:26,810 --> 00:52:30,347
They're crazy. Come on, folks.
It's just Beanie Babies.

1031
00:52:31,515 --> 00:52:35,185
Greed. It is the dark side
of anything.

1032
00:52:35,285 --> 00:52:37,621
[reporter] One store in Royal
Oak, Michigan

1033
00:52:37,687 --> 00:52:38,989
ran out in just two hours,

1034
00:52:39,055 --> 00:52:41,892
a shipment in Wisconsin
was hijacked by thieves.

1035
00:52:41,992 --> 00:52:43,894
[man] Beanie Babies
are becoming so valuable,

1036
00:52:43,994 --> 00:52:46,563
they're attracting
the criminal element now.

1037
00:52:46,663 --> 00:52:48,165
Beanie burglars, if you will.

1038
00:52:48,231 --> 00:52:50,534
That's who investigators say
broke into a home

1039
00:52:50,634 --> 00:52:55,639
here in Pasco County and stole
a family's entire collection.

1040
00:52:55,705 --> 00:52:58,808
Its felony theft, $300,000
worth of Beanie Babies

1041
00:52:58,875 --> 00:53:00,310
were taken.

1042
00:53:01,311 --> 00:53:02,579
At tradeshows, people knew

1043
00:53:02,679 --> 00:53:05,582
that I would have these rare
Beanie Babies.

1044
00:53:05,682 --> 00:53:10,654
They would tried stealing them,
right out of the little cage.

1045
00:53:10,720 --> 00:53:12,756
And then I thought,
"Oh, my God,

1046
00:53:12,856 --> 00:53:15,358
"I've gotta hire
off-duty policemen

1047
00:53:15,425 --> 00:53:17,994
"to stand by my table."

1048
00:53:18,061 --> 00:53:19,596
We had a full transport truck

1049
00:53:19,696 --> 00:53:22,432
and the next morning, we had
the shipping company call us

1050
00:53:22,532 --> 00:53:24,935
and say, "We went to pick
up the truck last night,

1051
00:53:25,035 --> 00:53:26,236
"but it wasn't there."

1052
00:53:26,336 --> 00:53:30,106
And I said,
"I don't know where it is."

1053
00:53:30,207 --> 00:53:32,108
The police department views
this matter very seriously.

1054
00:53:32,209 --> 00:53:34,611
Just as seriously
as we would

1055
00:53:34,711 --> 00:53:37,948
if it involved the disappearance
of money, drugs or weapons.

1056
00:53:38,048 --> 00:53:39,015
Well, they found the truck the
next day,

1057
00:53:39,082 --> 00:53:40,450
but it was completely empty

1058
00:53:40,550 --> 00:53:43,520
and it had about $500,000 worth
of product on it.

1059
00:53:43,587 --> 00:53:46,389
That was the point probably
in time where I went,

1060
00:53:46,456 --> 00:53:48,959
"Well, this is really,
really out of control.

1061
00:53:49,059 --> 00:53:51,795
I mean, there were so many
scams going on

1062
00:53:51,895 --> 00:53:54,364
it was unbelievable.

1063
00:53:54,431 --> 00:53:55,565
We had employees who were

1064
00:53:55,632 --> 00:53:59,703
getting bribed
to put orders through.

1065
00:53:59,769 --> 00:54:02,939
We even had employees walking
out of the warehouse

1066
00:54:03,039 --> 00:54:04,374
with them in their shoes.

1067
00:54:04,441 --> 00:54:06,876
They are putting them
in their pants,

1068
00:54:06,943 --> 00:54:08,144
they were putting them
in their shirts.

1069
00:54:08,245 --> 00:54:11,114
One woman, who was very sweet,

1070
00:54:11,214 --> 00:54:14,651
she was an A-cup,
and she leaves in a double-D.

1071
00:54:14,751 --> 00:54:17,587
It was bad.
You know, it was bad.

1072
00:54:17,654 --> 00:54:19,756
[reporter] A security guard
making the rounds

1073
00:54:19,823 --> 00:54:22,425
was surprised by two men
who jumped him from behind,

1074
00:54:22,492 --> 00:54:24,661
and attacked
with a sledgehammer.

1075
00:54:24,761 --> 00:54:27,163
This is pretty much
the worst I've seen

1076
00:54:27,264 --> 00:54:31,001
as far as for a stuffed animal
or a toy for a child.

1077
00:54:32,936 --> 00:54:35,472
[reporter] Beanie Babies are
more than just a passion -

1078
00:54:35,572 --> 00:54:36,840
for Ty Warner,
these beanbag collectibles

1079
00:54:36,940 --> 00:54:41,011
have turned the company into
a billion-dollar business.

1080
00:54:41,111 --> 00:54:43,647
[man] Sales of Beanie Babies
skyrocketed

1081
00:54:43,747 --> 00:54:47,284
from a reported $215 million
worth last year

1082
00:54:47,350 --> 00:54:51,755
to an estimated
$2.5 billion this year.

1083
00:54:53,323 --> 00:54:55,792
There was a sales meeting
we had where he had announced,

1084
00:54:55,859 --> 00:54:58,361
"I have never been in a room
with so many millionaires,"

1085
00:54:58,461 --> 00:54:59,863
or something to that effect.

1086
00:54:59,963 --> 00:55:01,965
And we had our whole
management team there.

1087
00:55:02,032 --> 00:55:05,468
None of the management team
was compensated like that.

1088
00:55:05,535 --> 00:55:06,836
The reps were obviously...

1089
00:55:06,936 --> 00:55:09,372
They get a percentage
of the commissions

1090
00:55:09,472 --> 00:55:13,209
and they were
making very, very big money.

1091
00:55:13,310 --> 00:55:15,278
And it was one of those things,

1092
00:55:15,345 --> 00:55:17,681
all the management team
sort of, like...

1093
00:55:17,781 --> 00:55:20,617
..bit their tongue and that's
where it sort of hits you.

1094
00:55:22,552 --> 00:55:25,522
[woman] The first year
he became successful,

1095
00:55:25,622 --> 00:55:32,729
he gave all his employees
their annual salary as a bonus.

1096
00:55:32,829 --> 00:55:34,631
And then the following year,

1097
00:55:34,698 --> 00:55:37,067
he gave them all
a Billionaire Bear,

1098
00:55:37,167 --> 00:55:44,841
that cost him maybe $0.35 to
make, and that was their bonus.

1099
00:55:44,908 --> 00:55:46,376
[reporter] Billionaire Bears,

1100
00:55:46,476 --> 00:55:47,911
here's a picture
of one of them,

1101
00:55:48,011 --> 00:55:50,880
it's given by Ty,
there's 475 of these made,

1102
00:55:50,980 --> 00:55:55,085
signed, and numbered,
to his employees.

1103
00:55:55,185 --> 00:55:57,420
The warehouse employees were
mostly immigrants,

1104
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:01,424
a lot of them
didn't speak English.

1105
00:56:04,761 --> 00:56:07,430
A lot of the employees
wanted the money.

1106
00:56:07,530 --> 00:56:09,899
Because if the bear sold
for $6,000,

1107
00:56:09,999 --> 00:56:13,770
that's a lot of money,
they could go and buy furniture

1108
00:56:13,870 --> 00:56:17,907
or appliances or put
a down-payment on a car.

1109
00:56:18,007 --> 00:56:19,943
He would number each Beanie Baby

1110
00:56:20,043 --> 00:56:22,278
so they could tell
which employee

1111
00:56:22,379 --> 00:56:23,446
had which Billionaire Bear.

1112
00:56:23,546 --> 00:56:26,716
So they would come to me
to sell them

1113
00:56:26,783 --> 00:56:28,852
and I would put a range of
numbers on eBay,

1114
00:56:28,918 --> 00:56:30,553
so that they wouldn't know,

1115
00:56:30,620 --> 00:56:34,124
Ty wouldn't know who sold
their bear on eBay.

1116
00:56:34,224 --> 00:56:37,360
[she types]

1117
00:56:39,896 --> 00:56:41,030
He had a number of people

1118
00:56:41,097 --> 00:56:45,301
that would check
on everything on eBay

1119
00:56:45,402 --> 00:56:48,238
that people did.
That was their job,

1120
00:56:48,304 --> 00:56:52,142
to sit there
and check auctions.

1121
00:56:52,242 --> 00:56:57,380
I know of several occasions
where they stopped my auctions.

1122
00:57:02,385 --> 00:57:04,621
They thought I was
and I never did.

1123
00:57:04,721 --> 00:57:06,489
But they thought about
that with everyone.

1124
00:57:06,589 --> 00:57:09,993
They thought everybody
was corrupt except them.

1125
00:57:10,093 --> 00:57:13,329
And it turned out that they
were the corrupt ones.

1126
00:57:22,939 --> 00:57:25,275
As the company expanded and

1127
00:57:25,341 --> 00:57:28,144
there was additional management
being brought on,

1128
00:57:28,244 --> 00:57:30,180
not everyone had the same values

1129
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:32,949
and that, for me, was probably
the most challenging,

1130
00:57:33,016 --> 00:57:34,517
dealing with some people.

1131
00:57:34,617 --> 00:57:36,753
I just didn't agree with that
and that's what I told them.

1132
00:57:36,820 --> 00:57:38,021
I said, "The management team

1133
00:57:38,121 --> 00:57:42,158
"is different at this point
in time - I'm done."

1134
00:57:56,339 --> 00:57:59,209
At that point,
the impact of what we had done

1135
00:57:59,309 --> 00:58:00,543
was indisputable.

1136
00:58:00,643 --> 00:58:06,483
And what I wanted ultimately,
I wasn't able to get.

1137
00:58:06,549 --> 00:58:08,184
So we left.

1138
00:58:08,284 --> 00:58:09,886
And I later found out

1139
00:58:09,986 --> 00:58:12,555
that people within
the Board of Directors

1140
00:58:12,655 --> 00:58:17,560
did not really
understand the Internet

1141
00:58:17,660 --> 00:58:20,864
and thought it was a fad.

1142
00:58:24,167 --> 00:58:25,535
I was very hurt.

1143
00:58:25,635 --> 00:58:27,804
Even though I walked away and
it was me that walked away,

1144
00:58:27,871 --> 00:58:29,672
it was such a big part of
my life.

1145
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:32,475
Welcome to Ty Canada, guys.

1146
00:58:32,542 --> 00:58:33,409
- How you doing?
[boy] Good.

1147
00:58:33,510 --> 00:58:35,979
Ty started to ask
for things that

1148
00:58:36,045 --> 00:58:37,881
were completely out of the norm

1149
00:58:37,981 --> 00:58:40,250
from the relationship we'd had.

1150
00:58:40,350 --> 00:58:43,353
He asked me for my entire
customer list.

1151
00:58:43,419 --> 00:58:45,722
These are all Beanie Babies,
these are all Beanie Babies,

1152
00:58:45,822 --> 00:58:47,690
and these are all
Beanie Babies.

1153
00:58:47,757 --> 00:58:51,661
He asked for me to put my
building up as collateral

1154
00:58:51,728 --> 00:58:53,563
and I said,
"I can't do those things.

1155
00:58:53,663 --> 00:58:55,865
"I'm not going
to do those things."

1156
00:58:55,932 --> 00:58:58,701
And he said
"Well, I guess we're done."

1157
00:58:58,768 --> 00:59:00,904
And it was like that.

1158
00:59:02,705 --> 00:59:04,040
We ended up having to close

1159
00:59:04,107 --> 00:59:05,341
and I had to let
all of our staff go.

1160
00:59:05,408 --> 00:59:06,676
And having the bank come in

1161
00:59:06,743 --> 00:59:11,347
and sell off all of
the product that we had.

1162
00:59:11,414 --> 00:59:14,884
And yeah, that was probably the
closest I've ever come

1163
00:59:14,951 --> 00:59:16,719
to a nervous breakdown.

1164
00:59:21,090 --> 00:59:23,526
[woman] Everybody keeps going,
"How long can it last?"

1165
00:59:23,593 --> 00:59:24,928
And it's like, "Forever."

1166
00:59:25,028 --> 00:59:27,964
I don't see any end in sight
to Beanie Babies at all.

