Deadpool1986
Cook with a Mouth
'Tis the season when toys come front-and-center in our consciousness. In the drive to produce thousands of new toys each year, the industry occasionally missteps, producing toys that anger rather than amuse the buying audience.
Here are ten toys that reached the market over the past few years that probably never should have seen the light of day.
Road Rage Al Snow
The aforementioned Reverend Rose was all over this one. In 1999, wrestler Al Snow had a bizarre gimmick in which he took advice from a decapitated mannequin head (it started after he took another wrestler's advice to "get a little head" a bit too literally). JAKKS Pacific produced an action figure of Snow with a decapitated head accessory, but Walmart pulled the figure from shelves after a college professor complained that the figure glorified violence against women. If that's the case, then an awful lot of brothers who took the heads off their sister's Barbies have some explaining to do.
Shape Shifters Punisher
Holy shyt. I mean, HOLY shyt. What were they thinking when they made this toy? Sure, shifting the parts around to give Frank Castle an enormous missile-firing chub isn't precisely following the prescribed transformation instructions, but when you do get him transformed into a "Power Pistol," he looks like something designed by Robert Mapplethorpe and H.R. Giger. What kid would want this anyway? When I was a wee one I know I'd rather have had a regular Punisher action figure and a regular toy pistol - I didn't need them to be mashed together to create something that looks a particularly severe punishment from Dante's Inferno.
Can you guess why this toy was controversial?
His official name was "Rad Repeatin' Tarzan." The gimmick was that he could record you saying things and then repeat them back. Evidently he was also supposed to raise his hand to his mouth to do his famous call. However, lowering the arm just a little bit resulted in a far different gesture.
It's not clear whether this toy was ever actually recalled or banned, although due to its notoriety on the Web, plenty of eBay sellers are happy to tell you it was and is therefore RARE HTF!
Black Canary Barbie
With a leather jacket-underwear combination that covers most of her torso and fishnet stockings, Black Canary is arguably one of the more fully-dressed female superheroes in comics. But when Mattel released a version of Barbie in Black Canary's outfit, some people were not pleased. The media called her "S&M Barbie," and the religious group Christian Voice claimed that "a children's doll in sexually suggestive clothing is irresponsible - it's filth."
The Lion King Rafiki & Simba Toy
This (probably) McDonald's Rafiki toy is meant to mirror and recreate that inspiring, beautiful and memorable moment from the Disney classic The Lion King where Rafiki (the baboon/monkey/wise-man) raises Simba over his head to show the entire kingdom their new prince and f*ture king.
The toy has been made to allow Rafiki to hold Simba just a liiiiittle too far down. So far down that this becomes really, really disturbing.
Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Electronic Broomstick
More than one vibrating toy was considered for this list, but ultimately we decided to go with the Harry Potter Vibrating Broomstick. It's a toy broomstick for children that vibrates. Y'know, to simulate...uh...the way flying broomsticks vibrate when they fly? Because they do that, I guess?
As always, people saw that the toy could vibrate and immediately made the leap to an alternative use for this item, i.e., sticking it up your nether regions for the purpose of sexual stimulation.
Oreo Barbie
More than one toy disaster can be chalked up to cross-marketing, when two products are marketed together. Mattel stepped in it in 1997 while cross-marketing with Nabisco. "Oreo Fun Barbie" was produced to market the cookie, and the doll was garbed in Oreo-labeled clothes with a dandy Oreo-shaped purse.
Unfortunately, the doll was produced in two versions, one with a white Barbie, the other with a black one. As the Urban Dictionary explains, Oreo is "an insulting term often used by blacks to derogate other blacks as 'Black on the outside, white on the inside.'" The dolls were widely reviled and quickly withdrawn from the market.
Breast-Feeding Doll
There are a lot of strong arguments in favor of breast feeding, but not every parent would find playing at breast feeding an appropriate activity for his or her youngster. Nonetheless, the Spanish company Berjuan has brought just such a toy to market: the Bebé Glotón. The doll comes complete with a nippled vest that the child can don in order to provide sustenance to the baby. The nipples, in the form of open flowers, even make a sucking sound.
Oozinator
Um, wow. The Ooozinator from Super Soaker really outdid itself, as a toy.
C'mon, in the 90's we all knew exactly what the Super Soaker looked like in general: you'd have to pump the thing about 30 times before you could get out a solid enough stream to even reach the person nearest by. The harder, more often and faster you pumped, the more water would come out. Fine, we can live with that. But the change in the water's consistency really brought this to a whole new level.
The product itself is only a half terrible idea, but the commercial where we see this thing in action really sealed the deal.
As if there wasn't enough phallic insinuation woven throughout, the last second of the ad proudly states "major pumping required"
Wolverine Hammer
Unless this product was developed, tested, assembled, and sold by blind robots, someone along the way must have seen the issue with this toy. You might go as far as to say that this was a conscious choice by some juvenile toy maker, because it is really hard to believe that with all the development that goes into toys, this made it through various tests without a hitch.
