A Beanie Baby is a stuffed animal, made by Ty Warner Inc., which was later renamed as Ty Inc. in late 1993. Each toy has an inner "posable lining" and is stuffed with plastic pellets (or "beans") rather than conventional stuffing, giving Beanie Babies a flexible feel. The original nine Beanie Babies launched in 1993 were Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Dolphin, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the Bear (later renamed "Cubbie"), and Punchers the Lobster (later renamed "Pinchers"). Ty, Inc. stopped producing the product in 1999; but consumer demand led them to reconsider. In 2000, a Beanie Baby named "The Beginning" was introduced to remind people of Beanie Babies' comeback. Teenie Beanies, an offshoot of the Beanie Babies line, were made by additional manufacturers for a few McDonalds Happy Meal promotions. They are not new Beanie Babies, but Beanie Babies in a smaller size. Beanie Babies began to emerge as popular collectibles in late 1995, and became a hot toy. Ty systematically retired various designs, and many people assumed that all "retired" designs would rise in value the way that early retirees had. Since the beginning, Beanie Babies have included two tags for identification: a heart-shaped "swing tag" at the top, and a fabric "tush tag" at the bottom. Both tags have been redesigned completely over time. Between 1994 and 1996, the swing tags had "To" and "From" blanks in them for use as gifts. Starting in early 1996, the tags include four-line poems related to the Beanie Baby, and a date of birth for the toy. It was not uncommon for Beanie Babies to be accidentally shipped out with incorrect or misspelled tags, which sometimes increased the toy's value. On occasion, the poems, birth dates and even the names have been changed on certain Beanie Babies. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia