Funky Planet Toys & Gifts is an Independent St. Louis Area Toy Store. We carry fun stuff for the young & young at heart. Visit Us in Downtown Alton, Illinois!

What's New in November 2025?

We received an absolutely massive shipment from Douglas Cuddly Plush. This was the single biggest order we've ever made. It is always such a joy to open this shipment and see the many ways they've outdone themselves. I was wowed in particular by the iridescence of the fur on the black labs. You cannot beat their attention to detail at this price point.

The Big Douglas Rack and 6 Very Cute Plush Birds

We now carry Project Genius as our wooden puzzle company. They hooked us up with a very handsome display. They have some very ingenious designs.

Brainteasers include wooden, wire, lockpicking, and a bunch of other unique designs.

We just received a huge Arts & Crafts shipment. Here are some highlights...

Some great stocking stuffers: Drawing sets, Henna, and Jagua

More great stocking stuffers: Origami paper, paint sticks, face paint, and hair chalk

Paint By Number Sets and Plastic Model Kits

I was excited to get Model Kits, but unfortunately our supply is extremely limited.

We're always getting new Blind Boxes. We received both a Toki Doki shipment and a Smoko shipment last month. We just got a shipment from 52Toys and ToyCity. And we're expecting a shipment from Japan's Yell. I hope the Donguri Tanks ship this time (squirrels in little acorn tanks).

"Kewpie in a Cup" by Smoko and "Laura Cyberpunk" by ToyCity

We are not ordering Labubu. There are so many better collectibles. Please stop calling us.

We also have a ton of Squishy Fidget Things, including Nee-Doh and Taba Squishies. We plan on ordering more.

Big "Mush Meez" Taba Squishies and "Suction Octopus"

We currently have a huge selection Hot Wings Diecast Aircraft. There were some hefty price increases, but at $11.00 we're still much cheaper than Amazon.

We're also selling the Hangar and Control Towers

Our Science / STEM section is nearly full. Here are some recent re-stocks...

Fitzroy's Stormglass, Galileo Thermometer, Foucault's Pendulum, and FizzRockets

And our Nature section is looking good. We keep adding more and more ID Guides.

In addition to our usual cheapo stickers we now have some high quality Vinyl Stickers...

Extra long and regular styles

We have a ton of classics. Pictured below are Tin Kaleidoscopes, Metal Gyroscopes, Magic 8 Balls, Weazel Balls, Metal Slinkies, and Sea Monkeys.

We also have Wooly Willy, ColorForms, Lava Lamps, and 100 other classics

I'm still teaching Hong Kong Mahjong Classes at the store. It sure is fun. 

Starting November 22 I'm going to have to take a break from lessons. For the 6 weeks that make up the Holiday Season we don't have any free time to spare. I could resume classes as early as January 2nd. I'm really hoping we can get some regular meetups going in 2026.

We just ordered a ton of stocking stuffers like fidgets, squishies, pranks, and other novelties. We also just ordered some silicone constructions sets that I'm very excited about. We're expecting some more puzzles and games, but those shipments seem to be backed up.

This week we're ordering books, which is always an overwhelming task.

Alton Main Street's First Fridays is on November 7th, so we'll be open until 8pm that day.

Thanksgiving Day is on November 27th. We'll be closed, but I'll probably be working that night.

And then the Holiday Season is upon us. We don't have our hours set in stone yet, but we're going to be open every day.

I'll post another update before Black Friday.

~David

What's New in July 2025?

Alton Mainstreet is once again putting on Night Market (every Thursday from 7-10pm) and once again we have a booth. This year the location changed; it's now in the green space between Cat Daddy's and Chez Marilyn. So far the turnout has been better than ever. Some of the bands have been awesome too. It's a free event! I strongly recommend checking it out!

I've been teaching Mahjong classes at the store now. In my opinion, Mahjong is the best card/tile game on the face of the earth. Sage and I learned it back in 2018 and we've been passionate fans ever since. It's a rummy game, so there's a little bit of luck, but a skilled player is going to win more often than an unskilled player. 

