No bubble wrap for the Toy Hall of Fame, but take solace with Little People

There will be no popping in the National Toy Hall of Fame this year.

Judges for the Strong National Museum of Play's Toy Hall of Fame passed over bubble wrap in favor of more traditional toys and games in announcing the three inductees on Nov. 10.

That doesn't mean that plastic was completely passed over, however.

Two of the honorees — the swing and Fisher-Price Little People — are typically made of plastic now, although they originally were made of wood. The third inductee, the game Dungeons & Dragons, developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, use special dice typically made with plastic, although there isn't much of another connection.

The 12 finalists for the Toy Hall of Fame this year included a range of plastic toys, from the non-traditional bubble wrap film to Nerf foam balls and plastic Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

The museum in Rochester, N.Y., already has a range of plastic items in its Hall of Fame, including green plastic army men, Legos and Rubik's Cube.

Both the swing and the Little People will bring an element of plastics with them to the Hall as well.

As the museum noted when it announced the swing as a winner (why the swing wasn't already there is another question altogether, since it seems the swing would've been a no-brainer for the hall from the start), while the swing has been around almost as long as man — showing up in ancient cave drawings — in the 1970s, safety concerns prompted swing makers to switch from tubular metal sets to ones using wood and plastics.

And while Fisher-Price first offered its Little People in 1959 as a wooden toy, the toy company began using plastic by the 1980s and multiple redesigns have changed their look quite a bit since their introduction.

Today's plastic Little People are actually not quite as little as their ancestors. Safety concerns about choking hazards prompted a redesign in 1981 for larger diameter Little People who are now known by some as “Chunky People.”