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Ding Dongs and Trap Doors
Do you remember the first time you learned about Tupperware? I was a young boy living in another place when the Tupperware representative lured me into her party with a Fisher Price castle. To this day I have no idea what the link was between that fine toy maker and the producer of the world's best known plastic thingamajigs, but I still have fond yet confused memories of defending the castle against the onslaught of plastic forks, salad tongs and burping containers. I don't know about you, but when I think of castles I think of Bodiam and when I think of salad tongs I think of those giant wooden ones that hung on the wall of my friend's home when we were kids. People wonder why I have so many issues.
Come one, you remember those salad tongs. They were about three feet long and looked like some sort of African sculpture had been crossed with the Betty Crocker catalog. They were always accompanied by orange furniture and green carpet and the soothing sound of some sweet eight track by Neil Diamond. Some of you younger readers will not be familiar with the feel of polyester shirts with butterfly collars and prints of bad French art on them, nor will you know the joy of riding a blue, banana-seat bike - complete with plastic rod and orange safety flag waving proudly in the summer breeze - to Kings for some Pop Rocks. My
friend and I would try to get other children arrested for shoplifting and then sit around his table trying to see if soda and those Pop Rocks would actually explode in our stomachs. We weren't out plotting the deaths of our classmates. We were trying to figure out how to play kissing tag without getting caught by the ugly girl with bad body odor. I blame the breakdown of society on the lack of giant salad tongs and orange carpet. Today anyway.
I miss that Fisher Price castle. Someone once offered me $300 for it, but I turned them down. I had to because it had already been sold in one of my mother's many yard sales for a stick of gum and 25 cents. My vast collection of Star Wars figures - now worth approximately $50 million dollars - met the same fate. I should have learned that first summer never to leave my valuables behind while at scout camp. No matter how much fun I had chasing skunks with home-made spears I was always brought back to the harsh reality of life when I got home and found anything not nailed to the floor or labeled "do not sell this" had invariably been sold. Usually to the family up the street with the rotting moose head in their master bedroom and usually for the same magic price of $5 for
"the whole lot". That kind of money might have bought a lot of Pop Rocks in my youth, but it would never by a Fisher Price castle. Not in anyone's lifetime. That castle was just too cool.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that Tupperware lady. She must be dead by now. I find no comfort in that. None of my issues have been resolved as they pertain to that castle and I begin to wonder if the value of a trap door in a plaything has not become exaggerated over time. I got a set of Egyptian Legos a few years ago and they have a trap door but it just isn't the same. For one thing, castles aren't Egyptian and Legos require far too much effort to assemble. I also find the manner in which Lego people hair is attached to be very disturbing. It reminds me of this guy my parents knew who was bald one week and then had a full head of hair-like substance the next. There was no attempt to phase the hair in. I think he was counting on everyone being in total shock long enough for the novelty to wear off. I don't think anyone ever told this guy what he should have heard and that is this, "Look, man. We all know you're bald. We all know that thing on your head is just a fancy rug. And furthermore, we are aware that the company that makes that thing markets it as the 'Rocco' and sells it for $300." The problem with wigs is that the people who wear them are absolutely convinced that nobody can tell the difference between human hair and polyester. They always forget that we all used to wear that stuff when we were kids.
Given the same $300, I'd rather be bald and have a Fisher Price castle.
I know I will be offending a lot of people by saying this, but the Slinky is a crappy toy. There are a whole lot of things that are more interesting than a metal spring that can walk down stairs. You know what else sucks? The fact that Hostess, in their infinite wisdom, stopped making Ding Dongs and started making King Dons. Did they honestly think they would get away with it? All they did was take the foil wrapper off and replace it with cheap plastic. Half the fun of eating Ding Dongs was getting a piece of the foil stuck in your teeth and then using it as a radio, just like on Giligan's Island. You can't get weather reports through your teeth with a piece of plastic wrapper. I know, I've tried. I think we should force hostess to bring back the original, foil-wrapped Ding Dong. I also think that toys should always plug in, shoot sharp things and have plenty of trap doors. if Fisher Price can make a castle with no less than three trap/secret doors and sell it at a Tupperware party twenty years ago, then I see no reason why it can't be
done again. Can we stop farting around with these stupid let's-make-kids-smart toys and get back to what works? Sugar and Danger. I might be able to find something fitting at a yard sale this weekend.
07/10/01
