Hatchimals

Rub the egg, listen carefully and wait. Something inside your Hatchimal is getting ready to come out!

It starts with an egg. But wait - what's that noise? Something inside is making noises, flashing lights, and responding when you touch it. Rub the egg. Tap on it. Hold it. Play with it long enough and eventually something starts pecking its way out from the inside.

That's the fun of a Hatchimal - you don't just open the package and take out the toy. You have to hatch it.

Spin Master introduced Hatchimals in 2016, combining an electronic interactive pet with the surprise of not knowing exactly what was inside the egg. Once your Hatchimal was ready, its beak began breaking through the shell until your new little creature finally emerged.

And then Christmas happened - Hatchimals became one of the hardest toys to find during the 2016 Christmas shopping season (another "must have" toy craze). Stores sold out, parents searched for new shipments, and - as seems to happen whenever a Christmas toy becomes impossible to find - prices on eBay and other secondary markets headed upward.

The hatching gimmick was pretty clever because opening the toy wasn't something you did before playing with it - opening the toy was itself actually part of the play. And after it hatched, the electronic creature could still respond and interact with you.

Hatchimals have evolved quite a bit over the years since the original giant eggs. There are now smaller collectible Hatchimals, entire playsets, and newer versions with different ways of hatching. But Spin Master still builds the Hatchimals line around the same basic surprise: take care of the egg and see what's hiding inside.