I am fortunate enough to have avoided kids so far and none of my stuff had the same level of rediculous packaging, however a friend of mine has kids keen on Action Man, and they were wire tied in to the point where propper wire cutters were used to remove the toys, god only knows what will happen next year when the kids start demanding they un-wrap the toys them selves!
Perhaps I will lend him my angle grinder next year ;-) -- Jay -----Original Message----- From: Jim Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 December 2004 18:00 To: CF-Community Subject: Dumb-Ass Toys A few observations from a dad who spent many hours setting up toys. 1) The Fisher Price "Interact TV". The unit itself is actually pretty well done. Essentially a universal DVD remote it offers your children a large touch pad of options allowing them to interact with episodes of their favorite shows ("Dora the Explorer" for example). Setting up the unit was fairly painless (if a little obtuse) and it runs on three AA battery (like so many other things lately that simply refuse to use an even number of batteries) which, of course, are not included. The problem here was in the packaging. The face of the box featured a button which, when pressed, regaled the listener with a recorded speech about the product. Upon opening the thing it's discovered that this speaker unit is quite large and has printed in large type on it back-side: "Please discard this sound unit when disposing of package. It is not a part of the toy." So, they provided a complex thingamajig just for marketing. As a good geek however I, of course, took a screw driver to the four small screws holding the unit together. What do I find inside? Three brand new Energizer AA batteries. So, essentially, they included batteries with the toy, but decided to have them power a useless marketing device and instruct you to throw them away immediately. 2) "Klondikers" My son likes these building toys. That's why we bought them. They are flower-shaped plastic widgets that dove-tail together. My beef is the idea that these toys are, as is emblazed on every square inch of the packaging, "educational". I understand that building sets that use same-shaped blocks tend to make children exercise their imaginations a bit more, but "educational". It seems a silly stretch to me, personally. 3) Big boxes. With all of the practical, environmental, and just plain obvious benefits to smaller box sizes why do we still have board games being shipped in these cardboard coffins? I know - store shelf space is valuable, but that can be settled with an in-store display (a cardboard frame the size of the old box to display much smaller actual boxes). "Battleship" is still a pair of simple folding units, but the box the game comes in could hold six of them easily. Several rolls of stickers ("Spongebob" and "Dora the Explorer" stickers to be precise) are in boxes 18" on a side. 4) Wire Ties Yes, wire ties. Tightly wrapped, machine crimped, taped closed, impervious to scissors, holding-down-every-God-damned-piece-of-the-friggin-toy WIRE TIES! 5) Hermetically Sealed Blister Packs When did it become a 50/50 proposition that you would break a toy just removing it from its packaging? And goodness forbid that you might want to actually return the piece of crap with its accompanying pile of twisted, sharp-edged plastic and cardboard slag. 6) "Robosapian" Actually (since I've already talked about packaging) I've got nothing to say about this little guy. It's really freakin' cool. ;^) Merry Christmas! Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Silver Sponsor - CFDynamics http://www.cfdynamics.com Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:141122 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
