New York City is the kind of place where nobody bats an eye no matter how many screaming maniacs or police cars or elephants are tearing down the street. In the whirlpool of exhibitions and trade shows permeating the city, it takes something special to stop a jaded New Yorker dead in his tracks — and the unimposing office building at the corner of 23rd Street and 5th Avenue doesn't seem a likely magnet for causing attention.

But looks can be deceiving, because this is the TOY CENTER — a playground for adults that makes a TOYS R US look like somebody's mildewed basement.

Let's fill in some history. Toy companies want to make money, and in the business world that means attracting the "middle men," the dealers and store owners and retailers who will take their products and stack them on the shelves. So with the exception of Mattel and Hasbro and a few other companies who have the bucks to afford their own showrooms in Manhattan — room after room in the TOY CENTER (and the adjoining building) is filled with companies from all over the world hawking their wares.

Most of the year these showrooms lie dormant except for the occasional answering machine or fax kicking in, but during this week of presentations it's staffed by personnel and executives, and brimming over with candy and sandwiches and coffee and all kinds of little gifts waiting to be handed out.

But not to children: this show is strictly business, so unless you're looking to buy or sell, get out of the way — because you're not wanted. Which means no roaming the halls of Mattel to see the actresses hired to dress up as Barbie. You won't get the opportunity to pretend to crawl through Ninja Turtle sewers, or watch campy acting from actors and models dressed up like Smurfs, Homer Simpson, Gummy Bears and even edibles like Powdered Donuts. Nor will you get to pass through hidden doors to see the toys being devised for the next "big" movie. Those getting to do all this have the chance to figure out what toys will be "hot" — would you have guessed that Tickle Me Elmo would become last year's Holy Grail? Not from watching the actress dressed as a Muppet drop Elmo and step on his head, you wouldn't!

Besides, remember that it's rare to see a completed product at Toy Fair: more often than not, that talking doll has a wire coming out of the rear end hooked up to a speaker because the electronic "guts" have yet to be realized. And sometimes what seems "hot" fizzles away: Tyco's $100 video camera would have been to die for if it could have been made back in the '80s, but it bombed in the '90s.

And just as in life, there's a class structure to it all. At one end is the elite, the upper class, the Mattels and Hasbros, Playmates Toys, and others ensconced in their own buildings and requiring 3 kinds of ID before entering — if they let you come in at all (Mattel's worth the trouble because they'll give you a special Hot Wheels car with "Toy Fair" plastered on it for an instant collectible). The middle class is represented by those companies found in the Toy Center: where a decent buffet will accompany the hard sale, maybe with a few buttons and some sticker you can toss in a bag on your way out. The remainders are found over at the Javitts Convention Center, where row after row of booths are jammed together displaying companies with limited resources.

PROTOTYPES AREN'T US

We remember animatronic bears that never sold, tons of laser-tag vests, and Captain Powers-like battle toys that responded to TV signals but not to anyone with the money to buy them. We liked the Inspector Gadget hat with the built-in water squirter that never went past prototype, and really wished they had made that Home Alone Brick that made the sound of breaking glass when you dropped it. Sometimes great products are made for TV shows that get yanked off the channel after an episode or two: the Capital Critter dolls and the Fish Police plush never got hugged by anyone but the marketing department. Sometimes licensees get sucked into producing product so far ahead that all they can do is dump them for a few bucks and hope they won't get tossed back in their faces (hear that SeaQuest?).

THE FUTURE IS THE PAST

Now you'd think that technology would race fast forward every year, but the truth is that a toy is more likely to be magnetic-based than silicon (a recent examples being a Sabrina the Teenage Witch doll that depended on magnets to work "magical" effects).

The fact is that for every Tamagotchie invented, there's a hundred Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots working off of levers and mechanical gears. Which brings us to the great but deadly truth: Boy toys don't need to be clever, just to make a lot of noise and break quickly so they can be replaced by more of the same. All the really creative tech-products (like the Talking Barbie that receives infrared data from its computer program and then can speak phrases based on that information) are designed for girls: boy toys consist of "action figures" that don't need to do more than make lots of racket when thrown against a wall.

And sure you get sound chips and lights tossed in — and a bit of science slips by to create foaming gunk or gross out eyeballs but beyond that, it's pretty lame. Of course, there are exceptions — Tiger Toys which makes all those great hand-held video games, manages to slip in some cool tech as well. Their Star Wars Storm Trooper combined a shoot-'em infrared game with voice effects and a motion detector so it could be used as a warning device, and they're releasing an updated version with Bobba Fett (he may have gotten himself eaten, but he still looks cool).

So what about this year — anything worth getting excited about? Barring a Rosie O'Donell spoiling it for everyone, here's our personal selections for fun and fame:

THE TOYS ARE OUT THERE:

Meaning the X Files, meaning the X Files movie, meaning X Files toys that nobody is allowed to show you before the film's released (from what we've peeked at, McFarlene Toys is doing a great job at duping the action figures with the same kind of eeriness that their Spawn stuff has).

And if you thought Mattel's Barbie was looking different these days, wait 'til you check out the collectible with her and Mulder, er, Ken as the X-ceptional duo with suits and FBI badges — and no little green men (we think). They could finally be sighting Elvis, since Milton Bradley has extended their 3D sculpture line to include the "King" as a puzzle head. And the perfect "mothership" to beam him off the planet comes in an affordable repro model of the JUPITER 2 Lost In Space saucer from Ertl Toys.

Those testosterone types begrudging anything from leaving the atmosphere will dig Tiger's laser tag BLAST — sure it only "fires" lasers, but any toy that can turn from a rifle into a bazooka and then a rocket firing mortar is tops with us (plus sound effects, voice effects and even "recoil" effects).

WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW YOU STINKING PIECE OF SILICON?

Tamagotchies, bahh — the latest are Talking Nanos [Playmates] who grow to maturity by screaming what they need at you. Tough as that is, having to train Tiger's XENA Giga-fighter is tougher (warrior princesses are so demanding). Makes you want to blast them to bits: which you can with Alien Blaster or Bombs Away [Tiger], as each LCD game is housed in a replica of a ray gun or bombsight and can be played in the dark. The Sports Swing [Tiger] not only looks like a bat but works like one, with you swinging it to "hit" the tiny pixilated ball coming from the L.C.D. game attached. And when it's time for a bit of Basic Fun — you can take out one of their '60s board game key chains and play a miniaturized version of OPERATION (using electric tweezers to pull out body parts), or rest your pinkies on the OUIJA board and try to reach the great Beyond and find out where you can get one of those bitchin' Donkey Kong key chains with the animated screen, sound effects, and working joystick.

IT'S ALIVE — ALIVE I TELL YOU!

Here's a disturbing thought: there seems to be a trend to make the toys more intelligent than the one playing with them. The way things are going, next year's report could have Barney's byline on it.

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Marshal Rosenthal attended over 14 Toy Fairs to date and, yes, he always grabs every goodie he can get hold of. Feel free to contact him at [email protected], but don't ask for any.