Toy Forum
Other Toy Boards => General Toy Discussion => Topic started by: catlover51 on Saturday 10 September 2011, 01:57 am
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had to share I had (and still have) some
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44426734
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Thanks for sharing!! This was so interesting, here is a question though it shows the easy bake over and how it was recalled b/c it was a front loader, how do easy bake ovens "load" now? I thought they all loaded in the front?
also I remember all the news that was associated with sky dancers that certainly was crazy and something I did myself many times!!
Not really sure how I feel about gwen thompson, thoughts anyone?
I really do not understand why happy family midge was pulled when so many other barbies and dolls like this survived?
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Speaking of easy bake some one at the local antique mall has one of the original easy bake that still is in the box I want to say it dates to the 1960's or 1970's I cant remember.
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I really do not understand why happy family midge was pulled when so many other barbies and dolls like this survived?
I don't get it, either. I had a pregnant Barbie equivalent (I think it was a Steffi) myself, and it was such fun to play with (until you inevitably lost the baby, that is). I don't see how it can promote teenage pregnancy. Midge is not a teenager. She's an adult woman, she's even married. What more can parents ask for?
As for the Playmobil, I can't see the problem there, either. The security check is part of every airport. If you produce airport playsets, it's only logical to have a security check playset, too.
The concept of having a homeless doll is a little weird. I'm not sure who was supposed to buy it or what the company hoped to achieve by it. Is it supposed to be some kind of social criticism? "This is Gwen. She's been living in a car with her mum for ten months because her heartless landlord threw them out when Mum failed to come up with the rent. The government has not yet found her alternative lodgings..." *shrugs*
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recalling the easy bake oven ??? i remember the first creepy crawlers oven was a hot plate with only a thin rim around it ! you could really burn yourself if you were not careful and somehow while playing with it i never got burned!
i also had an easy bake oven and we played with it just fine !
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It wasn't all Easy Bake Ovens. Hasbro has redesigned the Easy Bake oven several times. One particular redesign had problems but all other ones never were recalled.
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Snork_Maiden I had one of those dolls as well but lost the stomach that covered the baby :-)
I agree though, you would think that it promotes an more "idealized, healthy life style" but who knows, I think there is probably at least some person out there who could argue any toy and how it could be "bad"
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recalling the easy bake oven ??? i remember the first creepy crawlers oven was a hot plate with only a thin rim around it ! you could really burn yourself if you were not careful and somehow while playing with it i never got burned!
i also had an easy bake oven and we played with it just fine !
My aunt had Incredible Edibles which was also a hot plate.
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Since we were just talking about this I wanted to share, new easy bake oven
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/easybake-oven-loses-bulb_n_961765.html?1316033838&ncid=webmail17
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I actualy have a couple of those lol!(cpk snaketime and a skydancer)
but I'm surprised they didn't mention the viper from the 70s battlestar glalactica a kid chocked to death on a springloaded missle thus causing a 20 year moritorium on springloaded missles (as well as the cancellation of rocketfiring boba fett)
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haha! Fun read!
I remember when that Easy Bake was banned. The recall notice at Walmart was a little horrifying to read. It said something along the lines of "Children can get their hand or arm stuck in the oven and get burned." Still, my cousin kept the thing for her kids..
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The title of the OP is a bit misleading... these aren't necessarily banned toys, they are failed toys, and many of them were recalled. That's quite a different thing. I proudly designed a couple of the 'failed' toys, I worked on the CPK Snacktime Kids, and we were so upset about the recall. We designers felt that it was completely contrived to sue Mattel- maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. One of my fellow designers had long hair, and we used to sit and try to feed her hair to the doll, and it never worked. The doll always stopped chewing. Mattel folklore was that a huge shipment of dolls, which were somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was unceremoniously dumped into the water. I have no idea if that's true, or just folklore! I don't want to start any unfounded rumors, but I think the whole episode was pretty sad.
Although I didn't work on the original Galoob Sky Dancer dolls, I did design all of the launchers and playsets for the Jakks Pacific (Playalong Toys) relaunch in the early 2000s. This line lasted for at least a couple of years, they had improved the wings by this time so that they were softer and less a 'weapon'. They were so cute!
