History Toys / BeanieBabies

** Beanie Boos, plush dolls which are more firmly stuffed and have bigger heads and glittery eyes as well as bolder colors. Initially a spinoff of Beanie Babies, Beanie Boos eventually overtook the Babies, becoming Ty's main toy line. Beanie Boo design tropes (such as larger heads and sparkly eyes) bled their way into regular Beanie Babies as well.

** Beanie Ballz, which were, well, ball-shaped plushies stuffed with beans. They were succeeded by the similar, slightly-smaller Pluffies.

** Beanie Kids and Beanie Boppers were more conventional plush dolls of kids. They also had extra clothing known as Ty Gear that could be purchased individual.

* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Many of the early Beanies had typos in their poems. Perhaps one of the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} is "moose" somehow becoming "'''''rn'''''oose" on Chocolate's poem. A list is available [[http://aboutbeanies.com/Tag_Errors.shtml here]]. Some are so obvious that they seem deliberate, just to drive up the price and make one type seem "rarer" just because its poem's misspelled or has a different line.

** The first Ty-dyed bear was originally named [[Music/TheGratefulDead Garcia]] before being renamed Peace due to copyright issues.

** According to the poem on the inside of the tag, Mel the koala is supposedly named after Creator/MelGibson.

** Pillow Pals, a large, stuffed plush toy line intended for toddlers. Many of them were {{expy}}s of Beanie Baby designs. In 2001 they were replaced by Baby Ty, which are made of a softer fabric.

** Ty Girlz, which are... well, basically plush Bratz dolls, and had their own online world a la ''VideoGame/{{Webkinz}}''.

* AerithAndBob: Most of the names are very cartoonish, but there are some with more realistic names such as Erin or Scottie.

* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Zig-zagged. Some are realistically colored and designed; others are more cartoonish and less realistically colored.

* DoofyDodo: Averted with Dinky the Dodo Bird, who isn't portrayed as dumb or goofy at all. Instead, their poem emphasizes their small stature.

** Doby the Doberman Pinscher may look more like a Rottweiler to many folks, due to him having the latter breed's "floppy" ears instead of the former's more pointy ears. In actuality Dobermans ears are naturally floppy, and the more famous pointy ears are the result of trimming, not of breeding. Both breeds also often have docked tails, which is better known.

** The first Ty-dyed bear was originally named [[Music/JerryGarcia Garcia]] before being renamed Peace.

** Attic Treasures were introduced in the same year as Beanie Babies. These were given a more {{retraux}} style with sepiatone tags, textured fur, clothing, and hinged limbs. They were quietly retired at the beginning of the 21st century, but returned in 2017.
** Pillow Pals, a large, stuffed plush toy line intended for toddlers. Many of them were {{expy}}s of Beanie Baby designs. In 2001, they were replaced by Baby Ty, which are made of a softer fabric.

** Beanie Ballz, which were... ball-shaped plushies stuffed with beans. They were succeeded by the similar, slightly-smaller Puffkins.

** Teenie Beanies, smaller versions of pre-existing Beanie Babies meant for distribution at UsefulNotes/McDonalds. TheNewTens also had Teenie Beanie Boos, which were smaller versions of Beanie Boos (see below), and Teeny Tys, which were basically small Beanie Boos shaped like [[VideoGame/DisneyTsumTsums tsum tsums]].

** Ty Girlz, which are... well, basically plush Bratz dolls.
*** Ty Li'l Ones, itself a spinoff of Ty Girlz.
** Beanie Babies 2.0, Ty's answer to Webkinz.
** Teenie Beanies, the SpinOffBabies of the franchise.
** Beanie Boos.
** Wild Wild Best.
** Beanie Ballz.
** Ty Monstaz.

In 2023, as a MilestoneCelebration for the toys' 30th anniversary, Ty rereleased several classic Beanie Babies, primarily from the 90s[[note]]with one exception thus far in the form of Celebrate, who was originally released in 2001[[/note]] with softer fabric and, in most cases, different color schemes (i.e. Patti II being orange-and-teal instead of pink-and-yellow like the original).

Not to be confused with Beanie Kids, an Australian toy.

* PandaingToTheAudience: Three of the giant variety (Peking, Fortune and Wonton), one of the red variety.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Some are based on rarer species like a Komodo Dragon, Frilled Lizard and Garden Orbweaver spider.

* StockDinosaurs: The now retired and extremely rare "Dinosaur Trio" consisted of Rex the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', Bronty the ''Brontosaurus'' and Steg the ''Stegosaurus''. Later generations featured token non-dinosaur Swoop the ''Pteranodon'' (referred to as a "pterodactyl"), Hornsly the ''Triceratops'', Tooter the ''Parasaurolophus'', Spiky the ''Stegosaurus'', two new ''Tyrannosaurus rexes'' and a pair of woolly mammoths to act as token prehistoric mammals. And if you choose to get technical, Dinky the Dodo Bird also qualifies. Averted with Glider the "Prehistoric Bird", whose species is never clarified (he looks kind of like a pelican, though).