1167
00:59:28,064 --> 00:59:29,899
You know, people get
caught up in these crazes

1168
00:59:29,966 --> 00:59:32,302
and they think they're
going to go on forever.

1169
00:59:32,402 --> 00:59:33,636
This is here to stay.

1170
00:59:33,736 --> 00:59:34,971
I don't think the Beanie craze
will ever die.

1171
00:59:35,071 --> 00:59:38,975
People think prices will
continually rise to infinity.

1172
00:59:39,075 --> 00:59:40,443
This morning
we asked two people

1173
00:59:40,543 --> 00:59:42,278
with two very differing
opinions.

1174
00:59:42,378 --> 00:59:45,415
Mary Beth Sobolewski, also with
us this morning Harry Rinker.

1175
00:59:45,481 --> 00:59:48,818
I really was a handsome dude
when I was younger, wasn't I?

1176
00:59:48,918 --> 00:59:52,822
Mr Rinker, you call yourself -
your term - a beanie meanie.

1177
00:59:52,922 --> 00:59:54,324
Why?

1178
00:59:54,424 --> 00:59:55,925
Well, first of all,
yes, there's a secondary market,

1179
00:59:55,992 --> 00:59:57,260
but what you have to understand

1180
00:59:57,327 --> 00:59:58,461
about the Beanie Baby
secondary market

1181
00:59:58,561 --> 01:00:00,496
is it is highly speculative.

1182
01:00:00,597 --> 01:00:01,931
We have no guarantees

1183
01:00:01,998 --> 01:00:04,267
that the prices today will
be the prices tomorrow

1184
01:00:04,334 --> 01:00:06,836
and what goes up
is definitely gonna come down.

1185
01:00:06,936 --> 01:00:08,972
[Rinker] I was
the Beanie Meanie.

1186
01:00:09,072 --> 01:00:10,573
I would debate
with these people

1187
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:11,908
because they really
believed it.

1188
01:00:11,975 --> 01:00:14,677
Mary Beth, I know you want to
disagree with that.

1189
01:00:14,777 --> 01:00:16,679
You say that every time
a new one comes out,

1190
01:00:16,779 --> 01:00:18,081
an old one goes off the market,

1191
01:00:18,147 --> 01:00:20,416
they get bigger and better,
is that the case?

1192
01:00:20,483 --> 01:00:21,351
Absolutely.

1193
01:00:21,451 --> 01:00:22,685
I have to agree with Harry

1194
01:00:22,785 --> 01:00:24,454
that it is a very
speculative market.

1195
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:25,822
There's no doubt about it.

1196
01:00:25,922 --> 01:00:29,092
But any long-term investment
is speculative.

1197
01:00:29,158 --> 01:00:30,660
The problem is

1198
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:32,362
that when somebody
is trying to tout a market,

1199
01:00:32,462 --> 01:00:33,930
they tout the top end,

1200
01:00:33,997 --> 01:00:36,699
and don't ever ask, "What's
the condition of the market

1201
01:00:36,799 --> 01:00:38,368
"in the middle and low end?"

1202
01:00:38,468 --> 01:00:41,938
And if the bottom and the middle
of the market was weak,

1203
01:00:42,005 --> 01:00:44,207
that was a bad market
to be playing in.

1204
01:00:44,307 --> 01:00:48,444
[reporter] Six years after
Ty introduced Beanie Babies

1205
01:00:48,511 --> 01:00:50,446
and 253 versions later,

1206
01:00:50,513 --> 01:00:51,814
these small stuffed animals

1207
01:00:51,881 --> 01:00:54,183
are sagging on
the secondary market.

1208
01:00:54,283 --> 01:00:58,321
Three different guides show the
values of many retired beanies.

1209
01:00:58,388 --> 01:01:01,324
Those no longer made,
have dropped considerably.

1210
01:01:01,391 --> 01:01:04,627
What do you hope to do
with 400 Beanie Babies someday?

1211
01:01:04,694 --> 01:01:07,530
Give them to my kids
when they get old enough

1212
01:01:07,630 --> 01:01:08,898
to maybe one day,

1213
01:01:08,998 --> 01:01:10,867
it might send them through
college or something.

1214
01:01:10,967 --> 01:01:13,736
[Dave] At some point, there
comes a time

1215
01:01:13,836 --> 01:01:16,005
where somebody buys it
for a certain amount

1216
01:01:16,072 --> 01:01:18,074
and they can't
sell it for profit.

1217
01:01:18,174 --> 01:01:19,575
People say, "You know what?

1218
01:01:19,676 --> 01:01:21,477
"I don't want to buy
beanies anymore

1219
01:01:21,544 --> 01:01:22,979
"because I can't make a profit."

1220
01:01:23,046 --> 01:01:26,849
So then there's more supply
than there is demand.

1221
01:01:26,916 --> 01:01:31,587
And now the same dynamics
that fuelled the bubble,

1222
01:01:31,688 --> 01:01:32,855
they're in reverse,

1223
01:01:32,922 --> 01:01:35,591
and it can be a vicious cycle
to the downside.

1224
01:01:37,393 --> 01:01:38,761
Welcome back.

1225
01:01:38,861 --> 01:01:40,897
On special assignment tonight,
a close look at Beanie Babies.

1226
01:01:40,997 --> 01:01:44,534
Six years ago, these
tiny toys hit the stores

1227
01:01:44,600 --> 01:01:46,002
and sales now are sagging,

1228
01:01:46,069 --> 01:01:50,606
values are plunging,
and collectors are concerned.

1229
01:01:50,707 --> 01:01:53,710
[Mary Beth] All of a sudden,
there was this one month

1230
01:01:53,776 --> 01:01:56,879
when a couple started
to go down.

1231
01:01:58,748 --> 01:02:01,117
And then you notice
the next month,

1232
01:02:01,217 --> 01:02:02,285
more and more and more
went down.

1233
01:02:02,385 --> 01:02:05,955
And that was getting
a little frightening.

1234
01:02:06,055 --> 01:02:07,256
Don't you think a lot
of people out there

1235
01:02:07,356 --> 01:02:09,025
have been misled by
the worth of Beanie Babies?

