Dollar Store Toy Box

This is it, the 100th post for Dollar Store Toy Box. I thought I would have hit that mark a long time ago, but this is only a side project. Regardless, I finally made it.

It’s kind of cheesy to announce a milestone posting on a website, I mean it’s not like a TV show lasting 100 episodes without being cancelled, but you only hit the 100 post count once per website under normal operation. Besides, how is this post any cheesier than the toys?

Looking Back
The site was originally going to be about the silly toys you get at the dollar stores. Unfortunately, it was shortly after setting up this website that many toys were starting to get recalled. I started posting some toy recall information and other toy news of note that caught my eye, like the toys being made into movies announcements.

For a laugh, this is what the site used to look like.

I figured it would fit the quality of the toys and such, a dollar design as it were. Then I got frustrated because I couldn’t get the side bars to work right so I found the current design.

All of the toys are cheaply made to keep them at their low price and many of the toys are bootleg, knock off or rip offs of popular toys to capitalize on the success of the toys they’re copying. It’s funny to see what cheap bootlegs you can find at the dollar and discount stores.

Moving Forward

New Look
I’m looking into changing this design to something else if I can sort out what I want, so don’t get confused if the look changes. I just want to get something that helps people find stuff easier. A design with two or more sidebars should help with that.

Toy Videos
It’s tough to really get an idea on how something works just by reading what I say, even with pictures. I have a few toy videos up on how some of the toys work so far, but they are mostly toys with sounds instead of uploading sound files to listen to individually.

I plan on putting up more videos of the toys in action and some original videos.

Flash Games
Hopefully you’ve tried out the Labyrinth Flash Game Challenger, based on the Labyrinth Game Challenger. It truly captures the frustration of playing with the real thing. Unfortunately, it’s the only game I’ve made so far, but I’m hoping to add more to that list.

Those are just some of the things to look forward to moving on and as always, constructive feedback and suggestions are welcome.

I hope it doesn’t take another couple years to get to 200.

Posted on August 16th, 2009 by Mike
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I finally got around to taking some video clips of the gadget toys. It’s hard to just talk about the cellphones and the BlackBerry when the sounds are a large part of the toy.

With the Spiderman cellphone, I posted the individual sounds that came with the toy, but people had to click on five different links to hear each sound. With the Batman cellphone, they were for the most part unremarkable except for one silly one I posted in the review and the BlackBerry sounds were all average so I didn’t even post any sounds clips in the review for it.

Now that I have the means to make videos of the toys, you can be sure I’m going to be posting many more videos, informative and funny.

Posted on July 21st, 2009 by Mike
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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
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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
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It’s been quite a while since I have posted anything to the site really. Been too busy with other things and haven’t been able to update as much as I wanted to and thought I would have.

That’s not to say I haven’t been working on it. I have now added seven new pages and they are split up into two new sidebar sections. The first one is called “The Armoury” and it will hold any pages related to the toy guns and other artillery items. The second one is the “Media and Games” section and it will be home to any pages related to the video clips and online games I make or want to show.

I plan on getting back into regular updates and posting new videos and games, so keep an eye out for new additions.

Posted on February 23rd, 2009 by Mike
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A New Cumberland man, Charlie Bourque, entered the Shop ‘n Win Millionaire Sweepstakes contest at a Dollar General he frequently shops at and ended up winning the one million dollar prize.

The contest involved making a purchase and then entering the amount on the receipt to an online form on the Dollar General website. He saw the promotion after going in to get a candy bar, usually less than one dollar or even two for one dollar.

When they first called to inform him that he had won, he thought it was a joke and hung up on them. I don’t blame him since radio stations like to make that sort of prank for a laugh.

They called again and sent the paperwork so he went to the Dollar General store to find out if he had won a lesser $10,000 prize in the contest or the million.

I guess that’s one way to get people to shop at dollar stores again. It’s not like he had to spend much money to be entered, all he bought was a candy bar. They were enjoying increased profits recently so they could probably afford a contest with a million dollar grand prize.

It’s a good lesson to enter contests like that. The chances of winning could be good if people, figuring they won’t win, don’t enter.

Read the news article here.

Posted on January 3rd, 2009 by Mike
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I heard on the radio today that with the way the economy is going right now, dollar stores are having a tough time selling things for a dollar. The prices on some items could be raised to $1.25, $1.50 or even $1.75 on items normally priced $1, meaning less savings.
Read more…

Posted on September 18th, 2008 by Mike
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It looks like the mystery of the Spiderman Power Ranger might be solved. A while back I posted a picture of a toy play set I found at a dollar store. It was a set of five Power Rangers with Spiderman as the Red Ranger. The toy was made in China so I figured it was a knock off of either the Power Rangers or Spiderman, it didn’t matter which, it’s not something you see in North America.

Anyway, I happened to come across an opening video for a live action Spiderman from Japan back in the 70’s. He has a motorcycle, instead of the scooter from the movie, and he even has a Megazord!!!

So it looks like the toy was not a North American Spiderman knock off, it was based on the Japanese Spiderman. It still might be some form of knock off since the show was not Spiderman and Power Rangers. Well that’s not true, it could have said that, I don’t know. I can’t read Japanese. If I could, I would be too busy playing all the awesome video games that are never translated.

Sure, the TV show is pretty cheesy, but give it some slack. It was made in the 70’s. Besides, is it really worse than the Italian Spiderman?

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by Mike
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I thought this was an amusing post since many of the dollar store Spiderman toys, all the ones I have reviewed so far, come from China. It seems they get Spiderman to do many wacky things there. It might explain some of the toys that I found at the dollar store.

Take a look at these pictures of Spiderman washing windows in China. Actually, if you look carefully, in the first picture you can see a second set of Spiderman hands washing the windows. I guess they got several workers to put on the Spiderman costumes for the cleaning. It would’ve been really neat to see the Spidermen cleaning the windows from the inside or outside. Apparently, having the workers wear the Spiderman costumes was done for a guest to make the cleaning more interesting. Not bad, but it makes me wonder what task they would get their workers to dress up as Batman for?

But, if that wasn’t enough, there’s a link off that post to a young man in Singapore named Batman Bin Suparman(with picture of the birth certificate). Can you imagine growing up with that kind of name? Other than it being an oddity that both names end with “man”, you probably wouldn’t get made fun of. It’s not clear what the parent’s last name is and I am not sure how naming goes in Singapore, but wouldn’t the last name need to be the last name of the parents? I doubt the last name is Suparman.

Posted on June 6th, 2008 by Mike
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There’s a funny skit on Mad TV about the toy factories in China. The skit involves a toy factory in China making a video to show their factory has high quality standards because of all the issues with high lead levels in toys. Bobby Lee plays the goofy lead tester.

In case this needs to be said, for those of you who don’t know Mad TV, this is just a humorous skit and not real. I’m not implying that’s what’s going on. Many countries are at fault for the various recalls including Canada. If I find any funny skits about Canadian toy factories I will include them to.

Bobby Lee also plays a Korean scientist, pretty much the same as the Chinese lead tester.

Posted on May 6th, 2008 by Mike
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