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Weird Presents / Gag-Worthy Gifts / Terrible Toys

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For that special Jewish man in your life:

Chanukah Dreidel Silk Boxers

These 100% silk boxers are covered with Chanukah Dreidels and the words "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, I made it out of clay . . .". Manufacturer recommends machine washing in cold water. These boxers have a button fly. $15.99

http://www.tvdance.com/shop/clothes/silk-boxer-shorts/
 
And here we are again with more weird presents - they all sound great!!!

Some holiday shoppers prefer bizarre gifts

By Joseph Cress, November 28, 2004

No child would want a Charlie in the Box or a squirt gun that shoots jelly.

So went the sad tale of rejected gifts stranded on the Island of Misfit Toys in that classic holiday special "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."

But a tree ornament or plush toy version of the beloved characters could cost a pretty penny on eBay this Christmas season.

So if a market exists for misfits, why not offbeat toys such as wind-up hopping lederhosen?

A plastic model of a Bavarian folk costume, this pair of pants jumps up and down across any flat surface and is a popular item this year for Archie McPhee, a Seattle-based novelty and toy company.

Another hot item is the cat-a-pult which shoots . . . what else . . . tiny plastic cats.

In keeping with the theme, the best seller this year is the Crazy Cat Lady action figure of a spinster dressed in a bath robe living with a pack of felines, says David Wahl, company spokesman.

He believes customers either buy it to make fun of themselves or tease a person who fits the stereotype.

Adults go for absurd

But a joke can backfire. A librarian action figure, introduced last year, caused a stir among people in that profession upset about how the toy shushes people for being too loud, Wahl says.

Wahl says the trend in the mainstream toy market is almost exclusively toward licensing from movies and TV shows. "You do not have to pay for advertising character people are already familiar with."

He adds other companies find it difficult to market strangeness, preferring instead to follow fads that disappear with changes in popular culture. "There is a constant need for the new and unusual."

In response to the popular Hello Kitty product line, Archie McPhee introduced its own merchandise called Parasite Pals," including "Tickle the Tapeworm" and "Dig-Dig the Head Louse."

Wahl says his company does not really market toys for children. Its customer base are people age 35 to 55 "with a real good sense of the absurd" and earning more than $100,000 a year.

John Reilly, spokesman for K-B Toys, sees it differently. "The same rules apply to the offbeat as apply to mainstream. If a toy is unique or fun... if it has play value or collectible value ... it is going to move."

For the most part, K-B Toys sells mainstream items but occasionally scores success with unusual toys, Reilly says. Last year, the hot item was the George W. Bush elite force naval aviator action figure.

That toy came out just months after the president made his controversial "mission accomplished" speech on an aircraft carrier shortly after the fall of Baghdad.

The most unusual item this year is a dog translator called Bow Lingual in which a transmitting device clipped on a dog collar sends out a signal to a hand-held walkie-talkie.

There's more

On a tiny display, the receiver prints out the meaning or the bark as "I'm hungry," "I need a hug" or other such messages. "It's a little something out of the box," Reilly says.

Other examples of offbeat toys and gifts include:

* Tellmi, the interactive electronic hedgehog with blinking lights and moving limbs. He illustrates his emotions by making the lights in his body blink in strange patterns.


* Root-Vue Farm, a glass enclosure where children can watch seeds grow into vegetables.


* Wind-up walking rubber Sushi in realistic colors and textures.


* A rock-em, sock-em President Bush toy that punches out likenesses of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.


* What's In Ned's Head, a plush toy head containing fake vomit, bugs, moldy cheese, rats and worms.


* A dancing hamster toy dressed in a Godzilla costume and "I Love Tokyo" T-shirt which sings its rendition of the classic Blue Oyster Cult tune about the rampaging monster.


* The Talking and Singing Mona Lisa — a motion-activated 3-D version of the famous painting that sings "I Wanna Be Loved by You" and . . . of course . . . "Mona Lisa."


* The singing Bible keychain — press the cross and it plays the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah.


* The John Kerry punching bag.


* The Mr. T chia.

-------------------
On the Web:
www.mcphee.com
www.stupid.com
www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/to ... 0strangest

Source
 
03-Dec-2004


>> Home >> Science & Technology

Chris Barton:

Net just the place for bizarre Christmas gifts

03.12.04


A Christmas Day ritual in our family involves a gathering around the Christmas tree while one of the elder members is dragooned into playing Santa helped by a throng of willing elves.

The room quickly becomes a wonderful chaos of wrapping paper and presents mixed with oohs and ahs, and look-what-I-gots.

Usually the whole thing breaks down when elves abandon their duties to open their own stash. Much sport can also be had in the responses to gift choices - especially if they're a bit weird or unusual.

So, that's what I set out to find this year - bizarre gifts that will add a new dimension to our tribal rite around the tree.