1236
01:02:09,092 --> 01:02:13,296
[Mary Beth] The ones that have
been retired since 1998

1237
01:02:13,396 --> 01:02:16,399
have, in my opinion,
been overproduced.

1238
01:02:16,466 --> 01:02:17,967
Like the Princess Di bear,

1239
01:02:18,067 --> 01:02:22,305
people paid hundreds for her,
we were offered eight bucks.

1240
01:02:22,405 --> 01:02:24,907
[Mary Beth] It was no longer
the market of scarcity

1241
01:02:24,974 --> 01:02:27,777
and collecting
like a collector would,

1242
01:02:27,877 --> 01:02:29,045
it was flooded.

1243
01:02:29,112 --> 01:02:30,646
I think a lot of people got
caught up in it

1244
01:02:30,747 --> 01:02:32,648
without understanding
how it worked.

1245
01:02:32,749 --> 01:02:34,951
The secondary market couldn't

1246
01:02:35,051 --> 01:02:37,720
sustain an increase
in value and all of a sudden,

1247
01:02:37,787 --> 01:02:38,654
the Beanie Babies
that you thought

1248
01:02:38,755 --> 01:02:40,823
you could double your money on

1249
01:02:40,923 --> 01:02:43,292
were selling for less
than you paid for them.

1250
01:02:47,497 --> 01:02:51,300
Just when I felt that people
were getting tired of something,

1251
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:55,938
Ty would always do something
to create a frenzy.

1252
01:02:56,005 --> 01:02:57,673
[reporter] When Beanie Baby
collectors

1253
01:02:57,774 --> 01:02:59,442
logged on to their
favorite website,

1254
01:02:59,509 --> 01:03:00,443
this is what they found.

1255
01:03:00,510 --> 01:03:03,846
In the fall of 1999,

1256
01:03:03,946 --> 01:03:06,516
he came out with
the announcement

1257
01:03:06,616 --> 01:03:10,987
that there were
gonna be no more Beanie Babies.

1258
01:03:11,087 --> 01:03:12,922
A web posting by
the Ty Corporation

1259
01:03:12,989 --> 01:03:14,290
makes it very clear

1260
01:03:14,357 --> 01:03:16,959
that Beanie Babies will
be a thing of the past

1261
01:03:17,026 --> 01:03:18,361
come December 31.

1262
01:03:18,461 --> 01:03:21,197
Estimates are more than
a billion Beanies have sold,

1263
01:03:21,297 --> 01:03:25,201
and when inventory clears,
there will be no more.

1264
01:03:25,301 --> 01:03:26,669
That was the saddest day
of my life.

1265
01:03:26,769 --> 01:03:29,539
I thought, "Oh, my God,
this is...

1266
01:03:29,639 --> 01:03:32,608
"You can't take these little
Beanie Babies away."

1267
01:03:33,843 --> 01:03:35,344
December 31, the entire line

1268
01:03:35,444 --> 01:03:36,946
of Beanie Babies
will be retired.

1269
01:03:37,013 --> 01:03:41,551
No more Beanie Babies
created. No more.

1270
01:03:41,651 --> 01:03:43,653
I think it's very, very sad.

1271
01:03:43,719 --> 01:03:45,321
I think it's really bad.

1272
01:03:45,388 --> 01:03:46,689
Kinda sad.

1273
01:03:48,057 --> 01:03:50,660
I'm happy. I'm going to
get a lot of money now.

1274
01:03:50,726 --> 01:03:54,063
Everybody started emailing
and calling and acting crazy.

1275
01:03:54,163 --> 01:03:57,567
"Did you see this? Did you
see this on the news?

1276
01:03:57,667 --> 01:03:59,502
"Did you see this all over the
Internet?"

1277
01:03:59,569 --> 01:04:02,205
Retailers say this latest bit
of Beanie buzz

1278
01:04:02,305 --> 01:04:04,173
is moving merchandise.

1279
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:07,243
So yesterday, you sold 200
Beanie Babies in two hours.

1280
01:04:07,343 --> 01:04:08,911
At least. Yeah.

1281
01:04:09,011 --> 01:04:10,680
[reporter] This is all that's
left at the Gift Cottage

1282
01:04:10,746 --> 01:04:12,381
in south suburban Midlothian.

1283
01:04:12,481 --> 01:04:14,350
The phones were
nonstop ringing.

1284
01:04:14,417 --> 01:04:16,085
We had customers
every second of the day

1285
01:04:16,185 --> 01:04:18,888
trying to get any
Beanie Baby they could get.

1286
01:04:18,988 --> 01:04:22,024
He knew how to market
his beanies.

1287
01:04:22,091 --> 01:04:24,393
He knew how to get
interest from people.

1288
01:04:24,493 --> 01:04:26,429
He knew how to get those
emotions going

1289
01:04:26,529 --> 01:04:31,167
in order for us
to continue buying his beanies.

1290
01:04:31,234 --> 01:04:32,535
[woman] My prediction
is that there will be

1291
01:04:32,602 --> 01:04:35,838
some kind of Beanies, maybe
in a little different way,

1292
01:04:35,905 --> 01:04:37,039
for the new millennium,

1293
01:04:37,106 --> 01:04:38,908
maybe with a little
different look.

1294
01:04:39,008 --> 01:04:41,077
So guess what?

1295
01:04:41,177 --> 01:04:45,181
He comes up with this
'vote to save the Beanies'.

1296
01:04:45,248 --> 01:04:48,417
[reporter] Starting December 31,
Beanie Baby fanatics

1297
01:04:48,517 --> 01:04:50,219
can vote on Ty's website.

1298
01:04:50,286 --> 01:04:52,388
They announced on the website
that people are going to

1299
01:04:52,455 --> 01:04:53,623
get to vote now for 50 cents.

1300
01:04:53,723 --> 01:04:54,790
So you can vote.

1301
01:04:54,891 --> 01:04:56,459
I think it's going
to be phenomenal

1302
01:04:56,559 --> 01:04:58,594
and it's gonna be...you know,
this is PT Barnum time.

1303
01:04:58,694 --> 01:05:02,064
This is, you know, "There's
a sucker born every minute."

