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You might not peg Dan Etcher as a Walt Disney World kind of guy. You're most likely to see the tall sophisticate at the latest chic club opening in Toronto. He has no kids. But for his holiday in February, Etcher got lost in the Magic Kingdom with a buddy.

"It was fantastic -- very cool," the twentysomething says. "I'm already planning on going again soon."

And he's not just saying this because he enjoyed touring the on-site MGM studios with beer in hand -- although he did. "I try to be as much of a kid as possible," he says. "When I'm at work, I have responsibility, I make decisions and I have people to answer to."

Welcome to the lighthearted new world of the Rejuveniles, adults who so cherish childlike things, they plan their travel, leisure and even work around them.

Los Angeles-based author Christopher Noxon, who coined the term in the New York Times, has now published a book called Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up.

"It's hard to imagine adults in previous eras so unashamedly indulging their inner children. But these are not the adults of 20 years ago," he writes. "They constitute a new breed of adult identified by a determination to remain playful, energetic and flexible in the face of adult responsibilities."

It's all part of a growing cluster of lifestyle phenomena that have inspired such labels as "Twixter" and "adultescent." At its most benign, it's the Lexus-driving strait-laced executive who keeps a stash of baseball cards. At its creepy extreme: Michael Jackson or plush-toy fetishists known as "Furbies."

Somewhere in between is the critical mass of Rejuveniles such as Noxon who play school-kid games like kickball instead of golf and revere Bart Simpson the way a previous generation might have revered Cary Grant.

Toronto's Iris Wilde is typical. Tech-support worker by day, the mother of two recently turned into a stealth Barbie planter by night: When her friend Barbara turned 50, Wilde and neighbour Sandra Fairman covered the birthday girl's lawn with dolls they had picked up at Value Village. "It was a lot more fun playing with the Barbies now than when I was a kid," Wilde says.

It's fitting that Rejuvenile was released in late June: Summer is the ultimate playtime -- outdoors and in. "It's a time when adults are given more licence to drop the mature façade and let themselves go," Noxon says in an interview.

Especially when it comes to what Noxon calls "youngest-common- denominator" blockbuster movies.

"The summer movie slate this year has been vivid in its combining of adult and kid sensibilities," he says. "Superman is a great example of how to play across those lines. There's no expectation that it would be anything else. Which is really the telling sign. When you go back to the first Batman movie, that was a movie for kids."

Similar crossovers are happening everywhere, including the haute art-toy market à la Hello Kitty and the breakfast-cereal restaurant fad. There's illustrator Taro Gomi's gorgeously weird colouring books, like the new Doodles: A Really Giant Coloring and Doodling Book, which cost $25 and can hold their own on a Noguchi coffee table.

At Toronto's Rivoli bar tomorrow, Rejuveniles can buy cool stuff and listen to rock tunes at an event called Whipped Sundaes. Among the participants is Sean Ward, who quit his job four years ago to create comic books starring "Mr. Lollipop" and related ventures. Like many Peter Pans, he has found a profitable way to keep himself in Jell-O and reconnect to the "idea that joy is our natural state," he says.

But what happened to the old-fashioned adult who was once content in the world of briefcases, mortgages and martinis?

For the boomer Rejuvenile, nostalgia may drive toy-collecting and Popsicle-eating, whereas the Gen Xer's delay in settling down is no doubt tied up in suspended adolescence.

But Noxon says that, regardless of demographic, there's a common thread. "This isn't trivial escape," he says. "It's about finding that more adaptable part of ourselves that is open to change, new languages and make-believe. Kids are just better at that stuff. A lot of those strengths are not only worth holding onto, but worth fiercely protecting."

While it makes sense that a disproportionate number of dodge-ball-playing Rejuveniles seem to hail from the high-tech and creative industries, a growing number of traditional workplaces are harnessing the power of play too.

Barbara Brannen is a Denver-based writer and lecturer who advocates seemingly silly games in the workplace in her books Office Peace and The Gift of Play. The self-described Triple-A personality advises clients like the otherwise super-serious CEO who keeps a rubber duck on his desk. Once in a while he hides the duck and rewards the employee who finds it with a prize -- and some relaxed face time with the boss.

Brannen says the game has multiple good effects because the CEO often hides it somewhere like an empty paper-towel holder, so the thoughtful employee who refills it will find the duck. "I believe play and profit are connected."

Of course, retailers are also cashing in.

Fruit of the Loom recently reintroduced Underoos in adult sizes. There's a new Play-Doh cologne. Even French luxury brand Hermès is alluding to the trend with its upcoming new fragrance, Elixer des Merveilles, which is based on orange, chocolate, caramel, vanilla sugar and "creamy milk."

"Look through the eyes of your inner child, smell with your heart, love with all your senses," reads the press material, complete with a sparkly kaleidoscope-like wheel.

But of course the trend comes home to roost in a few key areas. Parenting, for one. Just how much should you be sharing that Super Soaker? Most of the fun of taking up a long-lost game is the freedom of unsupervised play, you see.

"That was my personal reckoning," says Noxon, the father of three. "I unthinkingly played with my kids all the time. But you've gotta get out of the way when they need it."

Then, there's the world beyond all the fun. Politics and business and social consciousness remain inherently serious.

"And I don't think that kickball or SpongeBob or cupcakes are going to help us much when it comes to poverty or pollution or other serious, intractable problems," Noxon says.

"It's really worth our while as Rejuveniles to be aware that people are trying to circumvent our adult critical defences."

That said, he suggests an afternoon of Lego might be good for a number of "Capital A" adults who currently run the planet.

"We could use a little more playfulness and openness and wonder when it comes to these bigger, harder questions," he says. "There's a sense that the methodical, regular approach to things can get us in some pretty serious messes. The Rumsfields of the world don't have a playful bone in their body."

What's in a name

"The reason I felt 'Rejuvenile' was worth coining was the other words out there only describe aspects of it," author Christopher Noxon says. "I wanted to bring the disparate fragments under one umbrella."

Other terms in the lexicon:

Kidult: Defined by an Italian toy company as "adults who take care of their kid inside."

Twixter: Coined by Time magazine in 2005 to describe adults who "hop from job to job and date to date, having fun but seemingly going nowhere."

Adultescent: A middle-aged person whose clothes, interests and activities are typically associated with youth culture, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Grup: A contraction of grownup, also a Star Trek reference. Used recently in New York magazine by Adam Sternbergh to describe those who cling to their 22-year-old indie-rock-loving selves even as they get married, have kids and -- gasp -- get jobs.

Sources: Rejuvenile by Christopher Noxon; New York magazine.