That vast untapped junkyard that is the net provides an unending supply of weirdness - not to mention source material for anyone wishing to do a thesis on the anatomy of bad taste.

I'm thinking ties for the brother-in-law. Josh Bach does a nice range. But which motif will get the best reaction - Muscle Man, Hula Girls, or Mammoths?

In the end I settle for the postmodern How to Tie a Tie pattern.

Carolyn Forsman conversation jewellery is an excellent hunting ground for the nieces. Are they too young to appreciate the Wizard of Oz? Never mind - Dorothy Lives (rhinestone ruby shoe, silver toned with wand) will be a good cultural history lesson.

Everyone loves to get music for Christmas - but is my brother ready for Readymade Digs Disney? The Disney songbook meets frenetic Japanese pop.

My particular favourite - Bibbity Bobbity Boo from Cinderella as sung by a Japanese Betty Boop.

Ebay Exclusives is a must-visit too - the only place on the net where you can get a Sponge Bob Square Pants 3D movie masterpiece figurine (pricey at US$100) and a Giant-Sized Crystal Cookie Monster PEZ Dispenser (a steal at US$30). I think my sister will appreciate the latter - especially when I tell her how collectable they are, and that the world record price paid for a PEZ is US$6000. I'll put the PEZheads Online web site on her card (www.pezlist.com).

The 12 Days of Kitschmas - "the best bad taste religious gifts" - has plenty to offend. But I think with all the fuss about the Civil Union Bill this year the Jesus Fairy Christmas tree topper is entirely appropriate.

One of the nephews may also appreciate the Frisbee of Faith - a Gospel presentation "that will get tossed, but never into the garbage!". Featuring on the flipside is a lot of small print about "making your life fly right".

Sadly many of the younger generation never heard of Monty Python, but I'll fix that by giving two of them the Mini Live Parrot (Sleeping) and the Black Knight (with Removable Limbs) - which may be found at the Toy Vault website.

I'm sure they'll be fascinated and before long begging me to sing the Lumberjack song. A junior family member is getting the Turbospoke for his bike. It attaches to the rear chain stay and makes an "amazing variable engine sound just like the real thing" - an update on the playing-card-in-your-spokes trick, and guaranteed to make him popular with the neighbours.

The young relly who does stuff with computers will, I'm sure, appreciate the mince-pie shaped 512MB USB storage device from the USB Mince Pies website - "the Ultimate in Yuletide Technology that brings together the world's favourite festive food and our patented 'no limits' USB technology."

I'm also buying several Glow in the Dark Banana Guards for some of the school-aged members. Who can forget the disappointment of taking a banana to school only to find it bruised and squashed? With this nifty container their troubles will be over.

As a finale I'll download JFK Reloaded for some group fun - although I am a little concerned how the American sister-in-law may react.

The game re-creates the assassination of JFK, letting players take the role of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and fire three shots at Kennedy's motorcade from a digitally recreated sixth-floor perch in the Texas School Book Depository. It's apparently designed to prove that Oswald acted alone. You lose points if shoot Jackie by mistake. Creepy.

So barring a mass walkout, these gifts should make for a fascinating Christmas Day. And give new meaning to "it's the thought that counts". Merry Kitschmas!

Source

Kitschmas:
http://ship-of-fools.com/kitschmas/

The 2002 lis:
http://ship-of-fools.com/Gadgets/Kitschmas02/

The 2001 list:
http://ship-of-fools.com/Gadgets/Kitschmas01/

I still want a rug like they have over th back of the couch in Father Ted ;)
 
Hello everyone!
This is my first post after lurking for some time. I think I have the best weird gift, tho it wasn't given for Christmas. Among the presents my brother sent home after shipping out to Japan was the FABULOUS Merlion! Enclosed in a lovely clear plastic display case, the Merlion appears to be made of pewter. As you may expect, it has the head of a lion on a fish body. But wait, there's more! If you press the catch at the throat, the head swings back on a hinge to display a set of hors d'oevre forks, the tops of which are tiny replicas of the Merlion itself. But wait, there's more! Upon pressing another small button, the Merlion serenades you with the theme from Titanic, while it's eyes and collar produce a tasteful display of flashing lights. I will try to post some pictures, if I can steal it from my sister.
 
How absolutely delightfully tacky: A fake mythological creature (the MerLion is entirely a product of the Singapore Tourist Board), and a novelty musical cutlery dispenser.

How absolutely tat.
 
So... there are other Merlion products?!?!? This is an actual "character" that has been created by some official board?!? We had all assumed that it was a freakish one-of production run. Before manufacture: "Hey, I have a great idea for a new doohicky!" After manufacture: "Oh God, what do we do with it?" "Sell it to tourists, they'll buy anything."

