We've learned some definite things in the 19 years of the Great American Toy Test. First, kids 5 and under are not much different than kids that age were fifty years ago.
Little kids have pretty much the same interests all kids have had for generations.
Second, today's kids are far more technology-savvy than previous generations. Each toy maker supplied us with dozens of copies of each toy, so we could assemble near identical sets of toys. We received about 7,500 toys, which made comparable sets of about 150 toys per set. The sets were shipped to day-care and latchkey kid centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Detroit, Portland, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Nashville, Cincinnati, Lexington, Raleigh, El Paso, Tyler, Ft. Everyone likes to think his or her child is smarter and more capable than other kids of the same age.