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I am kind of glad you said that. It was something I noticed but did not think to mention. I also find it interesting to hear from the "other" side as I am sure that you work so hard on something it has to be devastating when it doesn't work out and is recalled. I also know that toys really are tested before they hit the market and when something goes wrong fingers are always pointed even when at times I am sure it is user error! Thanks so much for sharing your side!
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i am still trying to figure out how in the world someone cracked a rib on a sky dancer. I had some of the originals and the ones with the soft wings that did not fly as well. We never launched them at each other but often we would launch them into the ceiling/wall accidentally. Looking back they were very very fun toys and i am sad that they were recalled. It annoys me that even with rigorous testing, trial runs, and very well thought out/ explicit warnings stuff still happens. If we just use common sense and do not play with the toys other than what they were original intended for there should be no problem. so even if something does happen it does not give us the right to sue the maker of said toys. Do the common people even know what goes on during development ? the countless hours/efforts made to ensure the toy meets safety standards?
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(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Teenage-Mutant-ninja-turtles-Pizza-Thrower-box-/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/$(KGrHqIOKpEE5Y+sEhqTBOeoSwLfdg~~60_58.JPG)
I knew a guy who had this TMNT wall and he said it would put dents in sheetrock walls. That seems like a more likely candidate for rib cracking!
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toy trivia for the above toy ! it was not originally a pizza thrower it first came out as manhole covers and then was quickly reissued for pizza discs! the first version is harder to find!
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That's funny you mentioned that! My neighbor had the manhole 1 and we would spend hours playing with it when we were little
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http://www.cracked.com/article_17493_the-13-most-unintentionally-disturbing-childrens-toys.html
where do people come up with these ideas!!
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HAHA!! Loved it! Thanks for sharing!!
Is it wrong that I kind of liked the 6 finger song??
The face back is actually for sale on ebay right now by a few people
holy cow big loo creeps me out and his voice is even worse!
I feel like Erwin the little patient could actually be used as a good teaching tool
I'm sorry but the Yodeling Lederhosen actually make me laugh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqnSSCHXWY
I like the struts horse!! more for me though!
http://www.amazon.com/Struts-Fantasy-Fashion-Runway-Sierra/dp/B0014UFCZI
I think Hugo may give me nightmares!!
I am sorry but I vote that the number 1 disturbing toy of my childhood was the Furby!! I remember my sisters and I each got 1 for Christmas and we were immediately terrified and we could not get them to stop talking and blinking no matter what we did. Finally we put them under the bathroom sink and closed the cabinet and for the longest time we were too scared to open the doors!! Not sure what ever happened to them, I honestly thought they were still there until the other day when someone brought them up and I looked...I should ask my mom what happened to them, I wonder if they are still creepy? :-)
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the only thing i remember about furbies is that they were all afraid of me . >:) i do not know what it was with the electronics but the toys always made the afraid response around me.
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The Midge doll seems like it was an awesome idea! Bummer that a few people ruined it for everyone else.
I had a Skydancer, and I don't recall ever getting hurt with it. Then again, I don't recall looking straight down into it as I pulled the rip-cord. :P (And I was aware that it wasn't a weapon.) I'll bet that all of those injuries occured when the BROTHERS got ahold of them. ;)
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haha, love the brothers comment!!! I think it was all them :-) Sorry to any guys who read this!! ;-)
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well they did make a boys line of sky dancers called dragon flyz and i am not kidding about the name either. I wonder if those were also recalled as well.
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They probably wouldn't have been. Boys could handle it, but, yah know, us girls are so fragile. :P
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HA!! They probably EXPECTED boys to use them as weapons!
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so it was fine to recall the girly ones but the boys ones got a pass??
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Wait- they didn't recall the boys ones???
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Are you sure the Dragon Flyz didn't get recalled? They disappeared around the same time Sky Dancers did.
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I have the Pizza Thrower in my basement -- AND the Chicken Run version they released half a decade later as well! I can assure you that it won't put dents in sheetrock walls, lol. My older brothers used to shoot those things at each other -- and me!!! -- all the time. Stings like crazy, but unless you have your freaking EYE up to the, uh, barrel when you press "eject", it's no more dangerous than playing air hockey. Lol.