** Until about 1996, the toys generally had much plainer, generally more realistic designs and more common species of animals before branching out into AmazingTechnicolorWildlife and SeldomSeenSpecies. It was also at this point that they began to be distributed outside of Chicago.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: Invoked by the Beanie Boos, big-headed plushies with huge sparkly eyes.

* SeriousBusiness: For the adults who collect the rare ones. Many Beanie Babies held a higher market value just for the slightest variation in fabric color; having a different-colored horn; having the swing tag in the wrong ear; or any other slight mutation, intentional or accidental. Really, just how would you tell if your Patti the Platypus is magenta (and thus worth about $1,300) instead of fuchsia or raspberry? If you really want to get serious, there's also the royal-blue version of Peanut the Elephant, which once fetched $4,000-plus.\\
To someone who wasn't there to witness the craze firsthand, it can seem absolutely ludicrous that this was once a zillion-dollar franchise comprising not only the toys themselves, but also protective casings (not just tubes or boxes for the toys themselves, but also clamshells for the swing tags), and entire magazines such as ''Mary Beth's Bean Bag World''. People would actually line up in stores for ''hours'' to buy the things. And when UsefulNotes/McDonalds introduced the Teenie Beanies line, people would buy dozens of Happy Meals and throw the food out just to keep the Beanies. At one point, black-market and counterfeits were also rampant in the market (although most counterfeits were [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct blatantly obvious]]). In short, some adult collectors would be openly horrified if they saw Beanie Babies being played with by children - you know, the toys' original purpose?

** Originally, the heart-shaped tags had only the toy's name and copyright information, and they were a single two-sided tag. They quickly changed to a folding tag that opens up; originally, the inside had only the name and "to/from" blanks (to encourage giving the toys out as gifts), but starting in 1996 they began including dates of birth and a four-line poem about the toy. The font changed from Times New Roman to Comic Sans a year later, and only minor changes have ensued in the subsequent generations.

* InformedSpecies: Doby the Doberman Pinscher may look more like a Rottweiler to many folks, due to him having the latter breed's "floppy" ears instead of the former's more pointy ears. In actuality Dobermans ears are naturally floppy, and the more famous pointy ears are the result of trimming, not of breeding. Both breeds also often have docked tails, which is better known.

* MessyPig: Averted; Squealer is the class clown, and Stubby would "[[BigEater rather eat a big dessert]]." Knuckles the Pig, however, makes mud pies.

** Humphrey the Camel is either a reference to the Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan song of the same name, or an amazing coincidence.
** A Ty-dyed bear named Garcia? Definitely ''[[SarcasmMode not]]'' a reference to [[Music/TheGratefulDead Jerry Garcia]]. (It got renamed Peace.)

** Attic Treasures were introduced in the same year as Beanie Babies. These were given a more {{retraux}} style and hinged limbs, and were quietly retired in the early aughties.
** Pillow Pals, a large, stuffed plush toy line intended for toddlers. Many of them were {{expy}}s of Beanie Baby designs. In 2001, they were replaced by [[http://www.aboutbeanies.com/articles/BabyTy.html Baby Ty]], which are made of a softer fabric.
** There were also Beanie Buddies, which were larger, softer counterparts of existing Beanie Babies, sometimes with trivia about the corresponding Beanie in the swing tag. Both these and Baby Ty were made with a new fabric called "Tylon."

** The first five cats were named Zip, Nip, Chip, Flip and Snip. After that, the theme stopped.

*** A fourth rabbit named Hippie was made as a counterpart to the above three. He lacked the neck ribbon but was otherwise identical to the above three in size and shape, albeit with a pastel ty-dye coloration.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first three generations had much plainer designs, and no birthdays or poems in their tags. By generation 4, the designs became gradually more complex and colorful, birthdays and poems were introduced, and the fad as a whole took off.

* StockDinosaurs: The now retired and extremely rare "Dinosaur Trio" consisted of Rex the ''TyrannosaurusRex'', Bronty the ''Brontosaurus'' and Steg the ''Stegosaurus''. Later generations featured token non-dinosaur Swoop the ''Pteranodon'' (referred to as a "pterodactyl"), Hornsly the ''Triceratops'', Tooter the ''Parasaurolophus'', Spiky the ''Stegosaurus'', two new ''Tyrannosaurus rexes'' and a pair of woolly mammoths to act as token prehistoric mammals. And if you choose to get technical, Dinky the Dodo Bird also qualifies. Averted with Glider the "Prehistoric Bird", whose species is never clarified (he looks kind of like a pelican, though).

* GratuitousGerman: Germania the bear had its poem written in German.

* AmbiguousGender: Some Beanies' genders are never stated in their poems. Usually this is because the poem is in first-person, but other times they just manage to get to four lines without using a pronoun. Some are still obvious anyway due to either having gender-specific names, or obvious gender-specific traits (e.g., the several kangaroos are all female, as they have joeys in their pouches).

** Double-subverted with Runner, whose species is only given as ''mustelidae'' (i.e., weasel family), an unusually prominent example of ShownTheirWork on a toy. However, its poem says it can be a "ferret, mongoose, weasel, or mink"; mongoose are actually their own family, which is more related to felines than anything else. The inclusion of mongoose may be because it originally ''was'' a mongoose, but it shipped with a "mean poem" about killing snakes.