Classic Commercial Sunday - Seriously, How Fun Is The Kennedy Airport?

Classic Commercial Sunday - #83

Classic Commercial Sunday - #73 Barbie Goes Camping

The End of the World is One Step Closer

This is a real toy. I saw it for sale in Target this weekend. The people who made this should be as ashamed as the people who are going to pay Casey Anthony for her movie/book rights. Ugg!

Classic Commercial Sunday - #70

Mad Monster Party

May I recommend Monster Puppets from Made By Me Junior? This is a wonderful arts & crafts kit that Santa Claus brought us (although I've also seen it at Wal-Mart for $10.) What I thought would be a one-time craft project turned out to be more than that. The kit comes with five basic hand puppets and then 75 pieces of different body parts likes eyes, mouths and hair. The really cool part is that the pieces are all backed with velcro so the kids can literally make hundreds of different puppets. They had a blast creating all different kinds of monsters. Elias even took to sketching some designs out before he made the puppets. You don't know how rare it is to spend an entire weekend evening at our house with the kids asking once to turn on the TV or the Wii.

I used to LOVE puppets when I was little. Let me just say that if YouTube had been around when I was their age, there would be 5,000 videos of my puppets online for you to enjoy. Here's the next best thing...my kids doing their own puppet video. (I don't like to brag, but I kind of directed it.)

And yes, there is an episode 1 too.

Finally, One Of My Kids Toys Is A Safety Hazzard

If you ever take the time to look, you'll notice that toy companies recall an awful lot of their own products. Every time I see that something we have is recalled, further investigation reveals we don't have one of the affected products. Which I realize is good news, but honestly the prospect of getting a new version of one of our toys for free just sounds too good to pass up. During the big lead paint scare a few years ago we had several items that appeared on the list. But after checking teeny tiny production codes on the bottom of toys, it turned out only a little Thomas The Tank Engine train was recalled. The kids were past their Thomas stages, so I just threw the very unuseful engine in the trash. A while back I noticed that some Big Wheels were recalled including a Go Diego Go bike. I dug our bike out of the garage and checked it against the instructions on the company's website and sure enough - our Diego bike (along with several Barbie and Dora bikes) has caused some genital bleeding for a few unfortunate children. It turns out that a little pretend ignition key near the handle bars sticks out a little too much causing some discomfort for children who bounce forward from their seat. ...And by discomfort I mean Genital Bleeding!

Genital bleeding?! That's way more exciting than boring ol' lead paint from China. Better yet, unlike every other recall - Mattel wasn't asking for proof that you had the bike. If you requested the Safety Recall Repair Kit they'd send it to you at no charge! Oh, we're in!

A few weeks later a box urgently marked Safety Recall Notice appeared in our mailbox. The contents of the box were a few slips of paper instructing you how to repair your genital snagging bike (in English and Spanish - Thank you Diego!) and a replacement for the offending key. The box was big enough to ship two Homicide: Life on The Streets Complete Series DVD sets, yet they could have gotten away with shipping a small padded envelope.

The blue key pictured above is the older key that needed to be replaced. It's approximately one inch longer than the new grey key they shipped. The new key is a neutral color, I suppose so it could also go onto Barbie or Dora's bike which I would also assume are either pink or purple. It seems like alot of time and money went into correcting this issue. Perhaps it would have been easier for Mattel to just issue a statement recommending the bike not be enjoyed by well-endowed children.

Here's Tanner enjoying all the fun of turning the new grey key on his Go Diego Go bike while traversing the countryside confident in the security and comfort of knowing that his genitals are free from risk of internal injury. Go Diego Go!

Classic Commercial Sunday - #47 Brady Edition

Here's a nifty little video someone threw together featuring three different commercials staring child actors who later went on to become known as members of The Brady Bunch.

A Wendy's Pic-a-Nic

Well, my life is now complete thanks to the release of Yogi Bear this past weekend. It was actually kind of sad how excited I was to see the movie. I'm happy to report that Yogi Bear did not disappoint. They made a nice family movie that really stuck to the spirit of the old cartoons. The new movie is funny, sweet and wholesome for the whole family. I even sprung for a 3D screening and the effects were really cool. Do yourself a favor and go out and catch a screening of the movie critics are calling "the crowning achievement since the advent of photography!" I should mention that said achievement grossed $16.7 million this past weekend and that said critic's quote was made up by me.

