All this over a creepy, furry robot?

Of all of the toy trends that gripped the United States in the 1990s/early 2000s, none were quite as inscrutable as Furbies. The “Furby” was (well, still is) a fuzzy robot that looks to be a cross between a bird and those people who we keep seeing gross news stories about, and back in the 1990s, people would line up for ages to get their hands on one.

Here’s what that weird and wonderful time was like, including a news story about the people who tried to flip the sub-$100 toy for enough money to remodel a house: