On Wednesday, the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York, announced this year's finalists for its Class of 2020.
The list includes the classic board games Sorry, Yahtzee and Risk, plus several toys that have been considered for induction before, including My Little Pony dolls and Jenga.
Three of the toys on this year's shortlist will be inducted into the institution on November 5. “These 12 toys represent the wide scope of playthings — from simple sidewalk chalk that has its roots in ancient times, to Baby Nancy, which proved a turning point in the representation of race in dolls, to the more recent, highly innovative Tamagotchi,” Toy Hall of Fame vice president Christopher Bensch said in a news release.
The three inductees will be chosen by a national selection committee that casts ballots for the winners, but the public can also weigh in on the final selection through September 16 with an online “Player’s Choice” ballot. Cast your vote here.
Below are this year's nominees:
- Baby Nancy: Introduced by Shindana Toys, a company dedicated to making toys that reflect Black pride.
- Bingo: a staple of fundraisers for churches and charities that descended from a lottery game first played in Italy around 1530.
- Breyer Horses: collectibles produced by the Breyer Molding Co. for the past 70 years.
- Jenga: the stacking game created by Englishwoman Leslie Scott based on wooden blocks from her childhood in Africa. The name has Swahili roots.
- Lite-Brite: colorful plastic pegs are backlit when placed in a black background.
- Masters of the Universe: a Mattel-produced line of action figures led by He-Man and She-Ra.
- Risk: the war and strategy board game first published in the United States in 1959.
- Sidewalk chalk: the medium of masterpieces, as well as generations of driveway hopscotch games.
- Sorry: the board game that relies on cards, rather than dice, to move players’ pawns from start to home.
- Tamagotchi: the palm-size digital pets considered a fad by some but credited with helping to shape the electronics toy market in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- Yahtzee: the dice game that maker Hasbro estimates is played by 100 million people on a regular basis.
