Dollar Store Toy Box

This is something you wouldn’t find at any dollar store, even the so-called dollar stores that charge more than a dollar on things.

This new toy is called Homage and it’s a metal robot that transforms into a jet. It’s been said to have similarities to cylons or possibly a variation of a terminator in appearance.

When in robot form it stands almost a foot and a half tall at 17 inches and it’s posable. Just from the image in jet form, it’s tough to make out how it’s a jet, and it looks very sharp and pointy with a possible impalement, laceration or puncture hazard.

It’s by no means meant to be a toy for kids just because it transforms. With a $2000 price tag for a commissioned piece, it would be the kid’s birthday and Christmas presents for the next decade. It would also need to be ordered well ahead of time because it takes 3-4 weeks to deliver. It’s really meant to be a collector’s item more than anything I would think.

But even with the $2000 price tag, if a kid played with that, it definitely has safety issues and, in that respect, it’s similar to a dollar store toy.

Kudos to the creator though, it looks awesome.

Check out the story at Chipchick.com.

Posted on June 28th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy News | No Comments »

It looks like something is finally being done about toy safety issues with another toy company being issued a civil penalty. Bloomberg.com reports that Mattel has to pay a civil penalty for violating the lead paint standards in their toys with Fisher Price included in that penalty.

As with the OKK trading civil penalty, the CPSC alleges that Mattel did it with knowledge of the violation, but Mattel basically claims it was an oversight and worked to stop the problem once discovered. But did they only do that because they were discovered?

Mattel, in agreement with the CPSC, has to pay a sum of $2.3 million dollars. It’s the largest fine against a toy company and it’s intended to send a message to other toy companies to make sure they follow the standards or something will be done about it. Something should be done about it since Mattel had to recall more than 21 million dangerous toys imported from China.

By the way, it doesn’t really matter if the Mattel one was issued before the OKK Trading so don’t bother pointing it out.

Guess we’ll have to see which toy company will get the next civil penalty. At least the reason won’t be a surprise, the violation of lead level standards seems to be the safe bet.

Posted on June 28th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy News | No Comments »

It looks like the OKK Trading toy company has to pay a civil penalty for violating the federal lead paint ban and other child safety standards. The federal ban started back in 1978 making it over 30 years young. Some OKK Trading action figures were recalled late last year for high levels of lead paint.

Okk Trading has agreed to and is supposed to pay a penalty sum of $665,000. Several problem toys have been outlined in the full CPSC article here. The CPSC alleges that OKK Trading knew the toys violated the child safety standards, but sold them anyway, a claim OKK Trading denies. Although it’s possible OKK Trading knew, it would be difficult to prove.

It’s not surprising OKK Trading denies it even if they did know. For now, they only have to pay the civil penalty over the blunder of selling dangerous toys whether they knew or not. This forces them to put better checks in place so they don’t get a bigger fine for a second offense.

Admitting they knew they were doing something bad would really bring down the punishment, but even if they didn’t know, is a few hundred thousand dollars enough to send the message? I guess if they are dollar store toys, maybe.

Posted on June 25th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy News | No Comments »

I think the first thing I should point out with this Star Wars toy is that it isn’t a dollar store toy at all, in case the “biosensing” in the title wouldn’t have been the first clue. I mean come on, a biosensing dollar store toy, am I right?

Anyway, Mark Baard, who writes for Boston.com, got a look at a picture of the game and that was all it took to get him hooked.

The game consists of a headset that reads the brainwaves of the wearer which operates a fan that blows a ball to the top of a clear chamber. The harder you concentrate, the faster the fan spins and the higher the ball goes. It’s as simple as that, although, it’s mentioned that the concentration need not be directed at the ball or fan for it to work.

The Force Trainer features the voice of Yoda as the trainer for the game and it offers 15 levels where the player starts as a Padawan and works their way up to Jedi Master. It’s supposed to be out in August and is expected to cost about $130 and, if you’re in Hanover, MA, why not check out South Shore’s #1 toy store The Toy Box, it’s rumored to show up there.

I hope they come out with a Sith Lord version. Who wouldn’t want Darth Vader teaching them the dark side? I don’t remember any recent Star Wars games involving Yoda teaching you the Jedi way, but I do remember Star Wars the Force Unleashed where you are Darth Vader’s apprentice. That’s right, people would rather play the latter.

Here’s an idea for the Sith version of the Force Trainer, have a fan at the top in addition to the bottom and if you concentrate hard enough, the ball gets sent up into the fan at the top and it gets zinged. That or something along those lines.

Would you rather have Yoda teaching you the force or Darth Vader?

