Peter Gantner, a purveyor of POGS, is responsible for bringing Crazy Bones to the United States after learning about their success in Barcelona, Spain. In 1997, Gantner cut a $50,000 deal with Spanish company Magic Box International, Inc for the product and distribution rights for Crazy Bones in the United States.[1] Crazy Bones were first sold in the United States in February 1998 by Gantner's Cleveland based toy company Toy Craze, Inc.
The original series, called "Gogo's", were small plastic figurines made with faces. Each gogo had a different name and personality. Crazy Bones were most often sold in foil packs for about 2 dollars and came with 4 pieces, 4 stickers, and a game card. In an attempt to make Crazy Bones more valuable collectibles, Gantner "buried" the original 60 characters by stopping their production May 1999.
Toy Craze racked up 3.5 million dollars of sales in 1998 from Crazy Bones. Toy stores that carried Crazy Bones include: Zany Brainy, Learningsmith, and FAO Schwarz. Zany Brainy even partnered with Toy Craze and came out with their own original gogo's "Zany-Ack" and "Brainy-Ack".
In March 1999 Toy Craze came out with a brand new series released in United States called "Sports", which included 40 Crazy Bones characters with a soccer theme. The pieces were numbered 1-40, separate from the original gogo's series.
The "Things" series launched May 1999 and included 60 Crazy Bones shaped like various everyday objects such as: a TV, a couch, and a book. "Things" were numbered 61-120 and also known as series 2, a continuation of the original 60 gogo's.
In the "Aliens" series, there are 60 different anthropomorphic figures of a classic grey, big eyed, alien. Some of the designs included: Salad Head (Caesar), Cyclops, Boris, Tut and others. A "Third" series of Crazy Bones (in the old packaging and design) named "The New Generation" was later released, including 120 all new characters. Some seem to be variations of the originals, or mutant original, but they are all meant as new characters to the series. A second sports series was released, but instead of uniformed characters, it features characters from the Original, Buddies, and Mutants series performing a sport (Eggy playing basketball or Speedy driving a car). There was also a series with magnetic characters, which are incredibly difficult to find. Rockers are music themed characters.
As of October 2010, the current distributor for Gogo's Crazy Bones in the US (as well as Canada) is Jonic Distribution North America.