Disney gurus mix movies, electronics to create new toys

GLENDALE, Calif. -- You can't get any more inside Disney than this.

On the walls of a hush-hush conference room deep inside the Disney Consumer Products headquarters are sketches of toys-to-be for a year from now, the start of the 2009 holiday season. A team of eight Disney big thinkers gathers to brainstorm about toys that mix technology and play.

This is Disney's new toys-of-the-future swat team: Toymorrow.

Toymorrow has been top secret, and it's a first for a reporter to sit in on a toy-planning meeting. This isn't just any brainstorming. It could be the future of toys for Disney — and everyone else.

"We used to sit down and ask ourselves, 'Is this a toy or a consumer electronic?' " says Chris Heatherly, the Disney vice president who heads the Toymorrow team. "But that was a super-silly thing to ask. You can't draw those neat and tidy lines any more."

Disney's toy gurus are trying to toss some serious pixie dust in the face of the economic meltdown. Even before the current crisis, the $22 billion toy industry had been flat for years. To pump some oxygen into the market, the Mouse House is trying to magically erase the already fuzzy lines between toys and tech products.

It has to. While 2008 may not be a terrific holiday for pricey toys, electronic toys are the toy industry's new heartbeat, says Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of TimetoPlayMag.com, a website with toy-buying advice. Ten years ago, fewer than two in 10 educational toys involved electronics, he says. Now, nearly 80% do.

This is even though electronic toy sales fell 3% last year after jumping 26% in 2006, according to researcher NPD Group. That said, sales of Internet-connected toys continue to surge — more than tripling — in the past year, NPD says.

"If you don't want to be left behind, you have to embrace technology," says Vince Klaseus, senior vice president of Disney's global toy division.

Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products, says he sees that even with his 2-year-old daughter, Rose. "She's equally at home playing with wooden blocks as she is fussing with my iPhone or my wife's BlackBerry."

Much as Disney uses its Imagineers to bring buzz to its parks and films, it wants similar over-the-top ideas for toys from this Toymorrow group of designers and engineers.