Posted on June 19th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy News | No Comments »

It was always a treat when you were taken out to a fast food place by your parents. You would get the kids meal and sometimes they would come with the toy. You got the adventure of eating out and souvenir to take home with you. Sometimes they would have a set of toys to collect and it would be frustrating when you would go with a couple siblings and you all ended up with the same toy instead of different ones. I remember when they had Gobots as a toy one time and we all got Leader 1.

A prosecutor from Brazil wants to have toys included in kids meals, dollar store toys younger sibling, banned since they are obvious marketing ploy by the fast food chains to bring in customers. On the surface it sounds like someone just trying to ruin things for kids, but really, it’s someone thinking of the children.

The argument is that fast food is part of the obesity problem, since the food has little to no nutritional value, and kids want the toys included in those meals. That makes for a pretty good argument to have that stopped. I think one of the big chains had Transformer toys included when it came out and one big chain will most likely include a toy related to the new Transformers 2 and GIJoe movies coming out soon.

Although a sound argument, it might not pass since it will open the door to other products with toy inclusions that offer no nutritional value, for example cereal.

Cereal is one of the most well-known products that will have toys included to boost sales, but while the occasional box of Corn Flakes might have a toy, so will Fruit Loops and other various cereals with high sugar content. One could make the same argument with that and perhaps Kinder Surprise, the chocolate egg with a toy inside.

You won’t be able to get a toy inside anything that isn’t jammed into a vegetable by the time they are done!

If toys are banned from fast food, other products with toys will most likely follow, but I don’t see that happening. If it does, the prosecutor is in Brazil and it will probably only affect kids in Brazil.

Do you think toys should be banned from kid’s meals at fast food restaurants or is that just another scapegoat in the fight against obesity?

Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

I guess they are really running out of ideas in Hollywood. Universal is teaming up with Hasbro to make a movie about the popular 1970s toy Stretch Armstrong, who made a comeback in the 1990s. He was a doll type thing that could be stretched. Arms, legs, body and neck could all be stretched and twisted all sorts of ways, but that’s all it could really do.

Many people are familiar with Stretch Armstrong, but would it really make for a good movie?

Check out the commercial for the more recent version.

Pretty silly commercial, I mean, wouldn’t the crooks just be able to keep driving and continually stretching him?

The stretch superhero thing has been done already in Fantastic Four with Mr Fantastic and they really needed the rest of the group with other powers to mix things up a bit. Then you have Plastic Man who could change into anything but usually stretch himself to and he never really caught on. But as the commercial shows, it would more likely be a comedy most likely laughed at than with.

It’s slated to be written by Steve Oedekerk with Ace Ventura 2 When Nature Calls and Bruce Almighty being some of his accomplishments. It’s your call if that makes it good or bad depending on whether or not you liked those movies.

Don’t get me wrong, Hasbro did well with the Transformers movie and they have an upcoming sequel and the all new GI Joe movie, but both of those were well established through cartoons, comics and toys.

Stretch Armstrong was basically a stress release toy, something you could take your frustrations on without causing permanent damage since he would go back to his normal shape after.

Hardly worthy of a movie. Plastic Man would be a better choice since at least he can change into things instead of just stretch.

Posted on June 13th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy News | No Comments »

Ok, so I’ve made my rounds to many a dollar store and seen many action figures, most of which have high lead content in the many layers of paint they add to them, and I don’t recall seeing so much as a single action figure that could be remotely classified as a villain, real or knock off.

Where are all the villains?

Where are all the guys that the City Nimrods and Batman Evil Killer are supposed beat up?

Nimrods and Evil Killer ready to fight….. no one?

I’m surprised I haven’t come across a single villain type action figure. Well, there was the pirate play set, but they aren’t action figures and they’re quite small, combat army play set small. The blue Nimrod could be Venom, but it could also be a two pack regular and ice Spiderman. I also have some transforming construction vehicles which could be compared to the Constructicons from Transformers, but they are more Bob The Builder than sinister.

Imagine this, you’re a kid and you get the new combat Army Pete action figure and he’s got no one to beat up. I’ve got the City Nimrods and Batman rip off action figures, how about an Om-nom or The Jokem action figure?

Many kids have their favorite super hero, but it’s the villains who get most of the attention, so why not make the villains? For every good kid who wants to be Superman or Spiderman, you got some other kid wanting to be Darth Vader or a Klingon. Villains work either way, as the primary or secondary figure. I may not have seen any true villains yet or they may not exist.

Anyone see any villain action figures at a dollar or discount store, real or knock off?

