The Babble List: 18 Most Outrageous Toy Commercial Claims
Barbie makes ice cream! Laser tag guns shoot photons! And other lies.
by Cole Gamble
June 22, 2009
Whenever I see the toys available to kids these days, I seethe with jealousy. Robotic unicorns that fly! Video games more realistic than life itself! Jet packs! Where was this stuff when we were kids? To be fair, we had some pretty decent toys during our childhood. That is, if said toys had ever actually done the things they were advertised to do. We are a generation of rubes. On Saturday mornings, advertisers showed us incredible playthings that could do
stuff far beyond what technology was capable of achieving. But we bought it hook, line and sinker because . . . we were kids and we were dumb. Then we worked all summer just to earn money to buy that laser death ray which — guess what? — vaporized nothing. That was
the moment we learned the world was just a tangle of lies. In memorium of our childhood innocence, here are the fifteen most egregious toy commercial claims. — Cole Gamble
#18 | Bubble Thing (1988)
The SUV-sized bubbles the kid creates in this spot are actually incredibly hard to make. And did they mention you have to buy an entire bucket of special Bubble Thing brand bubble liquid, 'cause the stuff you use for small bubbles won't do? Oh, and if you ever, ever get a speck of dust on the Bubble Thing, it will never bubble again.
#17 | Domino Rally (1993)
Wow, what an intense thirty seconds of hot domino action! Not shown: the three weeks setting up that thirty-second climax.
#16 | Guess Who (1982)
"Hey loner kid! Yeah, you with no friends or social skills. Stop beating yourself up over your pariah status and get yourself a whole village of easily categorized friends ready to chat with you about any inane topic you like. Who needs real friends when you've
got Guess Who?" (Disclaimer: Guess Who characters do not come to life. And even if they did, do you really think they would be your friends?)
#15 | Nintendo Power Glove (1989)
Now you can enter the incredible world of video games. Well, no. Actually, you get a gaudy arm accessory that makes playing video games extremely hard, and looks more like you're giving a prostate exam than having fun.
#14 | Barbie Ice Cream Maker (1989)
Barbie helps you make ice cream. How super fun! Except the part about waiting sixteen hours for your ice cream. Not to worry, kids are all about delayed gratification. Also, you're not getting ice cream, but a sickly vanilla extract-flavored ice milk.
#13 | Twister (1992)
Boy, Twister looks like fun. Sweet, sober, platonic fun. Ah, how innocent we were . . .
About the Author
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Cole Gamble is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. He's working on an evil self-help guide titled Improve Your Life or Die.
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