Help Me Hank: The ultimate holiday toy test

DETROIT – Playing with the hottest toys of the holiday season is fun for kids of all ages, but it's less entertaining for the parents who have to find and buy them.

So how do you know which ones are worth the hype and which ones to leave on store shelves?

The Local 4 consumer unit, Help Me Hank, invited a handful of kids to the studio to test out this season's popular toys.

The first junior testers were ages 3 to 5.

The winners & losers

Up first, a battle of the toy cars. We pitted the Hot Wheels Ultimate Garage Playset  ($84.99) against the Matchbox Mission 4-Level Garage Playset ($34.99). 

The Hot Wheels version is about two or three times the size of the Matchbox product. The bigger playset seem to attract more of the children and once they started with the Hot Wheels garage, they stayed parked there for a long time.

"I knew Will would go right for the garage, but he has not left the garage. He will not play with any of the other toys, so I'll be ordering that tonight," said Sarah Mayberry, a mother of two.

The Hot Wheels version definitely had the edge in popularity with our junior toy testers, but some of the children did find something to love about the Matchbox version. The testers say the Hot Wheels version was more fun because you could race cars against your friends.

For parents, it might come down to cost, the Hot Wheels version is more than twice the price of the Matchbox product. And, there's something else to consider, the size of the track might be a bit too much.

"A lot of parents are like, 'That's really cool, but where will it go in my house?'" said mom Meaghan St. Pierre.

No gender stereotypes

It wasn't just the boys who wanted to play with the cars. 

"What I was surprised with was the older girl, Hannah, she was with the Hot Wheels garage set, spent more time with than that I thought," said Greg Robinson, father of two of the toy testers.

In fact, the parents and grandparents noticed gender stereotypes don't seem to apply when you just let your children play with random toys. Several girls chose to test out the race tracks, dinosaurs and light sabers.

With that said, the power of Barbie is still evident among the girls.

We also tested Barbie Saddle and Ride Horse ($38.88). The girls loved seeing Barbie take the horse for a ride, but we noticed the horse struggled to say on its feet, especially on the carpeting. If you're looking to bring this toy home, be sure to have some smoother surfaces where the horse can gallop freely.

"Yeah, I think the horse doesn't seem to walk very well, but she seems to like it," said Mayberry.

There was no contest in our battle of the dinosaurs. We pitted the Toy Story Rex Dinosaur ($29.99) against the Fisher-Price Imaginext Ultra T-Rex ($79).

There's a price difference and a big difference in what the toys do.

While Toy Story Rex has the popularity of a movie franchise behind him, he didn't really do much. The tricked out Ultra T-Rex makes noises, has eyes that light up, and shoots like a cannon. He basically crushed the competition with poor Rex.

Light saber battle

Finally, given the onslaught of Star Wars-themed merchandise, we tested a variety of light sabers. The least expensive models we could find are inflatable ($8 for two). We also tried a $16 version and one that lights up for $26.

Going cheap definitely didn't pay off this time. One of the inflatable light sabers was deflated within minutes. The kids didn't seem to like them, and parents said they weren't worth the money.

We also noticed children in this age group didn't seem to know how to really enjoy the sabers. During our test, they didn't really "duel" with the sabers as the older children would do in our next part of the test.

More toys, more Impressions

We also tested some Disney Descendants Dolls ($38.88 for two). The girls did enjoy these dolls and they tended to know about the movies behind them.

The girls we asked also enjoyed playing with more than one doll at a time, whether it was Disney Descendants or Barbie, they enjoyed acting out stories with the dolls -- meaning parents might need multiple dolls to allow the kids to really use their imagination.

The consumer unit has been told many times how hot the Minions are this year. These are toys backed by a powerful movie franchise. We purchased a Minions Deluxe Action Figure- Build-A-Minion Arctic Kevin/Banana ($12). This toy seemed like a modern-day version of a Mr. Potato Head, with a variety of clothes and attachments. Just one of our junior toy testers seemed to love this toy, largely because he liked the movie. However, his father didn't seem to think the toy would have staying power.

Finally, we also tested the Shopkins Fashion Boutique ($37.09).  Some of the testers liked the bright colors of these tiny collectibles. If your kids are already Shopkins fans, they'll probably enjoy the new fashion fun, but this toy didn't create the same splash as the Hot Wheels Ultimate Garage Playset or the Fisher Price Imaginext Ultra T-Rex.