<P> Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed animal plush toys created by Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc...The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing (PVC and PE), giving Beanie Babies a flexible feel . In an interview Warner said, "The whole idea was it looked real because it moved ." </P> <P> During the later half of the 1990s, the toy emerged as a major fad . Beanie Babies have been cited as being the world's first Internet sensation in 1995 . They were collected not only as toys but also as a financial investment due to the high resale value of some Beanie Babies . </P> <P> Nine original Beanie Babies were launched in 1993: Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Orca, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the Bear (later renamed "Cubbie"), and Pinchers the Lobster (with some tag errors with "Punchers"). They were not in factory production until 1994 . Sales were slow at first to the point that by 1995 many retailers refused to buy the products in the bundles Ty offered them while others outright refused to buy them in any form . Their popularity soon grew however, first starting locally in Chicago before growing into a national craze in the USA . </P> <P> In 1996, Ty Inc. released a new product called Teenie Beanies, a miniature offshoot of the original Beanie Babies line . They were sold alongside McDonald's Happy Meals to celebrate that product's 17th anniversary . </P>

When did ty beanie babies first come out