Toy Hall of Fame to announce inductees on 'Good Morning America'

Next week, inductees of the National Toy Hall of Fame will be revealed live on "Good Morning America."

The four inductees will be announced between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 10, on the ABC morning show, which airs locally on WHAM-TV (Channel 13), said Shane Rhinewald, senior director of public relations at The Strong National Museum of Play in downtown Rochester, which houses the National Toy Hall of Fame.

Three of the toys to be honored will be chosen from 12 finalists announced last month. The nominees include: baseball cards, Battleship, bingo, Bop It, Cabbage Patch Kids, Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, Connect 4, Little Tykes Cozy Coupe, Nerf toys, slime, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Barbie's boyfriend, Ken.

This trio will be honored following voting by a selection committee and the public. Each member of the 22-person expert committee will cast ballots for the top three. The three toys that received the most public votes by Sept. 20 will make up a single ballot.

The final inductee will be selected from the "forgotten five," a collection of five classic toys previously considered to be included in the National Toy Hall of Fame - some repeatedly - but have fallen short.

The "forgotten five" are the Fisher-Price Corn Popper, My Little Pony, Pez dispensers, the pogo stick and Transformers. The general public voted online this fall to select this inductee, according to museum officials

The National Toy Hall of Fame is this year marking its 25th anniversary.

Last year, Lite-Brite, Masters of the Universe and the top were inducted, marking 80 honorees to date.

Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame. But to be considered, toys must have inspired creative play and enjoyed popularity over a sustained period of time.

Earlier this year, the museum, which houses the Toy Hall of Fame as well as the World Video Game Hall of Fame, revealed a 90,000-square-foot expansion that involved five years of construction, a timeline lengthened by the coronavirus pandemic, and cost $75 million.

Among the eye-popping additions are the ESL Digital Worlds: Level Up, which allows guests to become the main character in a life-size video game; a 20-foot-high Donkey Kong arcade game; and a soaring new space for the World Video Game Hall of Fame, complete with an eight-player Pac-Man arcade game.

It also includes the 17,000-square-foot Hasbro Game Park, a colorful outdoor play area with a ridable Game of Life spinner, massive monopoly tokens, a Jenga-themed climbing area and a five-headed dragon from Dungeons & Dragons can breathe mist and fire with the touch of a button.

Outside near the museum’s new entrance, dubbed the Portal of Play, is the final piece of the expansion puzzle: a 20-ton granite ball that floats via hydrostatic pressure on a thin film of water and can be spun with a quick swipe.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Toy Hall of Fame to announce inductees on 'Good Morning America'