I should have gotten to this earlier, but we've been meaning to get around to Wendy's Yogi Bear Kids Meal. If you ask me, Yogi (and the public) really got ripped off when it comes to the Happy Meal department. I would have liked to seen McDonald's do a whole holiday promotion tied into the movie. The Happy Meal boxes could have looked like picnic baskets, they could have introduced some new Jellystone burger, and the whole restaurant could have been decked out in a red and white checker picnic theme. Oh well, what do I know. At least somebody had a Yogi kids meal, even if it was Wendy's - who never really seems to get the top notch properties for their kids prizes.

Wendy's is offering five different Yogi Bear movie prizes with their kids meals right now. The idea of the prizes is that they are supposed to be games and activities that kids and parents can do together. I would have preferred little toy figures, but good ol' Wendy gave it a nice try.

I stopped by my local Wendy's the other night and the kid behind the counter was nice enough to go back into the storeroom and crack open each of the cases and prizes and snag me one of each...well, he could only find 4 - but that was still awesome of him!

Here's what we got...

This first one ties into the movie nicely, even if it's execution is a little off. The Waterski Spin Top Maze tries to recreate a pivotal scene from the movie where Yogi tries to show off his waterskiing talents. In the movie, his efforts don't pay off and neither will yours trying to spin the tiny little top on this cardboard lake. The idea of the game is to maneuver the top around the various cut-out obstacles in the lake. It's a nice little memento from the movie, the top has a picture from the film on it - but as a toy/prize it falls a little short.

The Basket Fishing Game is pretty cool. It comes with a neat fishing pole with Yogi's picture on it and several little pic-a-nic baskets that you punch out of cardboard. Each basket has a different food item and points under it, so the idea is to take turns and see who can fish up the most points. Some of the food items are different Wendy's items, which I thought was a nice touch. Who doesn't want to use a fishing pole to snag themselves a delicious creamy Frosty!?

In the Feed Yogi game, you try to shoot different food discs into Yogi's mouth. You may have seen this disc launcher before, either as a prize in cereal of a birthday party goodie bag. I can tell you that this Wendy's version is somehow supersonic and we ended up shooting a Frosty into parts unknown on the very first try. We've still got the corn and the Jr. Hamburger though. Thank goodness!

The climax of the film involves the Baskit Nabber 2000, and this "3D Puzzle" is a pretty cool replica of the contraption Yogi builds. However, I have a feeling Yogi had an easier time building the real one that you...or any kid would have putting this puzzle together. It's basically a card stock paper model with one zillion steps to assemble. It literally took me an hour to put it together, but I gotta say it was fun and it now looks pretty cool sitting on my desk at the WWoB offices!

The last toy in the collection, that I haven't snagged yet, is the Yogi Basket Stack Game. It comes with a little Yogi figure with his arms spread out and you try and stack little blocks with food on it and hope not to topple Yogi over. This one looked the neatest and hopefully a return visit to the prize gods at Wendy's will secure me a Yogi Basket Stack game for my collection.

If you are interested, Wendy's will have the toys for a few more weeks before their Smart Links promo starts. You heard me, Smart Links???

Smurf The Halls

`Tis the Season to be Smurfy! With the Smurfs set to make a splash next summer on the big screen, Smurf merchandise is starting to pop up all over the place this holiday season. The little blue guys have been missing in action for quite sometime, but have slowly been making a comeback on the pop culture landscape. This Christmas season, Macy's department store has enlisted the help of Papa Smurf as their official Christmas Ambassador. I'm not sure what that exactly means, but I know it's cool because it involves smurfs! Macy's even has a Smurf Gift Card (pictured here) available for your gift giving needs this December! Speaking of shopping, we thought we'd smurf up a whole mess of Smurf goodies that you'll be able to smurf in someone's stocking this year!
Of course, the fun begins at Macy's where you can pick up this exclusive plush, the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Holiday Smurf Toy with Finger Puppets. This would make a fine addition to any home's Christmas decorations. Standing at almost 20 inches high (I'm not sure how that relates to three apples high!?!) this Christmas smurf is sure to Smurf up your holidays! Macy's also has a 2010 Thanksgiving Day Parade snowglobe which features the Smurf balloon among many others in it's dome.