This, of course, is the infamous Wolverine Bop Hammer. This hammer makes a squeaky sound when you hit it against things. You know, like in the Wolverine comics (???)
It's an inflatable toy, which makes sense, as any other kind of hammer would probably be too dangerous for kids.
00:26 - 00:56 You don't have to watch the whole video, but look at where they put the spigot on the toy. Where someone has to put their mouth to blow up the toy. Check out exactly where they put it. We all really really loved Wolverine as a kid... but I don't think any one of us loved him THAT much.
Here are ten toys that reached the market over the past few years that probably never should have seen the light of day.
Road Rage Al Snow
The aforementioned Reverend Rose was all over this one. In 1999, wrestler Al Snow had a bizarre gimmick in which he took advice from a decapitated mannequin head (it started after he took another wrestler's advice to "get a little head" a bit too literally). JAKKS Pacific produced an action figure of Snow with a decapitated head accessory, but Walmart pulled the figure from shelves after a college professor complained that the figure glorified violence against women. If that's the case, then an awful lot of brothers who took the heads off their sister's Barbies have some explaining to do.
Shape Shifters Punisher
Rad Repeatin' Tarzan Can you guess why this toy was controversial?
His official name was "Rad Repeatin' Tarzan." The gimmick was that he could record you saying things and then repeat them back. Evidently he was also supposed to raise his hand to his mouth to do his famous call. However, lowering the arm just a little bit resulted in a far different gesture.
It's not clear whether this toy was ever actually recalled or banned, although due to its notoriety on the Web, plenty of eBay sellers are happy to tell you it was and is therefore RARE HTF!
Black Canary Barbie
The Lion King Rafiki & Simba Toy
This (probably) McDonald's Rafiki toy is meant to mirror and recreate that inspiring, beautiful and memorable moment from the Disney classic The Lion King where Rafiki (the baboon/monkey/wise-man) raises Simba over his head to show the entire kingdom their new prince and f*ture king.
The toy has been made to allow Rafiki to hold Simba just a liiiiittle too far down. So far down that this becomes really, really disturbing.
Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Electronic Broomstick
More than one vibrating toy was considered for this list, but ultimately we decided to go with the Harry Potter Vibrating Broomstick. It's a toy broomstick for children that vibrates. Y'know, to simulate...uh...the way flying broomsticks vibrate when they fly? Because they do that, I guess?
As always, people saw that the toy could vibrate and immediately made the leap to an alternative use for this item, i.e., sticking it up your nether regions for the purpose of sexual stimulation.
Oreo Barbie
More than one toy disaster can be chalked up to cross-marketing, when two products are marketed together. Mattel stepped in it in 1997 while cross-marketing with Nabisco. "Oreo Fun Barbie" was produced to market the cookie, and the doll was garbed in Oreo-labeled clothes with a dandy Oreo-shaped purse.
Unfortunately, the doll was produced in two versions, one with a white Barbie, the other with a black one. As the Urban Dictionary explains, Oreo is "an insulting term often used by blacks to derogate other blacks as 'Black on the outside, white on the inside.'" The dolls were widely reviled and quickly withdrawn from the market.
Breast-Feeding Doll
There are a lot of strong arguments in favor of breast feeding, but not every parent would find playing at breast feeding an appropriate activity for his or her youngster. Nonetheless, the Spanish company Berjuan has brought just such a toy to market: the Bebé Glotón. The doll comes complete with a nippled vest that the child can don in order to provide sustenance to the baby. The nipples, in the form of open flowers, even make a sucking sound.
Oozinator
Um, wow. The Ooozinator from Super Soaker really outdid itself, as a toy.
C'mon, in the 90's we all knew exactly what the Super Soaker looked like in general: you'd have to pump the thing about 30 times before you could get out a solid enough stream to even reach the person nearest by. The harder, more often and faster you pumped, the more water would come out. Fine, we can live with that. But the change in the water's consistency really brought this to a whole new level.
The product itself is only a half terrible idea, but the commercial where we see this thing in action really sealed the deal.
As if there wasn't enough phallic insinuation woven throughout, the last second of the ad proudly states "major pumping required"
Wolverine Hammer
Unless this product was developed, tested, assembled, and sold by blind robots, someone along the way must have seen the issue with this toy. You might go as far as to say that this was a conscious choice by some juvenile toy maker, because it is really hard to believe that with all the development that goes into toys, this made it through various tests without a hitch.
This, of course, is the infamous Wolverine Bop Hammer. This hammer makes a squeaky sound when you hit it against things. You know, like in the Wolverine comics (???)
It's an inflatable toy, which makes sense, as any other kind of hammer would probably be too dangerous for kids.
00:26 - 00:56 You don't have to watch the whole video, but look at where they put the spigot on the toy. Where someone has to put their mouth to blow up the toy. Check out exactly where they put it. We all really really loved Wolverine as a kid... but I don't think any one of us loved him THAT much.
