slides sold out on Amazon in 24 hours when they were first released this spring. The Pop2Play slides and playsets fold flat for storage and can easily be returned to play mode. “We are expecting at least the same results going into 2022 as we expand into all sorts of new categories, including new and evergreen licenses and exciting original toy properties,” said Sydney Wiseman, vice president of brand development and creative strategy at WowWee. The company says its sales grew 50% from 2020 to 2021. It followed that with singing puppets featuring the wildly popular Baby Shark licensing property. WowWee hit a home run in 2017 with its Fingerlings toys, animatronic monkeys, unicorns and sloths that cling to a child’s finger and respond to sound and touch. That makes it hard to know exactly where it ranks in the toy hierarchy, but a series of hit products over the past five years have placed it among the toy companies in the tier below the three biggest players, Mattel, Hasbro, and Lego. WowWee, founded by two Canadian brothers more than 30 years ago, is a privately-held company that doesn’t release its sales figures. “This is a very interesting time for the toy industry because a lot of the smaller companies are being very opportunistic and asking ‘Where can I go? Where’s the white space in the industry’,” said Chris Byrne, an independent toy consultant and co-host of The Playground podcast.