I was watching Cartoon Network the other day because it still brings me joy occasionally, and I saw a really weird commercial for a game called, “Don’t Step In It” where the object is to walk blindfolded over a mat and try not to step in fake mounds of excrement.
Seems like the kind of thing you aim at drunk frat jerks from Florida, not children. I don’t remember any explicitly poop-related toys from when I was a kid. My memory might just suck though. Even so, I can’t ignore that fact that I’ve noticed at least three different commercials that made me uncomfortable in the past couple years. I already mentioned “Don’t Step In It,” but the other two notable products I saw were the “Baby Alive Super Snacks Snackin’ Lily,” which is a doll that not only eats, but defecates just for you, and “Toilet Trouble,” which is a game that comes with a plastic toilet you put your face in front of and see how many times you can flush before the water sprays at you.
My first reaction to “Don’t Step in it” was utter incredulity. “What the hell am I looking at? Why is everyone so happy to step in fake piles of crap?” Those kids were so excited. It didn’t even seem like they were trying not to step in it, to be honest. The complacency of the adult in the room made everything all the more unsettling.
“Baby Alive Super Snacks Snackin’ Lily” is just like any of the other baby alive dolls — already pretty creepy on its own. It would be one thing if it just ate fake food. That would be enough. But, no. Someone had a pitch meeting where they proposed this doll that eats should also take realistic dumps. If anything, this one is the most educational of the three, but I am still uncomfortable. On one hand you might think that it would be helpful to teach children about the digestive system, but on the other hand, if the doll isn’t anatomically correct, and thank god it isn’t, then there is no real educational value there at all.
“Toilet Trouble” is the Russian roulette of inappropriate board games and I am bothered by its continued existence. The only redeeming quality seems to be that it would be the easiest game to gamble on out of the three.
I don’t really know why there has been such an increase in the number of weird scatalogical toys marketed towards kids. Either our standards have dropped substantially which has allowed the market to open in favor of crap-centric games that haven’t been invented yet. Or, some deviant pedophiles are getting off to the commercials and the pictures on the packaging. Of course, there could always been some much simpler third option — like, maybe I just have a bad memory and poop-games have a rich tradition in children’s toy history.
There might not be anything malicious about it and I hope that’s the case. At the same time, I think it wouldn’t hurt to evaluate the existence of these products and assess whether or not they are just cheap cash grabs or something potentially worse, especially if these are products aimed at children. Am I a paranoid weirdo with a poop-game obsession, or is this as weird as I think it is?