1304
01:05:05,268 --> 01:05:09,438
We're gonna see people
behaving in apocalyptic ways.

1305
01:05:09,538 --> 01:05:12,375
[reporter] Will computers
recognize the year 2000

1306
01:05:12,441 --> 01:05:16,045
or will they shut down
thinking is the year 1900?

1307
01:05:16,112 --> 01:05:18,881
Some believe
the feared Y2K bug

1308
01:05:18,948 --> 01:05:21,484
could temporarily knock out
power.

1309
01:05:21,584 --> 01:05:25,254
Shut down the water system
and cause panic in the streets.

1310
01:05:25,321 --> 01:05:28,724
The bottom line, no one can
really predict the future.

1311
01:05:28,791 --> 01:05:33,129
[crowd chants]
..five, four, three, two, one!

1312
01:05:33,229 --> 01:05:35,331
[crowd cheers]

1313
01:05:35,431 --> 01:05:41,771
[dial up internet connects]

1314
01:05:41,837 --> 01:05:46,275
[voice] You've got mail.

1315
01:05:48,277 --> 01:05:50,579
This week, drumroll please,
it was announced

1316
01:05:50,646 --> 01:05:53,449
that the toys will continue
to hit the stores.

1317
01:05:58,754 --> 01:06:02,658
Now some are wondering if this
wasn't just one big PR stunt.

1318
01:06:02,758 --> 01:06:03,993
What a wonderful way to find out

1319
01:06:04,093 --> 01:06:06,195
if there's a collectible
audience out there,

1320
01:06:06,295 --> 01:06:07,430
let people vote!

1321
01:06:07,496 --> 01:06:09,498
- I'm gonna...
- What about that Internet vote?

1322
01:06:09,598 --> 01:06:11,701
- It was so staged, wasn't it?
- Do you think?

1323
01:06:11,801 --> 01:06:14,670
[reporter] Collectors are taking
a wait-and-see attitude

1324
01:06:14,770 --> 01:06:16,105
towards the new toys.

1325
01:06:16,172 --> 01:06:22,345
Don't do it. Stay out of it.
It's worse than smoking.

1326
01:06:22,445 --> 01:06:26,382
We realized it was just
a gimmick to entice people

1327
01:06:26,482 --> 01:06:29,986
to possibly purchase
more of his Beanies.

1328
01:06:30,052 --> 01:06:32,288
I personally felt manipulated.

1329
01:06:32,355 --> 01:06:34,390
It's like, "Are you kidding?"

1330
01:06:34,490 --> 01:06:36,559
Why would you stop
a good thing?

1331
01:06:36,659 --> 01:06:39,228
It was too popular, too...

1332
01:06:39,328 --> 01:06:41,230
I think it was just
a big publicity stunt.

1333
01:06:41,330 --> 01:06:43,899
I think he just wanted to
create more demand.

1334
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:45,501
[reporter] Beanie insiders say

1335
01:06:45,568 --> 01:06:48,704
they're are little sceptical
about the company's motives.

1336
01:06:48,804 --> 01:06:50,239
[Mary Beth] What might have
looked like a great idea

1337
01:06:50,339 --> 01:06:54,076
because he was used to
retiring and creating,

1338
01:06:54,176 --> 01:06:58,547
all of a sudden, um, backfired.

1339
01:06:58,647 --> 01:07:01,083
I think it's time
to stop, myself.

1340
01:07:02,818 --> 01:07:05,354
I think a lot of the collectors,

1341
01:07:05,421 --> 01:07:09,692
they just sold their Beanies
and got out of the collection.

1342
01:07:19,435 --> 01:07:21,937
The people were disgusted
with all the money they'd lost,

1343
01:07:22,038 --> 01:07:24,373
they were just letting
them go for practically nothing.

1344
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:28,110
A lot of people that
had significant collections

1345
01:07:28,210 --> 01:07:29,545
were willing to discount it

1346
01:07:29,612 --> 01:07:31,781
if you bought a lot
of them at once.

1347
01:07:31,881 --> 01:07:34,283
All of the original Beanie Baby
sites were shutting down

1348
01:07:34,383 --> 01:07:37,053
and he started collecting
Beanie Babies

1349
01:07:37,119 --> 01:07:38,754
at just the right moment.

1350
01:07:38,854 --> 01:07:43,459
[man] We have about 22,000
Ty products.

1351
01:07:48,898 --> 01:07:51,133
Oh, boy. You hit me with
a question like that. Um...

1352
01:07:51,233 --> 01:07:54,136
I'd have to find
him but it's a lamb.

1353
01:07:56,405 --> 01:07:58,874
Yeah. There you go.
There's Sondra.

1354
01:08:01,077 --> 01:08:03,913
I'm gonna go with Ringo
the Raccoon

1355
01:08:03,979 --> 01:08:05,915
because there's something
about a raccoon's mask

1356
01:08:05,981 --> 01:08:08,384
that just reminds me of my dad

1357
01:08:08,451 --> 01:08:09,785
because I thought
it looked like him,

1358
01:08:09,885 --> 01:08:13,656
it reminded me of the little
dark circles under his eyes.

1359
01:08:13,756 --> 01:08:17,927
Anyway, it was
Ringo the Raccoon.

1360
01:08:18,627 --> 01:08:20,763
Wow.

1361
01:08:22,231 --> 01:08:24,633
It's not a commercial
collection,

1362
01:08:24,733 --> 01:08:29,505
it's a collection that we love
the items we're collecting.

1363
01:08:29,605 --> 01:08:32,007
Really have warm feelings
for a lot of them.

1364
01:08:32,108 --> 01:08:33,309
And when you have them around,

1365
01:08:33,409 --> 01:08:34,977
they kind of cheer you up,

1366
01:08:35,077 --> 01:08:36,612
and if you really get upset,

1367
01:08:36,679 --> 01:08:40,182
you can talk to them or yell
at them, they don't judge you.

1368
01:08:40,282 --> 01:08:42,585
He's never yelled
at any of them.

1369
01:08:42,651 --> 01:08:45,254
No. I don't want to hurt
their feelings.

