Beware the naked man who offers you his shirt. As the company readied itself for the 1996 holiday season, markdowns on its flagship product and problems with the introduction of a revolutionary walkie talkie found the company sporting a loss in what is traditionally the industry's strongest quarter. Blue Christmas indeed. The losses have since continued for the Yak Bak maker. Despite an attractive lineup of toy rollouts this year, the stock has been a shareholder Scrooge.
Entertainment hails from California and makes electronic gadgetry for children.
The Yak Bak, a cheap digital mini-recorder where the Say and Play buttons eventually evolved to offer voice morphing and sound effects, put the company on the map three years ago. The company has also introduced new product lines like Power Penz, a digital recorder that writes. Last October, with the stock in the low teens, the company missed earnings estimates for the third quarter. Despite fancy add-ons, the Yak Bak had already matured in its product life cycle and had become nothing more than a tired and discounted shelf item in a fickle industry. The company came up with a winner with the Mrs. Fields toy oven line, but it was not enough to make up for the increased costs in other product introductions.