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The Toy Fair's Top 10 Strangest Products
FloggingMollyrox writes "UGO looks at the recent 2004 Toy Fair's Top 10 Strangest Products. Forget about Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man, the real stuff was an art farm that grows vegetables, a pogo stick that shoots you over the moon, 'real' shrunken heads, and an educational plush toy based on an alien invasion."
The anti-salmon
and was too normal or poor to get
They hoped to make a killing selling Simpsons-branded "Ralph Wiggum Nose Goblins". Then they found out that all the kids could easily make these themselves.
A few hours browsing at souvenir shops or department stores in the Akihabara district will teach you the meaning of 'strange'. These toys are soothingly ordinary in comparison.
And don't get me started to the Tokyo fish market *shudders*
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Baboochi left their planet because they were invaded by the evil Zartans and came to Earth to find a new home in the arms of children.
Baboochi(TM) will help teach your children to brush their teeth, clean their room, share with others, and many more important lessons that parents want their kids to learn.
Holy shit WTF. I must own one of these.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It's Log!
It's Log!
It's big, it's heavy, it's wood!
It's Log!
It's Log!
It's better than bad, it's good!
hang on The Cheat...we're takin this baby TO THE MOOOOON!!
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such toy-fair debut documentary films as "Tickle-Me Elmo - the NC-17 Version" and "Coleco Adam: Miracle in Silicon".
The SCO-MOLD squeezes your somewhat generic *nix operating system into a form that SCO can demand a license and sue you for.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I've read that toy companies target adult buyers via product design, with products for young children- teddy bears for example, have proportions similar to babies, which supposedly triggers a [mat/pat]ernal instinct in parents.
Tellmi's figured out a much better instinct to trigger in the parents, it sounds like :-)
"Mommy, stop borrowing Mr. Quills! Every time you do his batteries are dead!"
I see this as a great strategy. A second one gets bought shortly after the first, for sure. The second one is in part responsible for the purchase of the third, anywhere from 9-36 months later...perfect! What's their stock symbol?
Please help metamoderate.
Check out "Orgasmic the Hedgehog", that blue sex toy thingy shown on the first page.
Looks like someone already got their hands on a Flybar. With video!
Flat Eric. Not that the Baboochi isn't a good start, it seems that toys that grown-ups can laugh at through one marketing channel and kids can appreciate on their own level will always endear themselves more effectively than simple flat blue animals.
Not unlike the Buddy Lee campaign... which succeeded both as doll-based jingle silliness for TV people and as more mature viral webmercials for the internet set...
I have a plan. Using mainly spoons, we'll tunnel our way out of the city...
Tellmi's illuminated quills are made of soft rubber and viciously vibrate when he's turned on.
So do mine.
Oh damn... they left out "Bag O' Glass" again!
it's a plush head containing fake vomit, bugs, moldy cheese, rats and worms. -- you just never know which disgusting, vile thing will pop out of his mouth, ears or nostrils next!
Watch out for the lawyers. This is a direct infringement of SCO's business strategy.
while sco {
wget -O
}
#1 - TELLMI (Digitspace): interactive hedgehog with blinking lights and moving limbs
#2 - THE SNOMOLD (SnoMold Industries): plastic bag filled with snow makes instant snowman
#3 - BLADE RACERS (Dynatech Action): "High velocity infrared racing system"
#4 - VOOT-VUE FARM (HSP Nature Toys): plexiglass box to see vegetables grow
#5 - MARVEL MYSTERY BAGS (Visionary Concepts): Plastic Marvel figures hidden in water-dissolvable bags
#6 - THE REAL SHRUNKEN HEAD (Witch Doctors?): "extremely lifelike", or deathlike, as it were, plastic shrunken human heads
#7 - THE FLYBAR (Flybar Inc.): Pogo stick.
#8 - WHAT'S IN NED'S HEAD (Fundex Games): Plush head containing fake vomit, bugs, moldy cheese, rats and worms
#9 - TKO FIT KIDS (TKO Sports Group): Inflatable child-size wrestlers
#10 - BABOOCHI (Baboochi World): Anthropomorphic blue furry M&M-shaped doll
Can you nominate heads? What about Bill Gates, George Bush, the CEO of SCO, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Eminem?
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
I say they should design real-life action figures of characters like Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and Steve Jobs! Maybe we can even bundle them in two-packs. I think a Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds would look nice together.
What if we throw a CEO for Motorola and Kevin Mitnick in one pack? You know people would dish out the cash for this.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
>>My first toy was a set of wood sticks notched
you should be so lucky...our parents told us to play with dirt.
These may be wierd in a 'oo! It's japanese and odd' way, but for my money, the wierdest toys ever can be found at Disturbing Auctions. Just look at the emotionally scarring toys and weep. Half of those are home made and beat hands down anything Japan could come up with.
Now if only somebody combined the Baboochi with the super pogo-stick and the move-around AI of that hedgehog...
It would be the ultimate, most satisfying shooting range target ever invented.
The Baboochi is an attempt to indoctronate children in the cult of scientology. Do a little research about Laura C. Byrnes the creator, just a second on google and you can see how screwed up this really is.
http://home.scientologist.org/laurab/
I for one do not like the idea of children playing with a toy created by a long time cult member, especially when it includes a pamphlet to introduce them to the relegion.
Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries