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AN overzealous toddler got more than he bargained for after climbing up the chute of a toy vending machine at a shopping centre.

The two-and-a-half year old boy was stuck inside the machine, which uses a claw to procure toys from within a glass cage, for half an hour last Saturday afternoon.

"I said this kid must be a genius," said Lisa Chong, who owns a shop in the Oasis Shopping Village in the Northern Territory suburb of Palmerst on.

"He must have been standing (there) thinking 'how am I going to get at those toys?'

"We are looking through the box and it's not that easy."

Ms Chong said a crowd gathered around the trapped child.

"Everybody had to decide how to get the kid out," she told ABC radio in Darwin on Wednesday.

"The parents must have gone shopping or something... they must have been really surprised though, stunned, (thinking) how did my son get in there."

Shoppers looked on as bemused firefighters nutted out a rescue plan.

Senior firefighter Brendon Magnoli - one of six officers on hand for the rescue - said the bizarre operation using a hacksaw and the jaws of life was a first of its kind.

"He got in where the toys come out at the bottom... he must have been a bit of a contortionist to get in there," he said.

"We took the padlock off and pried the door open and he came out pretty quick...

"He was a little bit scared but he put on a brave face."

Ms Chong agreed the toddler was stoic in a time of crisis.

"He actually looked pretty calm from inside the box, even though he was surrounded by all the crowd and of course all the toys," she said.

"You've got to be like a genius or something to get in there."