BRIO has had a number of unusual themes over the years, but none was probably more perplexing than Network. Abandoning all ties to vehicles, trains, or familiar cultural icons, BRIO Network attempted to represent the world inside your computer,  where tireless figures worked to deliver email while fending off the assault of computer viruses.

While the large playscapes used unusual materials that were both durable and tactile, at the end of the day the toys did very little and cost quite a lot. For the most part, they offered only blinking lights, repetitive sounds, and poor audio quality. Even the email messages, the central part of BRIO Network’s “story”, were completely garbled to the point where it was next to impossible to understand what was said.

Network was rolling out right as BRIO was pulling back from the north American markets so there was little to no distribution outside of Europe.