In the 1990s, America was swept up in a speculative firestorm centered around one thing and one thing only: Beanie Babies. People were buying them by the hundreds, confident that these tiny toys would appreciate for decades and make a future fortune. If you weren’t there, it’s really hard to exaggerate just how nuts people went over these little guys. But you won’t have to take our word for it. A new movie will tell the whole story.
It’s called The Beanie Bubble, and it’ll star Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Succession’s Sarah Snook and Bad Education‘s Geraldine Viswanathan. The movie will apparently not only show just how insane the whole Beanie Baby thing was, but uncover some lesser known injustices and corruptions that swirled at the heart of Ty Warner’s empire. You can read the whole, genuinely fascinating story in The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, on which the film is based.
Interesting note: The Beanie Bubble will be co-directed by husband and wife team Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash. You might not know either of their names, but you probably know their work. Gore is indeed the second daughter of Al and Tipper — but she’s written a handful of novels and done some comedy writing for Futurama and Saturday Night Live. Kulash is the lead singer of OK Go and the director of most of their infamous viral videos, like the one-take treadmill shot for “Here It Goes Again” or the remarkable Rube Goldberg machine in “This Too Shall Pass.”
It’s not clear when the movie will hit, but Apple TV Plus has secured the rights. Should be worth watching.