1370
01:08:46,655 --> 01:08:48,090
[Rinker]
I don't have any problem

1371
01:08:48,157 --> 01:08:49,425
with Beanie Baby collectors

1372
01:08:49,492 --> 01:08:51,961
if they collect it
because they love it.

1373
01:08:52,027 --> 01:08:53,529
I'm contemptuous of people

1374
01:08:53,629 --> 01:08:56,532
who think that antiques and
collectibles are investments.

1375
01:08:56,632 --> 01:08:58,267
It's a gamble!

1376
01:08:58,334 --> 01:08:59,635
The media likes to talk about

1377
01:08:59,702 --> 01:09:01,203
the rise and fall
of the Beanie Babies.

1378
01:09:01,303 --> 01:09:03,873
And we kind of want
to refer to that

1379
01:09:03,973 --> 01:09:07,376
as the rise and fall of
the Beanie Baby gamblers.

1380
01:09:19,488 --> 01:09:25,027
[Mary Beth] The days of that
magazine took time and energy.

1381
01:09:25,127 --> 01:09:29,198
It did cost me a lot.

1382
01:09:30,733 --> 01:09:37,540
I hope my kids,
when they look back on it now,

1383
01:09:37,640 --> 01:09:43,746
don't feel like I didn't give
them what they deserved.

1384
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:47,316
So, um... [voice breaks]

1385
01:09:48,918 --> 01:09:53,656
I hope I gave them what
they needed during that time.

1386
01:09:57,259 --> 01:10:01,030
I'm sure for some people,
they collect their whole life.

1387
01:10:01,096 --> 01:10:04,433
For me, it's now in the past.

1388
01:10:04,533 --> 01:10:09,939
Now the Beanie Babies are in
a case. And life has gone on.

1389
01:10:22,918 --> 01:10:25,287
No. [chuckles]

1390
01:10:25,387 --> 01:10:27,456
Like I said before, it's more
like Beanie Baby bankruptcy.

1391
01:10:27,556 --> 01:10:34,296
[laughs] Because I had a lot
and I still have a lot.

1392
01:10:35,297 --> 01:10:36,899
It's been a long time,

1393
01:10:36,966 --> 01:10:40,202
we're talking
at least 25 years or so.

1394
01:10:40,269 --> 01:10:43,872
And I didn't sell
a lot of stuff.

1395
01:10:43,939 --> 01:10:45,641
I don't know
what would've happened

1396
01:10:45,741 --> 01:10:47,476
if I had sold them all
and made a lot of money then.

1397
01:10:47,576 --> 01:10:50,779
It would've made things
easier now, that's for sure.

1398
01:10:50,879 --> 01:10:53,449
Maybe I could've paid off the
house sooner, you know?

1399
01:10:53,549 --> 01:10:55,384
I don't know.

1400
01:10:57,586 --> 01:11:00,256
The only person that really
became a big millionaire

1401
01:11:00,322 --> 01:11:01,323
was Ty himself

1402
01:11:01,423 --> 01:11:04,493
because he ended up
getting so rich.

1403
01:11:04,593 --> 01:11:07,963
[reporter] The billionaire
creator of Beanie Babies

1404
01:11:08,063 --> 01:11:11,667
has been accused of hiding
as much as $107 million

1405
01:11:11,767 --> 01:11:16,071
in a Swiss bank account
to avoid paying taxes on it.

1406
01:11:21,410 --> 01:11:22,678
H. Ty Warner,

1407
01:11:22,778 --> 01:11:25,114
the man behind the lovable plush
toys popular in the '90s,

1408
01:11:25,180 --> 01:11:28,851
reportedly faces a stint in
prison for up to 57 months

1409
01:11:28,951 --> 01:11:32,688
when he's sentenced
on January 14 in Chicago.

1410
01:11:32,788 --> 01:11:35,357
[cameras click]

1411
01:11:35,457 --> 01:11:36,792
I didn't know much about it

1412
01:11:36,859 --> 01:11:38,193
other than what
I read in the paper

1413
01:11:38,294 --> 01:11:40,663
but I understand that he had
money in an offshore account

1414
01:11:40,763 --> 01:11:44,033
and was not paying taxes
on some of his profits.

1415
01:11:44,133 --> 01:11:46,201
[man] He admitted that he
set up an offshore bank account

1416
01:11:46,302 --> 01:11:50,172
in Switzerland
back in the 1990s.

1417
01:11:50,272 --> 01:11:51,874
[reporter] Warner said in court

1418
01:11:51,974 --> 01:11:54,043
his decision to evade taxes
was a bad one,

1419
01:11:54,143 --> 01:11:56,812
and he is begging a judge
not to put him behind bars

1420
01:11:56,879 --> 01:11:58,647
after admitting to tax evasion.

1421
01:11:58,714 --> 01:12:01,050
[Joni] I remember seeing the
pictures of him in court

1422
01:12:01,150 --> 01:12:03,052
and thinking, "Wow,
that's really too bad.

1423
01:12:03,152 --> 01:12:04,820
"I liked that guy."

1424
01:12:04,887 --> 01:12:07,723
[reporter] Warner pleaded guilty
to the accusation in court.

1425
01:12:07,823 --> 01:12:10,459
Now all that's left
is for a judge to decide

1426
01:12:10,526 --> 01:12:13,162
how Warner will
pay for his crimes.

1427
01:12:21,070 --> 01:12:22,371
[reporter 2] The judge
says a two-year probation

1428
01:12:22,471 --> 01:12:24,907
and community service sentence
is fair

1429
01:12:25,007 --> 01:12:27,676
given Mr Warner's
personal humiliation

1430
01:12:27,743 --> 01:12:29,578
and record of charitable works.

1431
01:12:29,678 --> 01:12:31,013
[reporter 3] The judge said

1432
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:33,248
that charity work
that Warner had done,

1433
01:12:33,349 --> 01:12:36,852
that justified no prison time.

1434
01:12:38,854 --> 01:12:41,757
I don't like the idea of people
avoiding paying their taxes.

1435
01:12:41,857 --> 01:12:46,495
I pay my taxes and
it's awfully hard for me.