I love things like that. At first they are incomprehensible, but then you begin to see the insane logic that went into creating them. "Of course it's the theme from Titanic. It is, after all, a MERlion."

Seriously, though, the best places to buy bizarre gifts in this neck of the woods are the various interstate truck stop/travel plazas. Every time my husband and I take a road trip, we have to stop at one. Weird tchokes(sp?) of every sort, and so cheap! Perfect for your redneck step-mother-in-law. (I didn't say that)
 
How interesting. What we have here is the moral equivalent of the Statue of Liberty with a clock in it's stomach. Thanks for the website. I like the fact that you can download a form to request product licencing.
 
I gotta say, my little city has its own unique charm...

Anarchists' fund-raising project a radical exposure

By Dave Ranney, Journal-World

Thursday, December 16, 2004

It started out as an offhand jab at recent calendars featuring Kansas University students in various stages of undress.
advertisement


Now it's a naked look at Lawrence anarchists.

"We were all broke, but we needed money," said Vanessa Hays, a member of Lawrence's anarchist community.

"Somebody -- as a joke -- said we should do a naked calendar like the one at KU," she said. "It wasn't taken seriously at first, but the more we thought about it, the more we liked the idea."

The group's first calendar, featuring nude photographs of Lawrence-area radicals, men and women, came out last year. The 2005 edition came out a couple of weeks ago.

"We had 500 printed up last year and had some left over," Hays said. "So this year, we had 400 printed."

Hays, a 23-year-old senior at KU, is in two of the calendar's 19 black and white photographs.
"It's all in good humor," Hays said. "But it's serious in that it's art, and it's not pornographic or sexually exploitative. We're serious about raising money for things we believe in, but still, it's meant to be light-hearted."


The $1,500 raised by 2004 calendar sales was used to support the group's Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library, 1119 Mass., and to buy typewriters for inmates in federal prisons.

Hays said the anarchists had no trouble finding people willing to pose.

"The biggest problem," she said, "was getting schedules to mesh."
Daily anarchy
Calendars sell for $8 and are available by calling 865-1374 between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Calendars also are for sale at Wildman Vintage, 936 Mass.


Images in the 2005 calendar include a Dumpster-diving "Cajungrrl," a nude pair playing a board game; a young man holding on to a strategically placed cowboy hat on the boardwalk at the Baker Wetlands, and a woman named Kat doing a chin-up.

Two of the photographs include Claven Snow, a Lawrence transsexual.

"This is a celebration of different people's bodies," Hays said. "There's nothing inherently dirty or bad about your body. And being naked is not necessarily sexual."


© Copyright 2004 The Lawrence Journal-World.


http://www.ljworld.com/section/citynews/story/190606
 
At my first marriage, I was given an Indian tulwar (scimitar) for a wedding present. I was into re-enactment, blade collecting etc. so it made sense (sort of) at the time.
Did not bode well. The boding was distinctly off. Divorced within a year. Ho Hum!
 
seemed like the best place for this
anyone have these toys in the 80's? a friend did, and i remember being terrified of the commercials! yet strangely fascinated by the toys:

Rocks & Bugs & Things

rocks that would open to reveal hideous faces to devour little gremlin creatures

and as for weird gifts, how about an animatronic monkey head?
 
CoffeeJedi said:
and as for weird gifts, how about an animatronic monkey head?

Coooooooool - the most lifelike animatronic monkey head for under $150!!! Thats a jam packed market ;)

I want one though.

Actually I want the mannequin head and then I can turn into Pinhead or something.........
 
I saw a chrystal radio on Hawkin's Bazaar website and now I want one. Any idea if they sell them in Hamley's or elsewhere in London (since I'll be visting London quite soon)??
I repeat: I want a chrystal radio. Don't know why, I'm possessed.
 
Veruca Salt said:
I saw a chrystal radio on Hawkin's Bazaar website and now I want one. Any idea if they sell them in Hamley's or elsewhere in London (since I'll be visting London quite soon)??
I repeat: I want a chrystal radio. Don't know why, I'm possessed.

The Science Museum had them last time I was in there, if you mean the build-your-own ones
 
American Science and Surplus has an amazing selection of goodies, including military surplus and just plain odd things. www.sciplus.com
 
I quite like this:

Think Tank
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000324230149/http://www.wonderfullywacky.com/thinktank.htm

Here's the photo ...

thinktank3.gif

Ever wish you had an extra brain?

Of course you do!! But how? Oz is a hell of a hike. Wait, two brains are better than one, you could simply get Dr. Karlosis’ THINK TANK™
This glowing life-like brain in a bubbling self contained unit, is much like the ones from the 1950’s horror films.
 
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Archie McPhee has a lot of kitschy items, retro stuff, etc, including things like devil duckies, sideshow freaks action figures, wind-up tiki heads and other assorted fun crap.

[Emp edit: fixing BBcode.]
 
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