Arcade games evoke a sense of nostalgia, and many can remember the days spent dropping coin after coin in hopes of snagging that plush prize. The claw machine, or crane game, stands out as a staple in ...

Like the little green aliens in Disney’s “Toy Story,” people — often kids — may find themselves obsessed with “the claw.” Claw machines, also known as crane machines, dot arcades, malls, even grocery ...

The crane machine—also known as claw machines, crane games and, in Japan, as “UFO catchers” due to their proclivity for aerial abductions—first gripped the public imagination in the early 1900s. Even ...

Christopher Salazar could not stop with the plush round Kool-Aid Man. The 11-year-old claw machine master had to have more. So, outside a South Side strip mall on a recent early evening, he and his ...