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It's kind of funny - my son "won" an airplane at school recently that has the exact same concept as Skydancers did. I'm guessing that it just doesn't have as much oomph as they did. Either that or they're being distributed "illegally." ;)
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well let the kid have their fun any toy could be potentially dangerous if used improperly.
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Oh, for sure! I had no plans to take it away from him. Surely if he hits himself in the eye with it, he'll only do it once. ;)
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Sky dancers are a banned toy? My sisters and I still have them and the only thing that ever happened with ours was that they had to rescued more than once from the garage roof by our dad. We were only to play with them outside.
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I still have my sky dancers. I had trouble getting them launched, so my brothers normally played with them more.
I have one big one, she's mostly green. Her launching thing is a tree trunk, covered flowers. The string has a butterfly at the end. And two little ones, one green, one purple. Their launchers are carousal rabbits, one white, one pinky purple.
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You would think CNBC could get it's info right. ::)
Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids
The Cabbage Patch Kids line was introduced by Mattel at the 1983 International Toy Fair in New York City. It enjoyed blockbuster sales throughout the decade, and demand was so great that it inspired several spin-off products, such as a breakfast cereal and a diaper brand.
CPK Toys were introduced by Coleco not Mattel in 1983. Again this was the toy line. The CPK line started out as "Little People" by Xavier Roberts 1977. In 1982 the name was changed to "Cabbage Patch Kids" and Coleco got the rights to start producing the vinyl faced toys. For those that don't collect... the soft face dolls are considered artwork, the hard faced dolls are toys. ;)
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I have that eating cabbage patch doll! I gifted her to a friend since I cannot legally sell it being a recalled toy. That is my understanding of selling those... been meaning to visit my friend and get some good photos of her XD
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I still can't believe I missed the entire sky dancer recall. My mum missed it too. Still, I'm glad I've still got them.
The homeless girl doll sounds pretty cool lol. It's the kinda toy that would have appealed to me.
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ni ce , thanks for you sharing it
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Here are more
http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2011/08/07/15-creepiest-weirdest-strangest-dolls-ever-photos/#japanese-child-birth-doll
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some of these are too funny. I am just reading the one about the pregnant Midge doll. How she promotes teen pregnancy. I don't get how a doll that is supposed to be married and is not a teenager promotes teen pregnancy. I had this doll new in box for awhile thought she might be worth something. She wasn't and i sold her at my yard sale years ago lol
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You would think CNBC could get it's info right. ::)
Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids
The Cabbage Patch Kids line was introduced by Mattel at the 1983 International Toy Fair in New York City. It enjoyed blockbuster sales throughout the decade, and demand was so great that it inspired several spin-off products, such as a breakfast cereal and a diaper brand.
CPK Toys were introduced by Coleco not Mattel in 1983. Again this was the toy line. The CPK line started out as "Little People" by Xavier Roberts 1977. In 1982 the name was changed to "Cabbage Patch Kids" and Coleco got the rights to start producing the vinyl faced toys. For those that don't collect... the soft face dolls are considered artwork, the hard faced dolls are toys. ;)
That isn't the only thing CNBC got wrong in that article. I have the Gwen Thompson doll, and a lot of things in the write-up about her aren't exactly accurate. She was actually manfuactured as a friend for a different American Girl doll named Chrissa, the Girl of the Year doll for 2009. While there were some people who didn't like her because she "encourages kids to feel sympathy for the homeless", most of the controversy was because parents thought her backstory was too scary for children in light of an economic downturn, however she "disappeared after a few months" because she was retired at the end of 2009, not because of any complaints about her being homeless.
Also, the line about her living in a car was taken out of context. In the Chrissa books, her father abandoned her, and her mom was unable to keep up with the bills on her own. They actually lived in a homeless shelter until the end of book 1 when Gwen's mom could afford to rent an apartment, and the fact that they ever lived in a car was only mentioned in passing.
Most of the GOTY dolls support some cause, and Chrissa's was anti-bullying. In the books, Gwen was very shy, and she was picked on because she didn't have much money or fashionable clothes. I think the idea behind her was to teach girls to befriend those less fortunate, not make fun of them, and to dispel the negative stereotypes about the homeless.
Sorry for that long-winded explanation... I just wanted to clear up a few things aout Gwen.