As I’ve already helpfully pointed out, the toy aisle at a dollar store is a lawless hellscape of trademark infringement and cheap plastic. If your kid is a John Cena fan but you don’t have “licensed WWE product” money to throw around, you can bet you’ll find a “Jon C. Nah Wrestler Toy” for a buck, tops. Does your daughter like animals? There will be ten different sets of mixed animal toys, and they will all smell like burning plastic no matter what temperature it is.
What farm animal collection would be complete without a zebra?
Here are five more of these awesomely weird dollar store toys.
Wiid West Actlon Figure
“Get ready for some wiid [sic] actlon [sic]!”
The Wiid West is not kind to idiots. Case in point: this cowboy, whose unnervingly flaccid shotgun is about to blow his own foot off.
Pirates Adventures
If you go on a Pirates Adventure and the crew puts you in charge of watching the stepladder and the bird, it’s because they know you’re a shitty pirate.
You’re probably wondering why a giant brown hawk is even part of this set. I have a theory: originally the toy company wanted that to be a parrot, but they already had some plastic hawks lying around and they couldn’t be bothered to tell the difference between the two animals. It’s the kind of disregard for animal biology that makes you wonder how many pet iguanas they’ve drowned because they thought they were amphibians.
Ha! Just kidding. Nobody would be that stupid.
Amphibians
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Rainbow Pony
I used to wonder about the companies that make these toys. Why do they do it? Do they hate kids? Do they like watching a child’s excitement turn to disappointment when they realize they got a G.I. Moe or a Hi-Low Kittee? Thanks to Rainbow Pony, I now know for sure. Selling a disappointing knock-off is bad enough, but it takes a special kind of spite to include the phrase “Lucky you” on the packaging. Whatever kid got this instead of a My Little Pony is having a shitty enough birthday without your fucking sarcasm.
Fitment Set
I noticed two strange things while researching this article. The first is that nobody gives a shit what you do in a dollar store, even if you’re a grown man taking pictures of toys and snickering to yourself. The second is that cheap toy makers don’t think very highly of girls or their imaginations. For example, here’s Fitment Set by Arcady:
The toy industry is based on the notion that children have boundless creativity, yet Arcady thinks that girls’ imaginations stop at “what if I owned two colors of furniture?!” Fitment Set lets any girl live out what Arcady assumes are her wildest dreams, including:
Taking a nap!
Watching Netflix!
Taking a fancy nap!
Pooping!
Boys get to go on Pirates Adventures and tame the Wiid West, while girls get to make beds and clean toilets. And in case you think I’m being overly sensitive when I call these toys sexist, check this shit out:
I don’t do much furniture shopping, so maybe a reindeer pulling a sleigh really is a crucial accessory for your chaise lounge. Either way, that’s not even the stupid part. Look closely at the image they used to illustrate the toy on the cardboard behind it. It’s a horse.
A horse.
It’s a fucking horse.
That’s how stupid Arcady thinks girls are. They think they can be tricked into mistaking a repurposed Christmas ornament for a majestic thoroughbred. Has any toy ever fucked up basic animal anatomy this badly?
Oh, right.
