Is Sky Dancers Discontinued? What Happened?

Sky Dancers were flying fairy dolls made by Galoob. Each toy was a small doll with foam wings attached to a plastic base. You pulled a ripcord string at the bottom and the doll would spin up into the air, sometimes reaching 20 feet or higher. The spinning wings made it look like a fairy taking flight, which is what made the toy so appealing.

Galoob launched Sky Dancers in 1994 and they sold very well. The line got its own animated TV show in 1995. Galoob also made a version called Dragon Flyz, which used the same pull-string flying mechanism but with dragon-rider figures instead of fairies, aimed at boys. The brand kept growing through the mid-1990s.

The problem was that the flight path was hard to predict. When you pulled the string, the doll might go straight up or it might veer sideways, fly horizontally, or bounce off a wall. The spinning doll was hard plastic and moving fast. Kids and people nearby got hit in the face, eyes, and teeth without any warning.

Injury reports started coming in. By 2000 the CPSC had received 170 of them, including 150 in the US alone. People reported scratched corneas, temporary vision problems, broken teeth, cuts on their faces, and mild concussions. Some reports mentioned a broken rib.

In June 2000, Galoob announced a voluntary recall of about 8.9 million Sky Dancers and Dragon Flyz toys. People who returned one got a $7 rebate. The toys were never redesigned or put back on store shelves. The spinning flight that made the toy fun was also the reason it kept hurting people, and there was no way to fix that without changing what the toy was.

People who grew up in the 1990s still remember Sky Dancers, and original sets show up at toy shows and on resale sites. But the recall was never reversed and they were never brought back.