Princess Bubbles Magic Wishes Talking Bubble Wand ($6.99, from $8.99)
Speaking of toys that lie to kids, here's one that seems particularly proud of its perfidy. It's a beaming, distinctly Disney-esque plastic mermaid-shaped bubble-blower with a little touch-activated sensor on its head. You're supposed to blow a bubble, make a wish (by which they clearly mean "Ask a question"), and then catch the bubble on the mermaid's magic '70s disco mandala headband, whereupon she'll answer your question with a canned phrase like "No way!" "Maybe!" or "Yes! Lucky you!" Right there on the packaging, a sweet little girl is asking if she'll get a pony, and Princess Pathological Liar is telling her "Absolutely Yes!" Well, great. It's like a Magic 8-Ball that gives kids a big mermaidy smile and looks them right in their shining, trust-filled eyes as it sets up unrealistic expectations that their evil, not-at-all-magical parents will have to destroy.
The Barbie Game: Queen Of The Prom ($14.89, from $23.99)
This reproduction of an actual Barbie board game from 1961 ("A fun game with real-life appeal for all girls," the box proclaims) is a quaint little hoot: The goal is to acquire a boyfriend, become club president, and buy a formal gown, all so you can be queen of the prom. You circle the board, babysitting, collecting your allowance, landing on spaces like "Soda fountain: Pay $1 if without Boyfriend," and going to areas like school and "on a date." (Sample "on a date" board spaces: "He criticizes your hair-do. Go to beauty shop," and "He talks about cars with dad. Wait here.") Ha ha! Remember the long-ago and faraway bad old days of 1961, when society was patronizing and reductive toward women, and treated them like cutesy-poo little bubble-brains who lived in a completely different, far more sheltered, far more limiting world than men?
Pink Poker Night: It's A Chick Thing ($14.99, from $19.99)
Oh. Wait. Well, fuck.
Rubber Dolphin ($.33)
Of all the weird and horrible items the Cheap Toy Round-upers have examined over the years, this may well be the most baffling one of all. It's a badly painted, visibly seamed little green rubber dolphin with a big clunky hunk of plastic wedged inside, and with a lanyard attached so you can wear it as a necklace. The toy looks like an industrial manufacturing accident, but there was a whole bin of them, so clearly lump-of-plastic-in-dolphin had some deep purpose. Careful A.V. Club laboratory experiments under controlled conditions revealed that if you squeeze the plastic lump just right, little colored lights on the plastic lump start flashing, making your rubber dolphin into suitable raveware. But while these laboratory experiments answered the soulless scientific questions we had about this little rubber creature, they were incapable of answering the larger philosophical questions it raised: namely, why? Why? For the love of God, why?
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