Orange County in thick of toy action.

By Nancy Luna, The Orange County Register, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Feb. 22--Makers of dolls, action figures and learning gadgets are pulling out all the stops this week to deliver the coolest products at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

The trade show kicked off Sunday with hundreds of manufacturers peddling to big and small retailers their cleverest toys of 2005. Scoring the hottest gizmos is critical for the industry. NPD Group, a market research firm in New York, said Friday that toy sales dropped last year to $20.1 billion, compared with $20.7 billion in 2003, a year that also saw sales decline 3 percent. However, …