1436
01:12:46,562 --> 01:12:47,863
But I do and I think

1437
01:12:47,930 --> 01:12:52,234
if you're going to be a
citizen in this country,

1438
01:12:52,334 --> 01:12:53,702
you should pay your taxes

1439
01:12:53,769 --> 01:12:54,937
because you having all
the good benefits out of it.

1440
01:12:55,037 --> 01:12:57,573
Pay your taxes.

1441
01:13:02,611 --> 01:13:04,179
This is the homepage.

1442
01:13:04,246 --> 01:13:05,614
You'll notice no pop-ups,

1443
01:13:05,714 --> 01:13:08,050
no advertising
we're not selling anything.

1444
01:13:08,117 --> 01:13:09,918
They show an introduction.

1445
01:13:10,018 --> 01:13:11,286
If you're just interested

1446
01:13:11,387 --> 01:13:12,721
in how many Beanie
Babies there were,

1447
01:13:12,788 --> 01:13:17,126
we show a complete list
of every Beanie Baby ever made.

1448
01:13:17,226 --> 01:13:20,262
If we keep this up, we're gonna
have to open a small museum.

1449
01:13:20,362 --> 01:13:21,897
A small museum would be fun.

1450
01:13:21,964 --> 01:13:23,866
It would give me something
to do when I retire.

1451
01:13:23,932 --> 01:13:27,136
It will be a job for Sondra.

1452
01:13:28,904 --> 01:13:31,073
The one that everyone
asks about probably

1453
01:13:31,140 --> 01:13:33,375
the most hit page in our site

1454
01:13:33,442 --> 01:13:36,979
is the Princess
Beanie Baby values.

1455
01:13:38,414 --> 01:13:39,581
So if you look
at the average price

1456
01:13:39,648 --> 01:13:43,051
for the most valuable
princess on the Internet

1457
01:13:43,118 --> 01:13:47,289
it's at $57, which is much
lower than people believe.

1458
01:13:47,389 --> 01:13:48,657
Hello, everyone.
I'm Colleen Ballinger.

1459
01:13:48,757 --> 01:13:51,927
And I don't think I have
ever been this excited

1460
01:13:51,994 --> 01:13:53,162
for a YouTube video.

1461
01:13:53,262 --> 01:13:55,664
You might notice behind me
a pile of Beanie Babies.

1462
01:13:55,764 --> 01:13:59,635
Hey, what is up, you guys? It's
me, @lovekayray.

1463
01:13:59,735 --> 01:14:03,639
And today we are valuing
and selling our Beanie babies.

1464
01:14:07,643 --> 01:14:12,748
This Beanie Baby is worth $300.
That is insane.

1465
01:14:12,815 --> 01:14:17,186
I just scored four bins
of Beanie Babies

1466
01:14:17,286 --> 01:14:19,087
for 20 bucks total.

1467
01:14:19,154 --> 01:14:20,956
This guy's only worth about
seven bucks,

1468
01:14:21,023 --> 01:14:22,357
he's worth about seven bucks,

1469
01:14:22,458 --> 01:14:25,027
this guy is actually
worth about nine bucks.

1470
01:14:25,127 --> 01:14:26,462
Now, that doesn't
seem like a lot

1471
01:14:26,528 --> 01:14:28,464
but think about it,
the three guys right here

1472
01:14:28,530 --> 01:14:32,768
after shipping and fees,
I made all my money back.

1473
01:14:32,835 --> 01:14:34,703
I'm going on record,
it may not be true,

1474
01:14:34,803 --> 01:14:39,641
to say that I have the
world's largest collection

1475
01:14:39,708 --> 01:14:41,143
of Beanie Babies.

1476
01:14:41,210 --> 01:14:45,314
Elvis people, don't you want
the Elvis edition Beanie Baby?

1477
01:14:45,380 --> 01:14:48,150
That's got to be
a collector's item.

1478
01:14:48,217 --> 01:14:51,687
Somebody wants this thing.
'Cause I don't.

1479
01:14:51,787 --> 01:14:53,322
I want the money.

1480
01:14:56,825 --> 01:15:01,864
My mom started collecting
Beanie Babies around 1997.

1481
01:15:03,398 --> 01:15:09,338
For her, to collect this many
Beanie Babies, it took years.

1482
01:15:09,404 --> 01:15:10,739
I would tell her as a kid,

1483
01:15:10,839 --> 01:15:11,807
I think this could be
worth something one day

1484
01:15:11,874 --> 01:15:14,510
and she just kind of
held onto them.

1485
01:15:16,011 --> 01:15:17,846
I've never sold
a single Beanie Baby.

1486
01:15:17,913 --> 01:15:21,650
Not one.
I've just held onto them.

1487
01:15:21,717 --> 01:15:24,219
The collection themselves
and the connection to my mom

1488
01:15:24,319 --> 01:15:27,422
is the more intrinsic value
of them, I would say.

1489
01:15:27,523 --> 01:15:33,695
But there's a price.
I have my number.

1490
01:15:33,762 --> 01:15:36,064
I'll reserve what that is,
but I have my number.

1491
01:15:36,164 --> 01:15:37,366
But if it comes about

1492
01:15:37,432 --> 01:15:40,435
then the Beanie Baby collection
might not be here.

1493
01:15:40,536 --> 01:15:42,437
[gasps]

1494
01:15:46,008 --> 01:15:48,010
Mom, get in here. Wait.

1495
01:15:48,076 --> 01:15:50,546
[woman] Do you have something?
We might. Hold on.

1496
01:15:50,612 --> 01:15:52,180
I haven't even
looked for them yet

1497
01:15:52,247 --> 01:15:53,849
but one of the things it
says these international bears,

1498
01:15:53,916 --> 01:15:56,919
but it says if it's in
its original packaging.

1499
01:15:57,019 --> 01:15:59,788
Mom, why did you take it out
of the package?

1500
01:15:59,888 --> 01:16:01,123
Oh, my gosh.

1501
01:16:01,223 --> 01:16:03,058
I was getting tweets from fans
saying, "Oh, my gosh.

1502
01:16:03,125 --> 01:16:05,394
"I just looked up this
Beanie Baby and I have it.

1503
01:16:05,460 --> 01:16:07,796
"And it has this error on it."

