A giggling, vibrating red puppet became so impossible to find in December 1996 that parents were trading hundreds of dollars and, in a few infamous cases, actual punches to get one.
Read more →A fuzzy, owl-eyed toy that seemed to learn English on its own triggered both a holiday shopping frenzy and a genuine national-security scare.
Read more →In the winter of 1983, parents fought in aisles and lined up before dawn over a soft-bodied doll with an adoption certificate — one of the purest toy-shortage panics America has ever seen.
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