If so, how about sending a picture of it and mention which dollar or discount store you got it from?

It would be interesting to see what is out there and I can show them in a future post.

Posted on May 19th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Unfortunately, I got a couple months behind in my toy recall updates. I tried to write-ups for all the posts I missed to catch up, but that was about a month ago and I haven’t done any since.

At this point, I can only catch up if I just do a quick listing of all toys recalled each month for the first few months of the year until I am caught up.

So here are the toys that I hadn’t posted yet recalled in January 2009 for those who didn’t know about them.

Lion and Lamb Grabby Rattles
Approximately 131,000 rattle units were recalled on January 15th and 20,000 were previously recalled in March of 2008. They presented a choking hazard to children because the tail on the rattles could come off.

They were manufactured in China and they were sold at Wal-Mart and Babies R Us between May 2007 and September 2008 for 3 or 4 dollars.

Spa Factory and Aromatherapy Kits
Here’s one of the more rare recall reasons, explosion and projectile hazard. Several different spa and aromatherapy kits, around 516,000 units total, have an issue with with containers for bath balls and bath fizzies. The lids on the containers don’t have holes in the top so carbon dioxide pressure can build up and pop the tops off. The lids can become projectiles when enough pressure builds up and chemicals used can irritate eyes with splashing with some reports of injuries.

These kits were sold at Wal-Mart, Target and Sam’s Club among other toy stores between August 2008 and January 2009 with the cost of the various kits ranging from 13 to 50 dollars and they were made in China.

People who purchased the kits can trade their caps without vent holes for new caps with vent holes. This prevents the pressure build up. If that’s all you can do, I would just drill vent holes on the caps that don’t have them already.

Construction Play Set
It’s back to the original problem with this toy construction site, excessive lead hazard with 3,000 units being recalled. They were sold during the last few months of 2008 for about 20 dollars.

These sets were made in China and sold at hardware and farm stores all over the nation. No injuries were reported and customers should take the sets away from their kids and return it for a refund.

Posted on April 22nd, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy Recalls | No Comments »

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted a toy in general, so I think it’s about time to post one. This one actually has some video so at least it’s not just reading.

So, here we have the Delta Force Talking Scanner. Scanners are those things people buy to listen in on police frequencies. It looks like a Walkie Talkie, but since it doesn’t work like a Walkie Talkie, they called it a scanner.

The Delta Force Talking Scanner is an audio toy meaning it actually has some stuff you can listen to. It includes batteries and has the famous “Try Me” feature so you can listen to it before you get it, but make sure you grab one that still has the battery pull tab in place.

This keeps people from wearing down the battery before you get it home. On the other hand, I probably could have avoided the issue I had with the toy cell phone. Pulling the tab and finding out it didn’t work could have allowed me to pick one that worked.

The package boasts real voice commands and military sounds. It also mentions that it includes a belt clip. Well, it does have a belt clip, but you can’t say it’s included when it’s attached to the scanner itself. You might as well say it includes an antenna, speaker and the button to make it work. Don’t be fooled, it’s a one piece toy.

There’s also instructions on the back of the package. They’re so unnecessary I can’t even remember what they are and there’s no point in showing them. What could it possibly say? Take toy out and press button, that’s it, that’s all you do. You don’t even need to put the batteries in unless you have to change them, but you don’t even need to do that if you picked one that had good batteries to begin with.

It also has a dial at the top you could turn, but it didn’t do anything. Thought it might be an off and volume dial but it didn’t do anything.

So how does it sound? Watch the video.

Posted on March 26th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Gadget Toys | No Comments »

This recall from today comes from your good neighbor, State Farm Insurance, in the form of a cute and cuddly, but not so kid-friendly advertisement toy.

The State Farm Good Neigh Bears®, another product manufactured in China, were given away for free by agents and during some sponsored events between September 2005 and March 2007. The stuffed animal bear’s eyes can fall off and pose a choking hazard to children, with one report of a child putting the eye in her mouth. Over 800,000 bears are included in the recall for the United States and Canadians have 27,000 to worry about.

Because these toys were given away, and were free, the only thing you can do with them is take them away from the child and dispose of them. Or, for those people who are daring, actually just sew the eye back on!

Is it just me or should the art of sewing be somewhat perfected by this point? Honestly, unless they are making a big deal out of everything these days, you’d think they’d have a way of securing eyes onto stuffed animals by now.

Wouldn’t be ironic if someone filed some form of insurance claim to some incident regarding one of these bears?

Read the CPSC report here.

Posted on March 17th, 2009 by Mike
Filed under: Toy Recalls | No Comments »