Last year, Disney bought the online virtual polar landscape that is Club Penguin, a virtual world where kids romp and play as penguins do.

This year, they've introduced a plush toy line that extends the virtual polar landscape into the thawed real world with the Club Penguin Series One figures, produced by Jakks Pacific and available at www.ClubPenguin.com/clubpenguinshop.

As of this writing, there are 13 plush polar players to collect, from barristas to cheerleaders, from firefighters (are there fires on a glacier?) to fairies. they've got you covered with any interest your younglings have.

The plush toys themselves are of high build quality, with all the attributes and costuming of the characters they represent.  The cheerleader has pom-poms, the soccer guy has a soccer ball and athletic jersey, you get the idea.  The figures are roughly 6 inches tall, and soft enough for kids to hurl at siblings without fear.  But the real hook for getting moms and dads to buy these plush toys is the secret unlock coin that is attached to the tag.  It doesn't seem to be the cuteness factor of the plush toys themselves.

These secret coins unlock features inside the Club Penguin game for players to use exclusively.  The virtual items range from guitars and items to decorate their virtual igloos to 'puffles', which resemble small balls of fluff with eyes, which are the virtual pets of Club Penguin.  So in short, buying a Club Penguin toy in the real world means instant celeb status in the frozen virtual world.

Club Penguin, the online game and virtual land where kids pretend to be penguins living in a city-sized floating iceburg landscape, is full of activities like ice fishing, and other games that earn virtual coins to buy virtual stuff in The Penguin store, and social networking with other penguins - er - kids - through a heavily controlled web-chat mechanism that protects the kids privacy and keeps them from revealing any personally identifiable info.  You can visit their website for details on the privacy aspects of the online game, but I allow my son to play the game mostly unsupervised due to the strict controls placed on the players.

Club Penguin, the online game is free - mostly.  There is a paid option, and to take full advantage of the secret coin with the Club Penguin plush toys, you'll need to be a paid member of the service.  That said, there are still lots of sctivities to keep young ones occupied, ages 6-10 being the target audience.

So as a gift, these plush flightless birds might be suitable for kids already plugged in to the Club Penguin scene, or into penguins in general.  But if your kids aren't driven to waddle or hang out in igloos, you may want to pass.  The $20-30 price is high for the toy itself.  Its really the benefits inside the Club Penguin game that make this a worthwhile purchase.