The Monthly Column: Off-Brand Holiday Toy Review
Why, look at the time! It’s annual gift-giving
season! Adults have their own rules for purchasing
presents for one another, as seen
elsewhere in this month’s Exotic. But, we know
that the real "reason for the season" is to desperately
placate the children, who so often
find their way into our lives. However, this is
easier said than done.
Kids’ toys are often expensive—and timeconsuming—
to locate and purchase. Grownups
barely have enough time during the
holidays to sit down and drink themselves
into oblivion, let alone buy the appropriate
squawking bits of plastic for cousin Mandy’s
spoiled, fatbody of a fatherless brat. So often
we overlook the obvious solution to paying
seventy-five goddamned dollars for a brandname
Entertaining Destructible. And, that solution
is a visit to the "superstore" in the strip
mall, next to eight competing Vietnamese nail
salons. All these toys are obtainable there—
and, for only a fraction of the cost of a more
famous product.
Eggtaculario!
Is it a "Hatchimal?" Well, it’s close enough, but
still legally distinct from one. Taking the core
premise of a robot toy that hatches itself from
an egg and stripping it down to $3.97 means
that you don’t quite get as much in the way
of "robotics," but you still get some hatching.
Just light the fuse, stand a solid distance away
and in 5-7 seconds, BAM!!! Eggtaculario blasts
crumpled wads of fake fur and other remarkable
bullshit all over the room, with a deafening
bang. Anything retrieved after this lowpowered,
more-or-less-safe-for-indoor-use
explosive goes off, is sure to be cherished
for days to come.
Unboxy Girl
A take-off of the more well-known toy,
wherein you buy a doll that apparently has an
Amazon Prime account, as she comes with an
assortment of tiny boxes to open (yes, that’s
actually a thing). Unboxy Girl is simply the
Section 8 version. It’s still a doll, modeled after
a young woman of ambiguous ethnicity and
indeterminate (but young) age, and it still extolls
the joy of taking junk you bought out of
the box it came in. However, instead of coming
with her own crap to open, she herself
comes swaddled in layer after layer of sturdy,
opaque packaging, thereby sapping the kid’s
energy to complain, after they rip and tear
their way through some of the toughest-toopen
cardboard Taiwan can produce.
Mr. Paws
Trending this year are interactive pets—fantastic
technological creations which are plush,
holdable, teachable, and sometimes, even
wearable. The level of investment in research
and development has made for some truly
cutting-edge toys. Mr. Paws, however, didn’t
involve a great amount of R&D, many marketing
focus groups, surveys or psychological
consulting to perfect. However, Mr. Paws still
manages to be all the things that kids want
in a companion and can obtained for cheap
(or, even free). How is this possible? Well, Mr.
Paws is a dog—the regular kind. See the guy
in the parking lot with a sack of puppies and a
minivan for more details.
Pokuman
Why pay Nintendo? Cut-rate, almost-replicas
of the popular collectible toy series have
existed nearly as long as the original, which
debuted nearly 23 years ago. Wouldn’t your
bratty nephew Carlos just light up with joy,
when presented with his very own Pokachew,
Scorchmander or Scrotle? No? Too bad. "Pokuman:
You Must Capture Most Of Them!"
Harold Wandwiggle
When you don’t have the dosh for oficial
Harry Potter-brand Silly British Wizard Shit,
there’s this guy. Harold, attendant of the lessprestigious
Pigpimple College Of Sorcery
And Chiropractics, was given a scar shaped
like a tornado on his chin, by the sinister Lord
Foldormord—forever marking his destiny.
Harold and his friends—Don Ferrety and Antigone
Farmhouse—must struggle to triumph
over evil, while still attending their studies
amidst a cast of dishwatery-but-amusing
weirdoes, such as dislikable fellow student,
Darko Badfoil, and the ogre groundskeeper,
Merle Haggard.
Johnny Superfast Chemical Lab Kit
Some toys are not only classics, but educational,
as well. Chemistry sets can spur the
scientific curiosity often found in kids before
their spirit is well and truly crushed, and
are well-regarded gifts. They are expensive,
though—even a cheap one can be over a
hundred dollars. What to do? Well, the Johnny
Superfast Chemical Lab Kit comes with only
the practical essentials: ephedrine, rubbing
alcohol, toluene, ether, sulfuric acid, salt, iodine,
lab glass and coffee filters. Your kid will
feel just like (but, legally separate from) television’s
Walter White. And, with a little practice,
the kit can end up paying for itself in, umm...
ways.
So, there you have it—what to look for when
you use your EBT card for dubious purchases
of toys, which will, of course, appear as food
on the receipt, to avoid government scrutiny
and to quash the potential for refunds. They
say kids are the most brand-aware consumers
out there and I believe it. But, I also believe
that all toys can be educational toys. In this
case, if they don’t like it, they learn that disappointment
is the nature of life. Suck it up, kid.
Habari Gani,
-WSTM
— Wombstretcha
