Playmobil Overview

I didn't have any Playmobil toys growing up, but I sure wish I did! My sister introduced me to the ubiquitous smiling figures when she bought them for her girls.

Playmobil figures were first introduced in 1974. The basic Playmobil figure is almost 3 inches tall, and can stand, sit, bend at the waist. You can rotate the head, arms, and hands. The hands are shaped to grasp a huge assortment of accessories.

The recommended age for Playmobil is 4+ due to the many small parts, some that can pose choking hazards to little ones, so use your own judgement - if your child is prone to putting things in his or her mouth, Playmobil may not be the best choice.

I wanted my kids to play with their Playmobil toys starting at 3, so I made sure I was the first one to open all new Playmobil sets. Any and all small parts went straight into ziploc storage bags (along with the instructions), to be saved for later use when the kids were older.

Another potential downside of Playmobil is the frustration factor, especially when dealing with small hands (ages 3 to 5). Some items tend to fall apart during play (not break, mind you) which can lead to some unhappy campers. Case in point:

The Jet Airliner (3185) is a great toy. It was one of my first Playmobil purchases two or three years ago, and it still gets a lot of use today. The problem is that some of the pieces fell off rather easily, such as the wheels and tail assembly. My solution was to take the tail and wheels off, and set them aside. Not perfect, but it worked for my kids. I also ended up using some Zap-A-Gap (super glue) to fasten the four small red connectors located in the wing, because they fell out a lot.

Overall, I would give Playmobil a solid 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "Outstanding." As long as you remove any potential safety concerns (small parts) and are ready to deal with some minor frustration (mostly from your youngest players), Playmobil is a great toy. All three of my kids still love Playmobil, and I see many potential years of creative and fun play in store for both the kids and the toys.

Official Playmobil website:

http://www.playmobil.com/index.html