Toys that should not exist

[naomikritzer]

Remember Baby Alive? It was this doll that was made in the late 1970s or early 1980s; it ate and pooped. You could change its diaper. It is possible that it even got a diaper rash. I was kind of fascinated by this doll, though my mother (sensibly enough) reacted to my tentative interest by saying something along the lines of, "Are you INSANE? Why on EARTH would anyone want to change poopy diapers unless they were at least getting a real baby out of the deal?"

So today I ran across a link to Barbie and her pet dog, Tanner. You can feed Tanner dog biscuits! And then he poops them out. And Barbie can clean them up with the pooper-scooper. And then you can feed them to him again!

I'm going back and forth between thinking that this is the most appalling thing ever marketed to children and thinking that Kiera and Molly would find this toy screamingly funny. Also, this seems like a Barbie with potential for cross-gender appeal.

Comments

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I went to the link you posted, saw the horse & thought, "Oh holy Ghu, don't tell me the horse shits!"

As to the "applingness"* level, you did see the post I ran a bit ago about the Civil War Nurse Barbie, right?
__________
*I can't get a correct spelling for this. Don't tell me I've broke the Inglish, again.

[naomikritzer]

Nooooooooooooo.... link?

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I didn't think to do it. Here it is in all its' "glory".

http://www.barbiecollector.com/showcase/product.asp?type=&subtype=&product_id=150367&series_id=150074

[naomikritzer]

Oh dear lord, that's ten times worse than the pooping dog. ::scrubs brain vigorously to remove image::

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I totally remember Baby Alive. My mom wouldn't buy me one, either. (Funny thing.)

You know, most of my brain is saying, "What on earth were they THINKING?" But then there's that other part that's laughing hysterically ...

[naomikritzer]

I actually have met (online) one person who did own one of those things, and they were even more disgusting in real life than they sound. Apparently the fake "food" would get stuck inside the doll and rot. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew. At least the dog pellets are nice, clean plastic.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, urk.

Hard to believe some product developer didn't see that coming...

Hmmmm

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Real dogs would be much more cost efficient if they pooped out their doggie biscuits whole so that they were reusable. Also people would be far more likely to clean up after their pooches!

I have a theory that you can tell a great deal about a person by how they used their Barbies. (I don't know as the children of today who spend hours playing with Barbie pooper scooper will ever admit to it later in life.) However, I do think it says something about me that I dressed my favorite Barbie in GI Joe's army jacket--with a peace sign markered on the back of it. Oh, and I broke all my Ken's legs so they could ride horses. Nothing says born lesbian like a cross-dressing hippie Barbie and a few Ken's with broken legs, lol.

Re: Hmmmm

[naomikritzer]

I never had Barbies as a kid. My mother not only wouldn't buy me Baby Alive, but she wouldn't buy me Barbies. I did, however, have the Sunshine Family, which was kind of like Hippy Barbie and Hippy Ken and Hippy Sunshine Kid and Sunshine Baby. Apparently you could buy them a VW Bus, but I never had that, just the family.