Elsewhere in the mall, you'll be able to find more smurfy goodness at Spencer's Gifts. They have two sets of Smurf glasses, in regular sized 16oz. sizes and also they have a set of four shot glasses. Both really cool gifts that are kind of reminiscent of the old Smurf glasses from Hardee's many moons ago. At Spencer's you might also be able to dig up a Smurf air-freshener, which I grabbed and it really smurfed up the entire car!



At Old Navy you'll find lots of cool retro metal lunchboxes including this one featuring the likeness of a one Mrs. Smurfette. It even has a thermos inside. Well played, Old Navy...well played! They also have some Smurfette shirts for the smurfette in your life.



And scrolling through Amazon, I stumbled across these awesome Smurf Mega Blocks sets. There are a few different ones to choose from and I'm happy to say my wife approved the purchasing of the largest set to arrive at our home. We're going to build us one Smurfin' carnival!

All this smurfy goodness has made me just realize something....Smurf Happy Meal next summer! Holler!

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Hip-Hop

I took a video of this push-button store display at Wal-Mart for Weebles. It's nice to see the Weebles return to a style similar to their 1971 debut, but seeing them dance to their 2010 theme song remix is quite disturbing...


You, of course, remember their original slogan and jingle...


Weebles were awesome!

McGood Times

The cast of McDonaldland characters is one of the great things that we all loved about the fast food chain when we were younger. The Burger King Kids Club crew, the Arby's oven mit or even Bob Evan's Bisquit n' Gravy - none come even close to the awesomeness of Ronald McDonald and his buddies. These toys are reproductions from a line of McDonaldland toys that came out in the 70's. What kid today wouldn't want to recreate the adventures of Capt. Crook trying to get his hands on a Filet o'Fish sandwhich?! I had the whole set of these when I was younger including the giant playset with a mat that took up the entire floor of our playroom. It's probably worth hundreds of dollars now and I bet we sold it at a garage sale for a dollar.

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World's Largest Rubik's Cube

I saw this, face-to-cube, when I was 8 years old at the World's Fair in Knoxville, TN. It changed my life forever!

Operation: Sandbox

Five years ago, when we first moved into our house, we bought Elias a sandbox and set it up in a remote corner of our backyard. After a couple of messy afternoons in the sandbox, the new backyard attraction was avoided by Mommy and Daddy and so the investment just sat there...neglected...with the area around it slowly turning into a weed infested swamp. Now with two kids, both much older, I have been meaning to clean up the sandbox and return it to it's former glory. But ya know, with all The Golden Girls marathons that are always on, it's just hard to find the time to get things done.

A few weeks ago while I was cutting the grass, I drove by the sandbox and noticed the amount of murky water and plant life that had been collected on the box's concave lid. I thought to myself, "Gee, I hope nothing is living in that mini-ecosystem I created." Before I could even finish my thought, a huge snake - the length of a small school bus, quickly slithered out of the water and around the box. It was a sign that now was the time to implement Operation: Sandbox.

I borrowed a neighbor's wheel barrow and the kids and I shoved out the five to six hundred pounds of sand in the box. We then cleaned the inside and out of the box and lid very thoroughly and let it dry. It only took less than an hour before the sandbox was ready to be placed in it's new home and ready again for business. I relocated our Little Tykes Endless Adventures Hidden Treasure sandbox to a position closer to the house and our swing set.

Later on, we bought an addition 100 lbs. of sand to give the sandbox that fresh "new sand" look. Elias tried to help carry one of the 50 lbs. bags of sand from the car to the box...

I love when the kids can forget about video games and movies and just have a good old fashioned kid-time playing outside with something simple like a box full of sand:

Oh...and the snake has not been seen since.

Classic Commercial Sunday - Mickey Mouse Is In the House

Taylor Swift in a Box

It always cracks me up when actual human-type people become lines of merchandising. So now joining the ranks of Britney Spears, Jeff Gordon, Larry The Cable Guy, the Spice Girls and so many others we bring you country/pop crossover superstar Taylor Swift and her new line of dolls. As with most dolls, they look just like Barbie in a box that doesn't say Barbie. But if you push her tummy she'll belt out a few seconds of one of her hit songs.

The selection at the Wal-Mart I saw these at was pretty picked over, yet there were still about 5 different outfits that Taylor came in. Plus, as with any good doll...you can buy accessories! Taylor Swift needs a shinny silvery chair to sit in!

