If you don’t know the sound of a dial-up modem by heart, you might not remember the Beanie Babies craze. The collectible soft toys became a must-have item almost overnight thanks to the artificial scarcity of “limited editions”, leading people to buy them up in the dozens or hundreds as an “investment”. So basically NFTs, but less useless.
It was all the brainchild of toy salesman Ty Warner — or was it? The trailer for Apple TV+’s upcoming biopic The Beanie Bubble suggests that Warner (played by Zach Galifianakis) may have taken the lion’s share of the limelight, without fully crediting the women who were key to his success (Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, and Geraldine Viswanathan). It also promises glorious ’80s and ’90s fashions, toy truck explosions, and for anyone suffering Succession withdrawal, Snook in take-no-prisoners business mode.
The Beanie Bubble premieres in select theaters on July 21 and globally on Apple TV+ on July 28.