Manufacturer's stock image of the set I use. Booze (apple juice?) not included.

I didn't want to go public until I perfected my lesson plan, but after 3 revisions and some trial and error I think I've got it down to a science. I'll post an official page soon on this website. Here are some preliminary details...

• I'm teaching Hong Kong Style. The base rules to HK are the easiest to learn vs. any other variant.
• As players get better and better, they can add more and more intense rules, eventually working their way up to Guangdong Style. It's incredibly fun.
• If you're interested, I recommend having a group of four people. A class session costs $40 for 2 hours ($10 per person). I can also teach a group of 3, but the class would still cost $40.
• I've got a table and a nice set of chunky Mahjong tiles. As I always say, "Bring reading glasses".

It sure would be cool if we could get enough groups on board to start having local tournaments and meetups. Baby steps though.

Here's some of the new toys we have...

We re-stocked Cobble Hill Puzzles. I think this our biggest variety yet. Piece counts range from 275 to 2000. Cobble Hill is one of the best in the business IMO. We also brought in the Romanian company Enjoy. I love the super vibrant colors of their puzzles.

We have a ton of Blind Boxes with more on the way. No, we don't have Labubu or Sonny Angel. There are a ton of other brilliant artists out there making equally quality blind boxes who don't make us jump through hoops to carry their figurines.

We expanded our engineering toys by Smartivity. These sets are super fun to build, and even more fun to play with. The Pinball Machine is my personal favorite.

We've got a bunch of new and interesting outdoor toys.

We've got a huge variety of very cool bead crafting sets.

And we're selling Wigglitz, teeny tiny 3D printed wiggly figurines that are made in the USA.

As always, a bunch of orders are in transit or planned. I know some mini animal plushies and a bunch of novelties are coming soon. I'm hoping to get a Smoko (plush and blind box) order placed this week. They have some fantastic Kewpie blind boxes too. Sea Monkeys and couple of other goofy old school novelty things suddenly sold out, so I'll be placing an order for those too.

We also really really want to get a shoppable website up and running soon. No easy task, but we see a path forward. I'll be very happy if it's up and running by Q3.

Last, we'll be closed July 30th to August 3rd for a vacation. I've got almost all of my family re-located to Alton, but Sage's is still spread out across the country.

All right, that's all. Hit me up if you wanna learn Mahjong.

~David

We're Back From Our Road Trip

May is and has always been our slowest month of the year (hence the vacation). I'm 4 hours into my shift and the only person I've seen is the FedEx guy and Lori over at Comfort Cuisine next door (great food).

So, you get an extra meandering blog post for May. Maybe this will become an annual tradition.

We're back from our vacation and boy did we pack it in. We saw 4 new states, 4 new toy stores, and about 15 new cities. I'll cover that after I tell you what's new.

We'd halted orders in the weeks leading up to the trip, but some backorders trickled in...

• Nee-Doh's Nice Cube Glow released. It's a glow-in-the-dark Nice Cube
• A new set of Nature Pocket ID books released
• We got a large shipment of books, including some great sticker and temp tattoo books
• As I was writing this post we received a re-stock of Penguin Dash and Nee-Doh Gummy Bears
• We now carry S'Noodles. A fun craft with colored packing peanut pieces you can stick together.

We're working on a bunch of orders: including some great Made in the USA novelties, more books, and hopefully some more dolls. I also want to expand our STEM section and give the axe to some of the corporate licensed stuff.

All right, our trip. In order of us visiting them, big love to the cities of...

