BLITZ OF BEANIE BABIES : POCKET-SIZED $5 DOLLS TAKE TOY WORLD BY STORM.

Byline: Glenn Gaslin Daily News Staff Writer

It began, innocently enough, with a platypus. And a duck and an elephant. Yes, and a moose, too. Plus a few others.

The whole silly business started with just nine cute little cushy-headed creatures with bodies full of beans.

And now it's come to this: mass-market hysteria, thousand-dollar payoffs and a legion of devoted fans.

Yet another frantic toy binge.

A ragtag team of plush animals called Beanie Babies has inspired the biggest I-can't-find-it-anywhere craze in toys since Tickle Me Elmo giggled away with holiday-season headlines.

Elementary school girls fill their backpacks with these ``Beanies'' - with Web the spider, Humphry the camel, Garcia the tie-dyed teddy bear and more than100 others. Hard-core collectors will pay hundreds of dollars for the rarest dolls. And, following in the tradition of the '80s underdog rag-doll Cabbage Patch Kids, the critters have burst from obscurity to everywhere without the help of advertising or a TV tie-in.

But how does it happen? Three months ago, few Californians had even heard of these small bags of beans, and now the things are poised to take over the world.

What began so innocently with a platypus has reached such a pitch that Calabasas 11-year-old Jessica Orkin, an avid collector who has 50 Beanies, can't keep up anymore.

``I don't know what happened, but they started getting all over, like everybody at my school has them. Everywhere you walk there's somebody with a Beanie Baby in their hand,'' she marvels. ``Some people have like 30 Beanie Babies all over them, and they're just walking around.''

Yes, but it's no surprise. Members of this new fuzzy phylum follow a well-traveled evolutionary path, the familiar life cycle of a kiddie-driven craze, the circle of existence that has made stars and then has-beens out of lesser fictional creatures.

And here's how it all happens:

Step 1: An original idea About three years ago, a small Chicago toy company called Ty Inc. began producing soft replicas of animals, each no bigger than your hand and filled with beans. These Beanie Babies took untraditional forms, too, such as inchworms and zebras and manatees, each species with its own name and poem attached with ``Ty tags.'' The first set sold fairly well, and soon Ty added more slyly funny family members, such as Mel the koala and Nuts the squirrel.

But for a while, nobody noticed.

Step 2: From ``toys'' to ``collectibles'' The adorable, personality-rich nature of the Beanie Babies taunted their fans with looks of ``Betcha can't buy just one.''

They're $5 apiece. They don't take up much room, fitting nicely in your pocket or on top of your computer. And if you have one, you want the others.

Just to make things interesting, Ty has even ``retired'' a few dozen animals - Kiwi the toucan didn't sell too well, Righty the elephant and Lefty the donkey are out of season, Tabasco the bull faced a lawsuit from a particular seasoning company - and sent their demand soaring.

The collector's desire to buy a Beanie Baby or two every week has created a market much larger than something such as Tickle Me Elmo, says Teresa A. Klein, editor of Toy Book, a plaything industry trade magazine.

``Elmo, that was kind of a parental frenzy, temporary insanity,'' she says. ``But (Beanie Babies) are something the industry would like to establish as a new niche, not just a fad.''

Step 3: A frenzy builds The passion for Beanie Babies spread slowly, through word of mouth. Kids in the Midwest told their friends on the coasts, who told their friends at school, who helped sales increase tenfold in each of the past two years.

``We've had these things for years,'' says Crystal Wood, who works at the Imaginarium toy store in Woodland Hills. ``But we didn't start selling out until after Christmas.''

And now they can't keep them in stock. Or even get them in stock, waiting months for orders, taking names and orders from hundreds of anxious customers. Superstores such as Toys R Us don't sell Beanies (Ty has always catered to the mom-and-pop toy stores), so kids and parents scour the aisles of pharmacies and card shops and even hair salons.

``I was in Nordstrom the day they got a shipment in, and people were everywhere, grabbing over each other,'' says Patti Kent, a Woodland Hills Beanie Mom. ``One mother even had a computer printout of which ones were collectible.''

Step 4: Find, buy, repeat Ty has created a formula for what industry analysts call ``repeat purchase,'' the idea that a kid's craving for a Beanie Baby isn't quenched by buying one. There are more than 100 out there, and they're all cute, and they all have unique poems attached, and they're all only $5. Boys like them, too, gravitating toward the manly man animals such as sharks and bulls, leaving girls to obsess about the rest.

``I have a giraffe,'' says Caitlin Bloom, 7, of Tarzana, who sends her grandmother out hunting for the small game. ``I have a dog, I have an alligator and two cats and a frog, a raccoon, a jaguar, a pig and ... that's it.''

Step 5: The Internet logs on Like any good modern trend, Beanie Babies use the World Wide Web as a forum and trading post. A Web site set up a few months ago by Beanie nuts Kim and Kevin Goddard of Nashville attracts 3 million visitors a week, they say, many of them to attend online auctions for hard-to-find or retired Beanies.

The couple have become the world's foremost experts on the subject, spending eight hours a day running the page and auctions.

``The Internet community has really gotten behind the Beanie Babies,'' says Kevin, 23, who admits he considers the toys cute. ``There's no doubt in my mind that the Web made the Beanies, because Ty has no advertising.''

Step 6: The media picks up on it And then things really get out of control.

Step 7: Obsession sets in In March, a man attending one of the Goddards' online auctions spent $1,450 for a Peanuts the elephant Beanie, which recently had been retired. Many other rarities, such as Humphry the camel and Web the spider, can sell for more than $500.

Step 8: Knock-offs emerge Just as Cabbage Patch Kids gave way to Rice Paddie Kids and Garbage Pail Kids, just as the Beatles created the Monkees, Beanie Babies have made room for such things as Bean Sprouts and Pebble Pets.

The imitators now appear in chain toy stores, while Beanie buffs still search long and hard for the real thing. But when an obscure, original critter sneaks up and makes $250 million in a year, says industry analyst Klein, the big boys are going to run after their share.

``The other companies are thinking, `What can we do to have an inexpensive item that people are going to buy repeatedly?' '' Klein says. ``This is only the beginning.''

Step 9: The fast-food tie-in A tribe of Teenie Beanie Babies, finger-size replicas of 10 popular animals, will begin propagating through McDonald's Happy Meals on April 11. Anybody who has never heard of the things will. Soon. Very soon.

Step 10: Overexposure. Death. Fond memories. All good fads must die, dispersing into the cultural atmosphere, blending into the collective dust of POGs and Mortal Kombat and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Indeed, with at least three knock-off brands, perhaps one of them will snag a TV show or animated movie deal, squeezing every last last bit of juice from the beans. Or perhaps, as Klein suggests, the whole business will turn into a new toy marketing niche (much like action figures) that could last for years, changing with the public's tastes.

``I don't expect this craze to last a lot longer,'' says Kevin Goddard, who already has made pretty good Beanie money with his Web site. ``Maybe it'll last through this year, through December. Maybe it won't last that long. Who can tell?''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Beanie Babies

Check out the hottest new stuffed toy since Tickle Me Elmo

(2) Forget Tickle Me Elmo, kids are now going crazy over Beanie Babies, as illustrated by 5-year-olds Brittany Campbell, left, of Tarzana and Emily Kent of Woodland Hills.

(3) Brittany Campbell's Beanie Babies collection includes Freckles the leopard. The hot-selling Ty Inc. dolls retail for $5 each.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(4)There are 83 different Beanie Babies out there, and collectors Jessica Orkin, left, and Lauren Katz hope to acquire as many as possible.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News