Edited by author 06-26-2002 12:26 PM
from doing a little looking around, it appears the popularity is due to adults that collect the toys. i couldn't access the kinder-eggs.com site, but i found a page that has pictures of the eggs and toys:

picture

there is also a cute canadian flash site for children:

kinder surprise

what bugs me is that mcdonalds and burger king and other fast food joints are able to lure kids in with their little plastic toys and months later the toys are found to be dangerous and recalled. it happens over and over again. how did they find out the toys are dangerous? the hard way?

p.s. these probably aren't quite as dangerous, but one of my favorite kinds of candy is sold in the u.s. i've bought them in asian markets in los angeles, san francisco and seattle. they are little chocolate eggs, kind of like hershey kisses, that have candy teddy bears inside of them. the teddy bears are hard and small and made of something similar to sweettarts. they have a hard candy coating on the outside too.

it could be quite a surprise if you didn't realize what you had and bit down on it. the little inserts are definitely "chokeable" too.

oh boy i love the kinder surprise candy. the toys are sooo cool.

This whole smuggling of tiny packages across borders sounds suspiciously like terrorism to me.

The biggest choking hazard in America by far are hot dogs and raw carrots. My pediatrician forbade hot dogs below the age of six. They're the perfect shape to block an esophagus and no one watches the child eating because theyr'e 'food' so kids...well, you get it.

I live in the hometown of Fisher-Price Toys and remember when they had to ban their adorable 'Little People'. Too bad.

I've had one of these eggs, and I think you can't underestimate the simply exceptional quality of the chocolate as the real engine for their popularity. Yum.

Edited by author 06-26-2002 07:38 PM
In Australia we have a local imitation called 'Yowies' (named after an Australian version of the Yeti) which have significantly nicer toys inside. They're always models of animals, so they're a bit less varied, but they're very attractive and well constructed. Are there any clandestine Yowie addicts in America?

Oh - and in contradiction of Robin Skyler's message, the chocolate in Kinder Surprises is very low quality - discard it uneaten and build the toy!

Steve's just hoping you'll discard it in his direction. Steve, if we ever happen upon some Kinder Eggs at the same time, I'll trade you all the toys I get for all the chocolate you get.

 I just had to let people know how very delicious the chocolate from Kinder eggs really is. I have collected the toys for years,and buy and sell them constantly, but even after years I love that dark chocolate outside and creamy white chocolate inside. Straight from the fridge so I can snap them. Yum! Or what I do from the start is wait 20 minutes out of the fridge, then you can open the egg in two, get the surprise out, and put the egg back together again. And wrap the foil back around it for later eating, stored in the fridge. I go thru about 9 or 10 dozen eggs for a great fondue with guests with sweet tooths.
                                  Jett from Calgary, alta.

I like kinder eggs, i eat about 10 a day. Sometimes i love the juicy chocholate so much that i eat the toy, in case it has sucked up any of that lovely flavour. In my home town (Slough) we dip kinder eggs in Baileys, for a tasty treat if you have been a good boy. I sometimes feed kinder eggs to my friends as well.

Hi,

I'm making a documentary about Kindersurprises and I'm really amazed that the selling of kindersurprises is prohibited in The USA. I would like to get in touch with Jim MacKenzie who's 'smuggling' or trading the eggs to the USA. I think that's a good thing and I hope he wants to be interviewed (maybe without his face showing)... Or maybe there is someone who knows another trader of these chocolate eggs to the USA...

Hope to hear from you!!

Thanks

Moniqua