Toy Show Toy-In Its The 10 Most Disappointing Toys Of All Toyme! Dave December 1, 2009 Blogs The Late Late Toy Show is on tonight. It is a truth I wish people would pay heed to that Christmas ads, trees, ditties and shopping trips are only acceptable after its broadcast; the Toy Show is the event of the year and Im fucked if Im having it any other way. Its the only time whereupon your uttering, I miss Gay Bryne does not deserve a bollocking from your Irish friends (and a slow, horrified edging backwards from the furriners in your life). Look at this, for fucks sake! How could you not want a bit of that? Tonight is new host Ryan Tubridys first hop at this most glorious of traditional shindigs, and I have to say that I have no doubt hell take to it like a duck-faced coathanger to a life of culture and entitlement. In other words, I may not like Tubbers much, but hes a professional and hes going to ace this gig. Former host Pat Kenny looked like an undercover hedge when he tried to do the Toy Show; considering that Murphys Law is the Toy Shows 1st commandment, the likes of Pat The Plank was always going to suffer like a tin bowl of porridge in a microwave. And lets be honest; the Toy Show hasnt been great in recent years. Its up to Ry-Tub to bring it back, and in nothing less than a blaze of glory, too. When I was a smallie, my favourite thing about the Toy Show was the Billie Barry Kids, a group of stage-school flamboyants whom I would no doubt drown in a bucket if I was subjected to them as an adult. The turning point for me – by which I mean from when I found the Toy Show awesome to finding it stuck to my metaphorical shoe like common cat vomit – coincided with the point they stopped using the Billie Barry Kids and started using the Billie Barry Babies, who were all insufferably cute and sang Barney songs and sounded like newborn kittens falling into nests of newborn alligators. And of course, there was Pat Kenny, and yeah, mostly it was Pat Kenny. The Toy Show, which you are entitled to enjoy right into your dotage (and something Id give my left lung to attend), started to disappoint me. I think I even missed it last year. But then, just because its supposed to be fun, doesnt mean its not capable of disappointment. So without further ado, heres Swearys Top 10 Most Disappointing Toys Ever! 10: Playsets of Any Fucking Description Apart From Maybe Sindys Dream Room Which Was Awesome. You think youre getting a world as big as your imagination, which has its own gravitational pull and room for a winged ninja unicorn. Instead you get a bi-folding piece of plastic an inch deep with two floors and no stairs, and it wont stand upright on your bedroom floor carpet, and your action figure gets stuck in the ultra-secret trapdoor, and the accessories are only painted on. 9. Make-Up Just Like Mams. Except its not just like Mams. Its either actual moulded plastic, or it melts your eyelids you when you try to Alexis-Carrington-yourself up a bit. Either way its not very glamorous. I blame Catholic Ireland and its prejudice against hussies. 8: Tamagotchis. The virtual pet that purported to be easier to look after than a real pet, with less dire consequences in the event of a childish lapse in concentration. In reality it shat all over its screen if you left it alone for the odd real-life toilet break. If you dared fall asleep, it died. A generation developed OCD and twitches in unusual places. 7: Furbys I rather agonised about whether or not it was wise to include an evocative picture here, you know. Furbys are just that fucking annoying. So heres a dead one instead. The gibbering, ever-conscious, creepy little cuntball. 6: Paper Dolls. I got a lot of paper dolls as a child, because I liked fashion and was too poor to afford any. Fashion made out of paper isnt all that clever, though. No matter how careful you were, youd slice through the bendy bits that were all that stood between your dolls garden party glamour and her arrest for indecent exposure. Also, the shoes kept flipping up like a hoop skirt. Sure Pritt was your only man, and that defeated the purpose entirely. 5: Sea Monkeys Disgusting. Jesus, keeping brine shrimp on your dressing table and pretending they were elements of a sophisticated mini-society? They floated, for fucks sake! Thats all they did! Plus, they looked like something out of The Thing, except Things that were content to just float passively oh, Jesus, they were just SHIT. 4: Barbies Pony Coz it was no fucking horse, let me tell you. Not to be an equine Nazi, but Barbie is at least seven feet tall, comparatively speaking. She should be atop nothing smaller than a Brontosaurus. Her legs, therefore, didnt fit in the ugly would-be stirrups and she kept sliding off to one side like the town of Fermoy. Also, why was it that so many of Barbies geegees had one leg constantly raised in a state of extreme imbalance, like Megan Fox in that movie? These are noble beasts, you bitch! 3: Plastic Slinkies. Like metal slinkies, but actually stocked in rural Irish shops. Unlike metal slinkies, because they stopped on the second step of the stairs, got wound up in your das runners, and warped like a fucking Star Trek getaway within ten minutes of your bringing them home. On top of that, they always developed weird little black dirt spots. Perhaps because THEY WERE POXY. 2: Mr. Frosty How I wanted a Mr. Frosty! How I longed for my very own slushee-making production facility from where I could experiment with Wonka-type flavours with the inhibitions of a figure-skating Heathcliff. When I eventually got my hands on one, the resulting concoctions tasted like a windscreen. Im being kind. And, the most disappointing toy of all? 1: Robin Williams Toys. I mean what the fuck was that all about? The fuck. What. The Fuck. What? WHAT? Do plaster your own opinions liberally below. I demand a themed day in preparation for The Toy Show. That, and two bottles of cheap Shiraz and some Cuisine De France mince pies. Tweet
