Dollar Store Toy Box

It was an embarrassing day for a motorist on the Interstate 526 bridge that crosses the Wando River. He witnessed a helicopter smoking and plunge toward the water below. The only problem was it wasn’t real, it was a toy helicopter.

After rescue crews made it to the scene, one of the police officers on site noticed it was only two feet long and thus, no one needing rescuing. Two people under the bridge were flying the helicopter and nothing was mentioned as to why they were flying there. It could have been innocent or it could have been a prank.

Although not specified what toy helicopter it was, you can rule out this recalled toy helicopter since its only 7 inches long.

It’s easy to pick on the guy for not noticing it was a toy, but you never know. If you only got a quick glance of it, you might not notice it was a toy. Looking at the sky with nothing to compare distance with, it could have been real and farther away.

Had it been real and he hesitated, people could have died. You never know if you would spot a toy or not in the same situation. It’s like playing game shows at home. It’s easy to yell out the answer in your own living room. It’s completely different when you have millions of people watching

For the details, read the full Post and Courier article here.

Posted on August 20th, 2009 by Mike
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For the past couple weeks I have been posting about several toy makers and toy distributors who have been fined a civil penalty over making or selling toys found to have safety issues.

Family Dollar Inc was the big name in a recent bizjournal.com report that said nine companies were being fined, but only Family Dollar Inc was mentioned. In a follow up to that story, the other eight companies are now listed with their fines.

I had originally thought that Family Dollar Inc was the big name because they were either the biggest name in the group or it had the largest fine of the nine, but they don’t have the biggest fine and it could be argued they aren’t the biggest name in the group.

Dollar General and Cardinal Distributing Co. Inc both have a $100,000 fine, $25,000 above the Family Dollar Inc fine.

Hobby Lobby Stores and First Learning Company Ltd have to pay $50,000 fines, Michaels Stores Inc has a $45,000 fine, A & A Global Industries Inc and Raymond Geddes & Co were both fined $40,000 and Downeast Concepts Inc had the lowest of them all with only $30,000.

This probably won’t be the last of civil penalties for toy companies and toy distributors who made or sold bad toys.

Posted on July 19th, 2009 by Mike
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It’s not something you might expect in terms of copyright infringement or similar issue, as usual for a dollar store, but rather a violation of the trademark law.

A recent ruling posted at courthousenews.com states T-Mobile won its case against Sam’s One Dollar Store for selling modified T-Mobile phones. The phones were deprogrammed and could be used outside T-Mobile’s wireless network, making it an unauthorized use of the phone.

Since the owners of the Sam’s Dollar Store, Noushad Mian and Shazia Noushad Mian, didn’t show up in court, T-Mobile asked for default judgment and they were awarded $25,000 by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor. The dollar store owners didn’t fight the charge so it was deemed reasonable.

I never would have thought a dollar store would be selling real phones, but they weren’t allowed to. You’d also think they’d want to avoid such issues because they probably aren’t making a fortune despite increased sales at dollar stores.

Posted on July 14th, 2009 by Mike
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Joining Mattel, Fisher Price and OKK Trading, the Family Dollar Inc discount stores now has to pay a fine due to allegations that they were aware of and still sold toys with high lead content reports Bizjournal.

Unlike Mattel, Fisher Price and OKK Trading, who generally make the toys, Family Dollar is merely the discount dollar store that sells the toys. They have agreed to pay $75,000 to settle the allegations of violating the laws.

The Family Dollar Stores Inc is said to be one of nine companies fined for that reason, but the other eight aren’t listed, making Family Dollar the big name of the group or the company that has to pay the most of all nine companies. The total fine is over $500,000 for the nine companies combined and the $75,000 Family Dollar has to pay is at least 10% of what is fined.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission allegations say the companies knew they were doing it and the companies say they didn’t. No surprises there, but it is a surprise as to why they didn’t mention the other eight companies that were included in the fine.

Isn’t it kind of important to know what companies were fined so you can see if you happened to buy anything from them?

Posted on July 9th, 2009 by Mike
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Over 4,000 projectile firing toy guns were found during an inspection of a Melbourne importer. Toys guns were banned in Victoria back in 2002 due to the risk of blindness and other injuries to children. These toy guns are said to be destroyed. The company is probably only out about $4,000 for the 4,000 guns, har har.

The Melbourne importer, Mr Jia Hao Huang, has admitted to bringing toy guns into Victoria and has pleaded guilty to charges of breaching the fair trade act. Since the ban, beginning in 2002, over 18,000 toy guns have been confiscated.

It’s odd to think that toy guns would be banned just because of what could happen. I’m all for safety, but you’d think the parents wouldn’t get their kids anything like that if they didn’t think their kids were responsible enough not to shoot their eye out.

In addition to that, drinking could cause accidents and smoking can cause diseases. What about banning those and other products that could do damage or kill people?

I guess it’s the whole “kids don’t know any better” deal. I doubt alcohol and smokes would ever be banned because the people who are allowed to drink and smoke should know better.

Read the story here.

Posted on July 4th, 2009 by Mike
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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