Each year now, before you can snap a Thanksgiving wishbone, promotional top-toy lists begin appearing. Surveys and appraisals claiming to discern the season's best toys, the best-selling toys, the blockbuster toys, even the most dangerous and most violent toys, are as prolific as shopping mall Santas.

National magazines, including every major parenting and child- oriented periodical, celebrate their annual toy lists on their November covers alongside teasers for advice on handling toddler tantrums and raising grateful children. Best-toy guidebooks are published in the nick of time to steer holiday shoppers to toys worth buying. Nonprofit groups release lists shaped by their do-good agendas or in-house reviews.

While good intentions motivate some toy listers, the bottom line often is the key that opens these lists and influences which few of the thousands of products are selected and promoted as the top toys. Indeed, how the top 20 best-selling toys fare in November and December determines the annual fate of the multibillion dollar toy industry, which sells more than half of the annual volume of toys in those months.