Nerd News Roundup – 2.18.09

- Toy Fair was held over the holiday weekend, and Boingboing Gadgets had some pretty decent coverage of the event, including photos and some video. One of our favorites? The Topobo robot prototype.

- We have to wonder what sort of thinking goes into toy manufacturers who sign licensing deals for movies that are obvious dogs. If only we could ask the guys in charge of Bandai and Mattel, as they've scored the rights to AVATAR and DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION, respectively.

- If you live in the UK, you can take your little one to see a new musical based on Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit stories. The ASO's adaptation will apparently continue the organization's commitment to getting kids involved with the arts by allowing children to sit right next to the orchestra, which is pretty darn cool.

- DM Kids is the first internet video portal developed specifically for kids. Right now, they're pretty much aggregating videos from other sources, but they do have the beginnings of their own programming up, the first of which is the web series GHOST TOWN. We've watched the first few minutes and it seems fun enough, giving us flashbacks to Nickelodeon programming from the mid 80s.

- Two pieces of awesome are snapping together - LEGO and Disney have signed a licensing deal that will be bringing TOY STORY, CARS and PRINCE OF PERSIA to a box of knobby blocks near you. The down side being, you won't be able to get your hands on them until 2010.

- Kind of obscure but potentially very useful: online retailer Tales of Wonder is getting into the graphic novel remainder biz. It doesn't look like Regular Joe Consumer will have direct access to the remaindered titles, but hopefully the savings will be passed along to us somehow. We could really use something like this.