A surprise hit at this year's Toy Fair in New York was the Smash-Me Bernie doll, a resin doll that looks like disgraced investor Bernard Madoff.

Graeme Warring, president of ModelWorks, which made the doll, says he got the idea from a friend who lost money in Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme.

"I made him a little Bernie Madoff mini-me doll with a devil body on it and I sent it to him," Warring tells NPR's Michele Norris. "But what I did is, I included a hammer in the package. I said, 'Listen, mate, when you get this, I want you to just beat the daylights out of it.'

"Well, he thought it was hilarious. So he then told a bunch of his mates, and suddenly orders started pouring in, and it's sort of taken a life of its own after that."