¿Dónde está Barbie?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am appalled. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has just announced the results of its "100 Toys That Define Our Childhood" contest. According to the popular vote of the 24,000 responding to the poll, the favorite toy from the past century is one G.I. Joe. G.I. don't think so.

IMHO, there is absolutely no question that Barbie should have been #1. But travesty upon travesty, not only is she not #1...she doesn't even rate a bronze medal. Transformers came in second and LEGO got the bronze spot.
WTF? Who voted in this contest? Not to sound sexist, but it sounds like some boy toys stacked the competition.

But let me get back to a little journalism here. The goal of this poll was to determine, from a list of 100 toys compiled by curators of The Children's Museum's collection, the ten most iconic.  After five weeks of public voting, the list of 100 was narrowed down to the top 20. From said list, the public once again was asked to rank favorites. In the wisdom of these masses, the Top 10 are as follows:

#1  G.I. Joe                           #7 Cabbage Patch Kids      
#2  Transformers                   #8  Crayons
#3  LEGO                             #9  Play-Doh  
 #4  Barbie                            #10 MONOPOLY
#5  View-Master
#6  Bicycles 

Regarding #10, I couldn't be happier, although I do think board games should have been a separate category.
Nevertheless, as a collector of international versions of Monopoly (I have more than three dozen), I'm a big fan of the board...although I do get rather bored when I play the game. By the way, dear reader, the stories behind the collection of those international games--ranging from Australia to Israel (in Hebrew) to Poland (pre-1989) to Tunisia (pre-2000) to Yugoslavia (pre-the break-up) will be detailed in upcoming posts.


The also-rans:

#11 Raggedy Ann
#12 Spirograph
#13 Etch a Sketch 
#14 Little Golden Books
#15 Hot Wheels
#16 Lincoln Logs
#17 Candy Land
#18 Roller Skates
#19 Silly Putty
#20 Mr. Potato Head 
Again, I am disappointed with the low rating for our spudly buddy. I definitely eye him for the Top 10. Yukon be sure I will discuss Mr. P.H. and others in my next post, which will serve up my own Top 10....or maybe my Top 9 given my contrarian nature. Meantime, what were some of your favorite childhood toys? And if there were a separate category for games, which would be on your list? Operation? Masterpiece? Sorry? Please weigh in.