• Columbia, MO - Bustling downtown, Mizzou is a beautiful campus
• Kansas City, MO/KS - State Line & 39th was a cool spot. Is that the Midtown Neighborhood? Idk. I'm not an expert, but that is the spot to stop.
• Lawrence, KS - Another bustling downtown. Spent way too much time there.
• Wilson, KS - Came for the 'World's Largest Czech Egg', stayed a while due to its charm. There's smaller Czech Eggs throughout the town, there's a great independent grocery store, a restaurant, and several working phone booths. Friendly friendly people. Any similar-sized Small, Midwest, Farm Country, USA town should take notes.
• Hayes, KS - Good food, great natural history museum, Arcade 11 was super fun.
• Limon, CO - What a windy city. PinBowl had a phenomenal pinball selection in perfect working condition (including 4 EM's, if, like me, you're into that sort of thing).
• Loveland, CO - My god. Food, parks, shopping, mountains. What a city. Don't move there though, it would upset the 10 remaining native Loveland-ites. I'm baffled how over-populated the Denver-Fort Collins area is.
• Lexington, NE - Pulled into the downtown on a whim. Ended up hitting 3 Guatemalan and 3 Somalian shops in quick succession. A big regret of the trip was not knowing about this town in advance. I could have spent a whole day here.
• St. Joseph, MO - Reminds me of the town where I went to college. A hollowed-out downtown with a bunch of bars, and a never-ending sea of corporate sprawl. Glore Psychiatric Museum was awesome. Regretfully didn't have time to visit the Chase Candy Shoppe.
• We visited other cities, but, they don't get "Big Love" from me.

Special shout out to all three floors of "The Toy Store" in Lawrence, Kansas. What a massive store. It's always a joy to talk to other people in the industry, but I think I could have spent 10 more hours with the owners. The store has been at it for 45+ years too, so we learned a whole lot from them. If you're in Lawrence or Topeka it's a must-visit.

A special anti-shout-out to the town of Marceline, MO. Y'all could milk that 'Disney's Boyhood Home' stuff for all it's worth, but you are squandering it. Disney's sons donated a ride to your city (unprecedented) and y'all don't do anything with it. What's up with the train cars in the park? Y'all put ladders leading up to them like, "Come hither for fun, children", and then you walk up to it and it says "NO CLIMBING". Y'all are no fun.

But really, I'm just mad because I drove off my route to visit the downtown toy store to find it was permanently closed. Bummer. Tiny toy stores in sub-1000 population towns are hard to come by.

Also, to all of y'all who told me Kansas was a boring state to drive through, I couldn't disagree more.

~David

We're Closed The First Week of May

We are closed from April 28th through May 6th. We'll re-open Wednesday May 7th.

A bunch is new. Here's two things...

Irr-Elephant is being displayed in the Playcade. It's an all-wood stacking game where first you build the tower, and then you carefully remove one elephant at a time until it tips over. Great for any age; even toddlers.

Our very cool science and optics company finally re-stocked Metal Detectors and Kids Binoculars (they've been backordered since November). We also re-stocked Microscopes and the ever-popular Monocular.

And we've got a whole bunch of new goofy cheapo novelty stuff.

We just placed a very large book order, and when we get back we're going to place another big book order with another company.

We also placed a big order for mini 3D-printed figurines.

I haven't heard anything about Pokemon Destined Rivals from my distributor. They'll be worth their weight in diamonds, so I'm not surprised (but I am a little disappointed). I'm still holding out hope that we'll get some in.

I'll post an update when we get back on the 7th.

~David

What's New in March 2025?

Well, for one, I just finished doing our taxes. Now I have time to update this blog.

January and February were kind of dull. The weather was bad and a huge chunk of our shipments were backordered. Now it's March! The weather is great and all of our shipments are coming at once!

We finally did a run of T-Shirts featuring our mascot Catpants! Shout out to Schwartzkopf Printing for being super chill and helpful through the whole process. I had never designed a T-shirt before, and was surprised by the learning curve.

The toddler toy section has a ton of new arrivals. A big chunk of them are made of wood.

We've got 3 new building sets featured in the Playcades. Hexagon Blocks, Slot-In Blocks & Wheels, and Pipe Construction.

We're now carrying a massive selection of HotWings Die-Cast Planes/Helicopters.

We re-stocked our Nature Books and Field Guides. We personally own a ton of these titles and can vouch for how great they are.

