Many years ago, I was walking through Glasgow’s famous Barras market and listening to the inspired bullshit traders used to flog their tat. One man in particular made me laugh: he was selling lifelike dolls, and began making stuff up to attract potential customers. “She walks!” he bellowed. “She talks! She farts! She pees!”
Of course, since then toy manufacturers *have* made dolls with bodily functions, but I never thought I’d see the day when toy firms tried to persuade kids that the must-have toy of the season was a shitting dog.
My Sky+ was on the fritz this morning so I rebooted it, which meant waiting for a bit until it picked up the satellite channels. Kids’ TV was on, and it cut to an advertising break. The first ad was for Barbie, who now comes complete with Tanner. Tanner is a dog, and if you feed him little brown biscuits he ejects them from his arse. As this is a responsible toy, you also get a poop scoop and bin that you use to pick up and store his bum biscuits.
What sort of world do we live in where this kind of stuff isn’t just invented, but manufactured in huge quantities and advertised on TV?
Comments
0 responses to “Holy shit, Barbie”
“Tanner is a dog, and if you feed him little brown biscuits he ejects them from his arse. As this is a responsible toy, you also get a poop scoop and bin that you use to pick up and store his bum biscuits.”
Is that a transcript from the advert? If it was – I’d buy it! :D
A very socially responsible one, of course ;)
We were out with friends the other night and I was ranting about this. Turns out they *own* it – or at least, their daughter does. My flabber was well and truly gasted.
Come to think of it, the fact that when drunk I rant about plastic shitting dogs probably explains why I’m not invited to many social occasions.
I’m looking forward to Menstrual Barbie
Rutty – you know sometimes you post something online, and then you think “hmm, that was much funnier in my head”, and you realise it’s going to be available online forever?
You’d better buy one quick:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07271.html
I have a knack of embarrassing myself on the internets ;¬)
There’s also a non-Barbie pissing cuddly dog, who actually raises his leg. And, I saw the other day, a pissing cat, complete with litter tray and brightly coloured litter.