1504
01:16:07,896 --> 01:16:11,266
So it kind of like started
everyone looking up

1505
01:16:11,366 --> 01:16:13,769
which Beanies they had to see
if they were worth anything.

1506
01:16:13,869 --> 01:16:17,406
Here's the Canada one
and it's not in the box.

1507
01:16:17,472 --> 01:16:18,473
Mom!

1508
01:16:18,574 --> 01:16:20,709
The YouTube video,
it was really fun.

1509
01:16:20,776 --> 01:16:22,377
We're gonna be rich!

1510
01:16:22,444 --> 01:16:25,480
And a great night for my mom
and I to have together.

1511
01:16:25,581 --> 01:16:26,915
Where's the camera?

1512
01:16:26,982 --> 01:16:28,817
- It's in the ring light.
- Oh.

1513
01:16:28,917 --> 01:16:30,652
Some of my best memories
from that time

1514
01:16:30,752 --> 01:16:34,256
were finding Beanie Babies and
collecting them with my mother.

1515
01:16:34,323 --> 01:16:37,326
I remember the feeling of it,
that's so bizarre.

1516
01:16:37,426 --> 01:16:38,660
Finding Beanie Babies

1517
01:16:38,760 --> 01:16:40,495
was one of the only things I
ever did with her

1518
01:16:40,596 --> 01:16:42,464
during that time of my life
that was special just for us.

1519
01:16:42,564 --> 01:16:45,167
This one's selling for $18.

1520
01:16:45,267 --> 01:16:47,336
I still feel like you could
sell them for a lot.

1521
01:16:47,436 --> 01:16:48,837
But that means part of your
childhood would go away.

1522
01:16:48,937 --> 01:16:51,573
It's, like, another bonding
moment for us, Mom.

1523
01:16:51,640 --> 01:16:54,843
We get to go through
this all again.

1524
01:16:54,943 --> 01:16:56,445
If another
beanie craze happened,

1525
01:16:56,511 --> 01:16:58,780
maybe my collection
would be worth something.

1526
01:16:58,847 --> 01:17:03,418
So I'm crossing my fingers
that another beanie craze

1527
01:17:03,485 --> 01:17:07,189
comes about 'cause I will make
so much money...

1528
01:17:07,289 --> 01:17:09,291
Probably not.

1529
01:17:10,459 --> 01:17:12,361
Now what's happening
with the market

1530
01:17:12,461 --> 01:17:15,030
is it's the grandchildren
coming around,

1531
01:17:15,130 --> 01:17:19,601
finding these tubs that
their grandparents left them,

1532
01:17:19,668 --> 01:17:21,870
revisiting this phenomenon.

1533
01:17:21,970 --> 01:17:25,140
I get them every day or a couple
of times during the day,

1534
01:17:25,207 --> 01:17:27,876
UPS automatically
sends me an email.

1535
01:17:32,047 --> 01:17:33,615
They want to make
sure they're authentic

1536
01:17:33,682 --> 01:17:36,652
and I think because
they're selling them on eBay.

1537
01:17:38,153 --> 01:17:40,455
No, because I love
Beanie Babies. [laughs]

1538
01:17:40,522 --> 01:17:43,058
I don't get sick of it.

1539
01:17:44,493 --> 01:17:46,862
I charge, like, $25,

1540
01:17:46,962 --> 01:17:49,031
I bought display cases,

1541
01:17:49,131 --> 01:17:53,235
I got tamper-evident tape,
certificates.

1542
01:17:53,335 --> 01:17:56,738
This is the one I write all
the details of the Beanie Baby.

1543
01:17:56,838 --> 01:18:00,909
The generation,
the authentication number,

1544
01:18:01,009 --> 01:18:07,482
which would be...
number 125,878.

1545
01:18:10,886 --> 01:18:14,256
125,877.

1546
01:18:15,090 --> 01:18:15,757
Isn't that amazing?

1547
01:18:18,593 --> 01:18:22,597
[chuckles] It even shocks me.

1548
01:18:24,766 --> 01:18:26,068
Tape it on there.

1549
01:18:27,169 --> 01:18:28,437
And that's ready to go.

1550
01:18:30,839 --> 01:18:33,742
You know, a Beanie Baby
is just a thing.

1551
01:18:33,842 --> 01:18:34,776
What makes
the Beanie Baby come alive

1552
01:18:34,876 --> 01:18:37,212
is the stories
associated with it.

1553
01:18:37,279 --> 01:18:38,380
Who made it? How was it made?

1554
01:18:38,447 --> 01:18:40,949
Why was it collected?
How was it marketed?

1555
01:18:41,049 --> 01:18:44,086
And what does it say about
the people the collected them?

1556
01:18:45,554 --> 01:18:47,689
[Becky] You know, sometimes
you reflect on it,

1557
01:18:47,756 --> 01:18:50,392
but you always go back
to the beginning.

1558
01:18:51,960 --> 01:18:54,896
Nobody really knows where
all this started.

1559
01:18:54,963 --> 01:18:56,631
But we do.

1560
01:18:56,732 --> 01:18:59,634
It was just
a little happy family.

1561
01:18:59,735 --> 01:19:01,603
And that's what's most
important to me

1562
01:19:01,703 --> 01:19:06,108
is the ones that I started out
with know exactly what we did.

1563
01:19:06,208 --> 01:19:11,146
Beanie Babies gave me first of
all a connection with my kids.

1564
01:19:11,246 --> 01:19:13,548
Especially in the beginning.

1565
01:19:13,615 --> 01:19:18,987
Of course, it brought
financial...um, success.

1566
01:19:19,087 --> 01:19:20,789
But if you're the
lucky owner of this,

1567
01:19:20,889 --> 01:19:21,823
this goes for about $4000.

1568
01:19:21,923 --> 01:19:25,794
It brought me
a lot of craziness.

1569
01:19:25,894 --> 01:19:29,097
But it brought
a lot of good things.

1570
01:19:31,166 --> 01:19:34,169
25 years, and
it just keeps going

1571
01:19:34,269 --> 01:19:36,304
and it happened by accident.

1572
01:19:38,673 --> 01:19:42,177
I do. Because I love them.