Our Spring kite shipment just arrived. Dragonfly kites are back, and we also have cool Shark, Octopus, and Peacock kites.

Nee-Doh's very popular Nice Cube collection is back in stock. We also just received the new Sploot Splat.

We've got a bunch of new Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty tins.

There's a bunch of new board games. We've got classics like Go, Yut Nori, Hexus, and one of those big ol' Checkers Rugs.

In electronics kits: we re-stocked the Retro Radio and Retro Arcade sets, and we now sell a Bat Detector kit. I'm hoping to get a few more by the end of the month.

In candy: Scorpion and Cricket suckers are back in stock. We're also selling Chili Lix (Jalapeno, Red Chili, and Habanero) and Larvets (BBQ, Cheddar, Mexican Spice). Also, Toxic Waste dropped a bunch of new flavors (they're delicious).

And, a big chunk of our Book selection is 25% off.

Also, our landlords added a step and ramp at our front entrance. It took a lot of deliberation between them and the contractors. Retrofitting an old downtown building that's on a slope is no joke, but they were able drum up something that I think is a massive improvement. Shout out to Sarah and Tom for making it happen. Sage and I are going to add some yellow paint to make the edges more visible tonight.

New Blind Boxes and Stickers are in transit. I'm hoping to get additional book, puzzle, arts & crafts, dolls, and STEM orders in soon. Lewis & Clark is holding their first Comic & Pop Culture Convention called Blazer Con on April 12th, and we'll have a booth there. Sage has been doing a lot of knitting classes, and will hopefully start another one this month. 

All right, I'm done. Stop by soon!

~David

What's New in December 2024

This month we're open every day until Christmas Day. Here's our hours.

Sage drew some very cute window art for Deck The Town a friendly contest between local business owners. Whoever gets the most votes for the best Christmas window display gets a prize. Such a great idea! If you like our display, shoot us a vote on their website. 

New in store, we have this very handsome shelf by Family Games America. On display this month is Inversé, an extremely easy-to-learn abstract strategy game for two. 

We've got more new games from Family Games, plus around 20 new titles ranging from Abstract Strategy, to Family Games, to Trivia. We've been very impressed with all of the games in this batch, but the one we are addicted to is Take 10 by Outset. It's similar to 20 Questions, but an elegant ruleset and a very fun bubble-popping mechanism takes it to the next level. Gabble and Tension are also family favorites.

We have the new Nee-Doh Nice Berg, and Nee-Doh Nice Ice Baby. We also restocked the original Nice Cube and the Dream Drop. They are flying off the shelf.

We now carry Estes Rockets, well two of them. We're starting with two beginner rocket sets. Estes has been in the rocket game for decades and their rockets are such a thrill to launch. If there's enough interest I'd love to expand the line.

On display in the lower level this month is the Mega Marble Run, Dino Journey Track, Squigz, and the ever popular Animal Sorting Houses (I only have 2 left).

We have tons and tons of different Iwako Erasers on display. These are one of our Japanese imports. Unfortunately there are a lot of copy cat bootlegs floating around. I encourage you to buy the real deal. Iwako's quality is unmatched. Plus they make Kewpie erasers, which I love.

We were able to restock Colorforms before the holidays. I wish I ordered more Bluey sets. I only have 2 left.

Jean Curvey just dropped off some new Catpants Ceramic Figurines. I loved the last batch, but this time she's really outdone herself.

All right, that's enough toy pictures for now. We also have new jigsaw puzzles, a ton of new books, some new dolls, and a billion different squishy things. The Small Business Saturday deals are done, but we're still blowing out a ton of toys at 25-75% off.

The Letters For Santa gift registry is out, click this link to learn more.

We had a Winter Advisory on Small Business Saturday. As a former Minnesotan, 3.5 inches of snow with 1 MPH winds is a pretty sad excuse to stay home, but unfortunately that seems to be what happened. No fun.

The Holiday Season has just begun, so we'll see. Hope to see you soon.

~David