I guess in some respects, Taylor Swift is a better role model for little girls than Barbie. She's shaped like a real person and she's worked hard to get where she is today. That's not to say Barbie hasn't worked hard! You can't just be a teacher/veterinarian/doctor/mountain climber/astronaut without a little grunt work.

Better Than An iPhone

That's great that I can watch entire episodes of Bones or Ugly Betty on my cell phone...no, really it is! But I'd trade all the technology in the world to get my hands on one of these Color TV Set toys again. This was, hands-down, one of my favorite toys of all time growing up! Inside the tubes on the right were long strips of paper with a comic-style story printed on them. You would attach one end of the strip to one of the blue dials and the other end to the other dial. Then you'd slide the dials into a tray with the TV Set cover on it and turn the dials advancing the comic story or "show" frame by frame! Oh, such fun! Seriously, I used to play with these things till the paper scrolls just wore away to nothing!


And this set pictured here is pretty sweet with some of the Hanna-Barbera gang on it. I'm pretty sure I had this very set. Notice how the characters on the packaging are a bit off-model. Back then, toy companies only had to pay for the rights to reproduce the likeness of a character...nowadays the images have to be approved by the animation studio to make sure the characters look right.

Still, this toy is so much low-tech fun it's really a shame that kids today won't even know the joys of spending 45 minutes loading a vertical comic strip into a little plastic machine to read it frame by frame!

Fore!

When I was little I always enjoyed trying to recreate the fun of miniature golf at home with my homemade courses. My wife has heard all about my putt-putt creations of childhood and my far-fetched plans to build a mini-golf hole in our backyard so yesterday when we saw the Par Three Mini Golf Course by Step 2 at BJ's, she didn't stand in the way of the kids and I loading the box into our shopping cart. Now, our living room has been taken over by the 21-pieces of this three hole golf course toy. It's a well put together, well though out toy. There are three holes of putting fun - each one a little more difficult than the last. The greens feature high sides and not much room for a ball to go astray. There's also the slightest bit of an incline so the ball is practically guided to the hole. I suppose it's not very challenging but it certainly supplies lots of self-confidence building and it gets kids ready to tackle a real mini golf course. It's a great toy! My kids love it and played with it all night until I had to pry the clubs out of their hands for bedtime. And yes, before going to bed myself last night I fit in a quick three!

Classic Commercial Sunday #6

Hey Kids, It's Wolverine!

The new Wolverine movie comes out today. I'm gonna be honest with ya, my knowledge of Wolverine is very limited, I didn't even know X-Men was a thing until the movies started coming out. What I do know about Wolverine is that he has giant razor sharp claws sticking out of his hands and he's not too happy about it. The new movie looks kind of dark and very violent, which is a shame since they also market Wolverine and his comic book cohorts to preschoolers. There's a whole bunch of different products featuring Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Iron Man rendered in a kid-friendly style. What youngster doesn't love playing with his angry mutant or billionaire suit of armor?! Here's some of the toys and other stuff that we've got laying around our house...

A company called Learning Curve, who also makes the Thomas the Tank Engine toys, came out with a line of wooden play figures a few years ago that are similar to Fisher Price's Little People figures. The Play Town collection features sturdy wooden figures of all the different people in your neighborhood like the fire man, and the postman...and there's a grocery store and a fix-it garage - all the standards. They also went ahead and added Marvel comic book characters to the Play Town collection. You can pick up friendly little Wolverine with his good buddy Captain America. There's another set that comes with Spider-Man and the always lovable Incredible Hulk. Now you can have Hulk destroy the Play Town bank while Wolverine does some gardening!?


There's lots of kiddie books featuring Spidey and friends. In these books, the gang hang out at the playground and have fun with other kids. I don't know if I'd want to be pushed on the swings by Wolverine!

We got these a while ago. We bought a pack of Spider-Man forks and spoons for the kids. When we got home and opened the package we discovered that the forks all had Wolverine on them. Pretty clever, actually. I would assume Wolverine doesn't need a fork...or at least a knife.

And then my favorite of the whole collection...this Spidey and Friends CD. The thing is, this is an actual licenced product from Marvel comics. It has almost nothing at all to do with superheroes. The CD is filled with a dozen songs that are appropriate to play in a Sunday school classroom. Click on the play button on the picture below to hear the CD's tribute to deadly blade wielding Wolverine...