(FORTUNE Magazine) – If you rode the toy stocks' 90% rise last year, give a pat on the back to Barbie and G.I. Joe. Together with other venerable oldsters of playland, they helped push sales of traditional toys in the U.S. ahead 6%, while sales of videogames faded. The change toward more traditional -- and stable -- toy sales is one of the many positives powering these stocks. Says Thomas Kully, who follows the industry for William Blair & Co.: ''These shares sell at below-average price/earnings multiples, even though the companies have much better managements than five years ago, significantly better balance sheets, and predictable, above-average growth in earnings. We see the stocks appreciating further.'' Toy profits are easier to forecast today than in the past. As strong players have acquired the weak, diversification has added to predictability. A good example: Tyco Toys. When Tyco went public at $5 a share in 1986, it was the 22nd-largest U.S. toy company and essentially a seller of electric racing sets. Last year those types of products accounted for less than one-quarter of Tyco's $549 million in revenues, while the rest came from acquired lines like Ideal dolls and View-Master 3-D viewers. Says Sean McGowan, a toy analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison: ''Tyco is the fastest-growing toy company and the most attractive stock.'' He thinks it will earn $3 a share in 1992 and $4 in 1993. Kidder Peabody's Gary Jacobson recommends a lesser-known name, SLM International. SLM went public at $10.50 per share last November, but Jacobson thinks the shares are still cheap at $22.38 because earnings should jump more than 50% to $1.45 per share this year, then expand 25% annually. Once simply a sporting-goods manufacturer, supplying the National Hockey League with jerseys, for instance, SLM is now greatly diversified. And what of the titans of toyland, Hasbro and Mattel? Both pull in close to half their revenues from foreign markets, which generally offer better growth prospects than the U.S. Hasbro (14% owned by Time Warner, the parent of Fortune's publisher) is the conservative investor's choice. Though three toys -- G.I. Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony -- dominated Hasbro's sales in the mid-Eighties, last year no single product provided more than 5% of its $2.1 billion in revenues. Hasbro's recent acquisition of Tonka adds Parker Brothers games, such as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, to its Milton Bradley business. Kully at William Blair recommends the stock, figuring that Tonka will help rev up Hasbro's earnings to $1.90 a share in 1992 and $2.15 in 1993. Mattel is a riskier bet, largely because one toy, Barbie, brings in over 70% of profits. Sales of 33-year-old, permanently pubescent Barbie have doubled since 1984 to some $750 million in 1991 and show no signs of slowing. But management is trying to tilt the company into other categories such as boys' toys and games. Kully expects earnings, $1.81 per share in 1991, to reach $2.20 this year and $2.50 in 1993. He calls the stock a buy. Most controversial of all the major toymakers is Fisher-Price. Since Quaker Oats spun off the preschool toymaker last June at $24.75 per share, it has risen to $39. While some analysts believe the rise will continue, Kidder Peabody's Jacobson thinks the shares will underperform the market. He warns, ''The company faces tough competition from Rubbermaid's Little Tikes, Mattel's Disney preschool line, and Hasbro's Playskool, which were much less of a factor during Fisher-Price's heyday in the mid-Eighties.'' That sounds like one toy stock that may not be much fun.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: FORTUNE TABLE CAPTION: Tyco sells one of the big new toys of 1992 -- the Incredible Crash Dummies -- dolls that go flying from their accident-bound buggies.