NeeDoh Mania Is Bringing Kids Back Into Toy Stores... and Adults Are Ruining it

NeeDoh squishies pull families away from beauty products and teen-targeted skincare and into toy stores. Parents spend Saturdays searching for squishy shapes like toast, dumplings, and pickles while listening to excited updates about store shipments and sellouts. Parkway Presents owner Lisa Smith says the demand brings back the feeling of earlier toy-store crazes such as Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Kids. The mania also includes a darker side, with grown adults cutting lines, screaming at employees, threatening other customers, and calling police. After a chaotic drop, Smith reported authorities were called and described receiving frantic messages about fighting and line-cutting before the store opened.

"“It’s like the old days,” Smith tells TODAY.com, comparing the frenzy to earlier fads like Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Kids. She says even longtime industry veterans are stunned by the scale of the demand."

"By 8:15 a.m., more than an hour before her store opened, Smith says she was already receiving frantic messages on social media warning that customers were cutting the line and fighting over numbered spots. When she rushed to Parkway Presents, she found roughly 200 people waiting outside."

"“I was bombarded,” she recalls. “People kept coming up to me and saying, 'This person cut,' 'This person threatened me,' 'This person videotaped me.' I started shaking. I could not believe what was going on.”"

Read at TODAY.com