SQUINKIES ARE BACK!

 Blip Toys Brings Back the OG Micro Collectible Toy for a New Generation

The 2010 mega-hit and TOTY-award winning Squinkies are back - and squishier than ever!

Squinkies are super squishy, micro collectible characters that are packed in their own tiny, plastic capsules, ready for kids and collectors to open and s-q-u-i-s-h!

The resurgence of micro toys and popularity of nostalgic toys have been two hot topics in the industry thanks to collectors and social media. So Blip Toys’ owners Bill Nichols and Peter Cmiel thought there was no time like the present to bring the original unboxing and first micro collectible toy back.

“We recognized that consumers were collecting small, everyday branded items and then opening them on TikTok,” says Cmiel. What the creative team at Blip didn’t see though were the collecting of small, whimsical characters. “We knew the time was right to bring Squinkies back!” said Cmiel.

When first launched, dozens of different characters hit store shelves – from fanciful dogs and cats to exotic sea creatures and zoo animals! Each Squinkie was also ranked on a scale from Common to Rare to Ultra Rare, enticing consumers to seek out the rarest of the rare Squinkies. Translation: an instant collector with every purchase!

Squinkies came in collector packs – some in transparent bubbles so you could see them in store, and a few in a dark colored capsule that hid the contents – all designed to set the stage for the element of surprise unboxing.

Blip was one of the first toymakers to capitalize on this concept of consumers purchasing “surprise” or “blind” items willingly, with the hopes of collecting figures they haven’t gotten before or even the rare ones!

“Back in the beginning, along with the trend of small, collectible toys, we also saw the rise in popularity of gumball machine capsule toys,” says Nichols. So,they married the two trends together - developing the Squinkies Cupcake Surprize Bake Shop. The original playset let kids place a gold coin into a special slot to release a Squinkie surprise capsule - akin to the fun of a gumball machine!!

“We really captured lightning in a bottle when we created Squinkies! It felt like they literally blew up overnight,” says Nichols.

And they certainly did. Squinkies was a global phenomenon.  The craze even netted Blip Toys their first TOTY in 2011 in the “Girl Toy of the Year” category.

Soon enough almost every popular character was a Squinkie, with Barbie, Hello Kitty, Hot Wheels, Spongebob Squarepants and WWE all getting the Squinkies treatment - just to name a few.

To date, over 500 million Squinkies have been sold in over 2,000 different styles and in over 100 different countries since their launch. And Blip Toys is poised to do it all over again!

THEY’RE BACK FOR A NEW GROUP OF FANS AND COLLECTORS!

This month, they launched the two 2010 OG Squinkies sets - the Squinkies Originals Collector Pack and the Cupcake Surprize Bake Shop - on Amazon.  Early response to the relaunch is extremely positive and sales reads are very strong already.

New fans of the brand can look forward to Squinkies Wave One that includes 12 adorable, colorful and cute hyper-stylized friends and animal figures, with 72 in all to collect. Styles include squirrels, rabbits, zebras, seahorses and dozens of others!

Designed to look like a fanciful cupcake, when open the Cupcake Surprize Bake Shop playset reveals an adorable bake shop for all Squinkies to enjoy.  This playset transforms from a fun vending machine dispenser to a themed playhouse perfect to house all of the Squinkies.

“Today, kids still love the gumball machine concept, the surprise element of seeing which character ‘rolls’ out of the machine’ and the ever-popular bake shop theme, so we just had to bring the original back,” says Nichols.

“We loved our Squinkies journey, and we’re super pumped not only for a new generation of kids to enjoy them, but also for the Gen Z collectors who played with them as kids not so long ago,” says Nichols. “We’re excited for what’s to come!”