Toys
are Dumb
Buy me
stuff.
written by Nick on december 16th, 2003
Hey, friends. As
I’m sure you’re all well aware, the holiday season is
fast approaching. If the traffic jams at your local Wal-Mart
weren’t enough, the ads on TV are. One of the more amusing
aspects of the month of December is the one hot item that every
child age 6-14 must have.
Join me, for my travels as the ghost of Christmas Past, on my
segway scooter.
FURBY
I WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP
Not a fan of ol’
Furby. Sure, it’s cute at first, little guy tells you he
wants to dance and he starts rocking back and forth, but tell me
it doesn’t get annoying when he seizes for 20 minutes until
you put your wallet in his mouth so he doesn’t bite off his
plastic tongue.
It wasn’t long before word got out of Furby, resulting in
every single 30 year-old mother in the United States to put war
paint on and fight in the holiest of wars, Black Friday (the day
after Thanksgiving). Soon, the battle was over, yet the defeated
were not satisfied. This resulted in what is perhaps the most
outrageous inflation in consumer rip-offs to date. Furby
auctions.
“The bidding will start at 200 dollars”. 200 dollars.
People were paying 200 dollars for a Furby. Today’s Furby
value: $0.97. Hey, if anyone reading this paid 200 beans for a
Furby, I’ve got a great deal on a ten-dollar bill for you.
I’ve had migraines more convenient than this toy.
TAMAGOTCHI
IN CASE YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TEDIOUS CRAP TO DO IN
YOUR LIFE, HERE IS AN INCONVENIENCE
The worst pet since
the cat, Tamagotchi does absolutely nothing besides poop and
bitch. The thrill of this toy came from kids not responsible
enough for a dog but GAY ENOUGH TO GET A TAMAGOTCHI.
The concept was simple; a digital pet that requires constant
attention in order to ‘survive’. There were three
buttons, as illustrated, that allowed you to toggle across the
menu bar, select, and feed your Tamagotchi cyanide caplets. The
actions available were as follows:
Feed – feed your Tamagotchi some food.
Play – play with your Tamagotchi.
Clean – clean up the LITERALLY STEAMING
load of crap your Tamagotchi illustrates on his/her screen.
Yell – rebuke your Tamagotchi for doing
something stupid. (i.e. wasting 20 bucks on a key chain that
beeps for all of time)
Skip – Skim your Tamagotchi across a lake.
Piece a’ junk.
You have Tamagotchi to blame for Furby, by the way, just like you have Rage Against the Machine to blame for Limp Bizkit. Except RaGE RuLEZ.
TICKLE
ME ELMO
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MOTHER THERESA
Perhaps the most
famous of all toys, Tickle Me Elmo raised the bar for all toy
companies. It’s far beyond my knowledge as to why such an
item would be of high demand. It seems to me that this toy would
fall under the “play with once then lose on purpose”
group.
Not really much to Tickle Me Elmo, you touch or
“tickle” him, he vibrates/laughs, and then says
something along the lines of “Elmo like teh tickle! He
he he”. Seems to me that for a program that tries to
educate children, Sesame Street sure does employ some poor
grammar.
Now for the stats:
Tickle Me Elmos created in 1996: 100,000
Number of Elmos sold in 1996: 100,000
Elmo related fatalities in December of 1996:
16,500
Tickle Me Elmos created in 1997: 10,000,000
Number of Elmos sold in 1997: 3
Sesame Street was forced to hire a muppet with AIDS to meet the
budget deficit. I’m not even lying.
PLAYSTATION
2
SHIT I PUT THE DISC IN UPSIDE DOWN
Is a great gift that most anyone would appreciate.
BRATZ
WE ARE SO FLY
Baniqua:
Bitch you betta be gettin’ in muh car!
Sha-heyhey: Damn bitch shut yo mouf!
Baniqua: Hey you betta believe your payin’
fo gas, bitch!
Sha-heyhey: Psh get a job slut!
Mother: What in the world are you girls playing
in here?
Girls: Bratz.
Mother: More like Flatz, at least Barbie had
boobs.
This toy is for the mother who wants her prissy of a daughter to
dress like an absolute whore, because that’s exactly what is
going to happen. If Tipper Gore taught us anything it’s that
children imitate whatever it is that they hear or see.
That’s why us kids wear Nikes and drink cult punch.
Just like any set of dolls, there is one for every common race,
including the one girl in a wheelchair.
Please circle your race (optional): -Caucasian- -Black-
-Asian- -I sit in a wheelchair-.
POWER RANGER DOLLS ACTION FIGURINES
PARTY DANCE AMERICAN DANCE
If anything appeals
to young audiences it’s violence and imitable figures.
Rather than allow their children to beat the putty out of each
other, parents decided to spend large amounts of money on plastic
dolls. The irony that violence was converted to doll form made me
giggle.
The great thing about action figures was the great improbability
that they were to be used ‘correctly’. Their most
productive use was probably “club mode”, where one
grips the action figure by the feet and hits his/her friend in
the head. This is also called Tina Turner mode.
No one liked the Blue Ranger.
So, I guess the lesson we can all learn here is that toys are stupid and no human joy should be created from industry. Perhaps instead of presents on Christmas we should just give lots of hugs. I’ve been told I’m a good hugger. I’d save a lot of money that way. Yeah and buy me Donkey Kong.
- Nick
nick@progressiveboink.com