 Logo | |
| Industry | Soft toys |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1986; 39 years ago (1986) |
| Founder | Ty Warner |
| Headquarters | , |
Number of locations | Worldwide |
| Products | Beanie Babies, Beanie Boos, Frizzys,Disney,My Little Pony,Hello Kitty,TMNT,SpongeBob SquarePants,MLB,NBA,NHL,NFL,Rush Zone,PAW Patrol,Despicable Me, Beanie Ballz, Beanie Bellies |
| Owner | Ty Warner |
| Website | ty |
Ty Inc. (styledty) is an Americanmultinational corporation headquartered inOak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was founded byTy Warner in 1986. It designs, develops and sells products, most notablyBeanie Babies, exclusively to specialty markets[clarification needed] worldwide.
Lina Trivedi was a college student when she worked at Ty Inc.[when?] She approached Warner to talk about a new development that existed on college campuses called theInternet. She indicated that, while the Internet was primarily a research tool, college students were starting to make personalwebsites. She thought that creating a website for Beanie Babies could present an unprecedented opportunity to engage the market. She brought to Ty's office a14.4k modem and demonstrated how the Internet works. Warner was intrigued and gave Trivedi a free license to create a website using her judgment and skills.[1] By the time the first iteration of the Ty website[2] was published in late 1995, only 1.4% of Americans were using the Internet.[3] The population of people using the Internet grew exponentially in the following years, along with the popularity of Beanie Babies.
Ty was the first business to produce adirect-to-consumer website. This was a major contributing factor to the early and rapidly growing popularity ofBeanie Babies. All Beanie Baby hangtags had the websiteURL and acall to action printed underneath the poems and birthdays that commanded audiences to visit the company website with text that read "Visit our web page!!!" This effort evolved into the world's firstInternet sensation.[4]
Ty has been involved in a large amount of fundraising, with the proceeds donated to various causes. Some of this has been raised from the sale of certain Beanie Babies. It has also been raised through other means, such as voting for a fee.[5]
One such fundraising Beanie Baby was Ariel, made to raise funds for theElizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Its sales raised a total of $3.4 million for the foundation.[6] Others include Aware and Awareness, sold to raise funds forbreast cancer research and awareness; and Barbaro, created in memory ofBarbaro the Horse, to raise funds for theUniversity of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, which tried to save the horse.[citation needed]
Ty has also raised money for the 2004PGA Tour with a beanie called ChariTee; one, signed byJack Nicklaus, was auctioned for $455.[7]
Ty was the shirt sponsor ofPortsmouth FC from 2002 to 2005, in which the club was promoted to thePremier League.[citation needed]
A Beanie Baby named "Cito" was given out to school children inMontecito, California, to welcome them back to school after the area was affected by the2018 Southern California mudflows.[8]
During the wake of Beanie Babies' success, Beanie Baby-centric publications were issued. One of the largest wasMary Beth's Bean Bag World, a monthly magazine dedicated to Beanie Babies and competing plush toys. It ran from 1997 to 2001.[9]
In August 2021, Beanie Babies was the season 1, episode 4 feature onVice Media'sDark Side of the 90s entitled "Beanie Babies Go Bust".[10]
A documentary film about Beanie Babies, titledBeanie Mania, was released on December 23, 2021, onHBO Max.[11]
The story of Ty has also been covered by two films, both namedThe Beanie Bubble, one a 2022 documentary directed by Ben Kitnick and a2023 comedy-drama directed byKristin Gore andDamian Kulash and written by Gore, based on the 2015 bookThe Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette about theBeanie Babies bubble. It starsZach Galifianakis,Elizabeth Banks,Sarah Snook andGeraldine Viswanathan.
