Are moms to blame for Mattel’s stagnant Hot Wheels sales?

[Skinner]

21. As a dad with young boys, here's my beef with Hot Wheels.

I had Hot Wheels when I was a kid, and I played with them a lot. Back then, a typical hot wheels set consisted of:

-- A car.
-- A number of lengths of track.
-- Some connectors to put the track together.
-- A "loop" so your car can do an upside-down loop.
-- A take-off ramp and a landing ramp, so your car could do a jump.
-- A clamp to hook the top of your long length of track to the top of the stairs or the top of a dresser.

In other words: It was a building toy. You could use your imagination and make a cool track. The car was propelled by gravity as it went down the track. When it got to the bottom of the track, you picked up your car and ran to the top of the track and sent it down again. And when you got bored with it, you'd take it apart and build a new track. You could use it over and over again, and each time it was something new. Tons of possibilities, and lots of re-play value.

These days, a typical hot wheels set is quite different. My boys have one, and they do take it out and play with it from time-to-time. This set consists of:

-- A car.
-- Some very specialized pieces of track that can only be put together in one way.
-- A very specialized stunt piece that can only be used in one way.
-- A motorized contraption that propels the car.

There is only one way to put this set together. The car is propelled by the motor, and the entire setup is a continuous loop so once you put the car on the track it keeps going and going and going without any need for human intervention. To be fair: It looks much cooler than my old Hot Wheels track. But it is much more limited.

In short: Hot Wheels has changed from a an interactive, imaginative building toy into something kinda like TV: You turn it on and watch it do it's thing.