NY’s National Toy Hall of Fame to reveal inductees

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Will the Magic 8 Ball knock over the tea set? Will little green Army men outmuscle “Star Wars” action figures?

The answers come Thursday when the National Toy Hall of Fame announces its class of 2012. Two toys will be inducted into the Rochester hall from among 12 nominees.

To date, 49 toys have made the cut. They range from classics, like Play-Doh and Slinky, to the less obvious, like the stick and cardboard box.

Officials at the Toy Hall of Fame say anyone can nominate a toy and thousands of suggestions come in every year. An internal committee of curators, educators and historians chooses the finalists and then a national selection committee votes for the winners.

Longevity is a key criterion for getting into the 14-year-old hall. Each toy must be widely recognized, foster learning, creativity or discovery through play, and endure in popularity over generations.

The rest of the 2012 nominees are: the board game Clue, dominoes, Fisher-Price’s rolling Corn Popper, Lite-Brite, the pogo stick, sidewalk chalk, the electronic game Simon, and Twister.

Sidewalk chalk, which traces its roots to the 16th Century, and dominoes, which originated in China in the 1300s, have been around the longest among the nominees. Simon and “Star Wars” action figures, which showed up in the 1970s, are the youngest of the class.