I am aghast at Mattel/Fisher Price

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I picked-up one of these at the Charity Shop … foolishly assuming it to be some sort of puzzle based on a combination lock.

The Mattel product code is HDV46 if you want to find it on their website

The product description would make even a political manifesto writer blush !

The real masochists might waste five minutes watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSMZKPvFWOo

Mine came unboxed and without the discs

… that, and my sheltered life of course, led to my confusion.

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What a complete and utter disgrace, when these people could be selling things with at least some educational play value.

Sorry … Rant over.

The Salvation Army got a quid off me, so I suppose some good was done.

MichaelG.

 

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

What a terrible waste of plastic ! 0/10. Noel.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

… and just to illustrate Mattel’s incompetence:

This has appeared in the News

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If my post discourages one grandparent from buying anything from them … it will have been worth the effort.

MichaelG.

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

One of many plastic toys that end up in landfill.

I always look at dismay at xmas with the amount of plastic toys that my 3 grandchildren get, that get played with a few times until broken or bits get lost. That’s not including the huge amount of plastic packaging as well that gets discarded.

Most of these toys get made in China, put on a ship, sailed halfway round the world to the UK, and then end up in a hole in the ground.

I wonder what the environmental cost of xmas is?

 

[derek hall 1]

On derek hall 1 Said:

Most of these toys get made in China, put on a ship, sailed halfway round the world to the UK, and then end up in a hole in the ground.

I wonder what the environmental cost of xmas is?

 

Or more likely, squashed up into a bale and shipped off to another country (often Poland or China) as this is classed as ‘recycling’. 🤣

It is just an utter joke now it’s that ridiculous

 

Anyway, less of the Grandparents MG, I’m not there …. yet! 😊

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Clearly, those in a position to make a difference, don’t give a toss about the environment, recycling, etc, when there’s money to be made.  It’s not only Christmas, but look at the wastage with Halloween decorations and costumes.  Oh, and lets not forget the packaging around Easter Eggs.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Yet another piece of forum padding. Culprits are the marketing departments who drag stupid parents using handcuffs and forcibly steal money out of their pockets.

As a matter of interest, the recycle value of the complete item, is in the cardboard. This can be 100% recycled, only 7% of the plastic can be reused to manufacture more trash.

Regards  Ian

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I wonder what will happen when as a result of either policy or depletion, or both, the growing scarcity of petroleum derivatives and need to reserve them for genuinely important purposes, will make all this utterly frivolous rubbish no longer supportable…?

Hallowe’en as we now “know” it, is merely what American supermarkets have warped it into, allegedly the middle of three consecutive “seasons” Over There), and purely for their own and their Chinese suppliers’ profits.

 

Looking beyond the shock-horror headline stuff, Mattel says the error was a “misprint”.

No doubt, but although I don’t know the details this suggests to me:

– the porn publishers might deliberately have made its name so close to an innocent one aimed at children and their parents that accidentally picking it is very possible;

– the packing was made in China or some other country where with English as a second language and that in a very different alphabet, it would be very easy for such mistakes to slip through.

[Circlip]

On Circlip Said:

Yet another piece of forum padding. […]

No, Ian … it was a serious observation, intended to prompt discussion in ‘the Tea Room’

As young parents in the 1970s we were impressed by the Quality and educational  play-value of Fisher Price toys …

How the mighty are fallen.

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I ask you once more Ian : Will you PLEASE get off my case !!

MichaelG.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

YOU prompted, I replied. I am obviously not a skilled masochist, as it took ME less than a minute to scan through the Vid.

You have however highlighted the educational trash value of areas of yu-tub

Ian.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Moan, groan, grumble.

So it came without the discs? A bit of Delrin, aluminium or even titanium bar. A parting tool in the lathe. For extra brownie points lap or surface grind the disks to a mirror finish.

Hours of fun for the model engineer…

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Well, I have to say that Model Engineers, mostly men of a certain age, are poorly placed to know what Zoomers and Generation Alpha are interested in.  And mostly unqualified to judge what today’s educational needs are.  The toy in question is a spin-off from a video game and a popular craze for disc throwing.  Age group 6+.  Now progress is moving youth from ‘Digitally Literate’ to being ‘Neo-Digitally Literate”, the educational toy favoured for rug-rats of that age is likely to be an iPhone 16 Pro, with AI.

My daughter was bought a Fisher-Price Jack-in-the-Box in the eighties, which she enjoyed thoroughly.  Traditional, but  surely not particularly educational! Nothing new under the sun.  How about this combination?   The Hoop and Sailor Suit took the world by storm in the 1880s, even in countries that didn’t have Navies.   What’s was the educational value of this?

Dave

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

Well, I have to say that Model Engineers, mostly men of a certain age, are poorly placed to know what Zoomers and Generation Alpha are interested in.  And mostly unqualified to judge what today’s educational needs are.  The toy in question is a spin-off from a video game and a popular craze for disc throwing.  […]

Quite so

To be honest, it was the wording of the the product-page that really irritated me .

I’ve tired of this ‘Topic’ already … so I’m off to play with some magnets.

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

As SOD says there may be appreciation in a younger age group than most of us that a disc throwing robot is the bees knees.

More concerning to me is the vast number of products, not just toys, that are badly designed or shoddily made which is obvious in the first ten minutes of use. Trading Standards should be picking this up and stamping on it. Just no importation of such trash would save us billions in wasted foreign exchange.

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

Well I still stand by my original comment about plastic waste…

But my grandkids seem to find watching endless YouTube videos of grown men (say older than 25!) opening up boxes of toys or watching similar adults playing computer games whilst providing endless drivel commentary.

Now I have nothing against computer games, but I much preferred to play them rather than passively watch someone else play it…

At least it was possible to repair a hoop, stick and a sailors uniform!

Kids of today eh ?……….(smiling face)

 

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Ah, but Derek, you are NOT supposed to repair the item. Just bin it and buy a replacement.

Sadly, we are of a generation who think “That was a bit weak, if I bore it out and push / glue in a bush it will last for ever”  Not what any manufacturer wants! Just thnk what we are doing to their turnover.

Our rather expensive electric kettle (One that does not leak from the sight glass) recently went on strike. The problem was that the contacts in the base had carboned up. VERY inaccessible, but after a lot of tries, was able to clean them, and so far it has functioned again. Possibly a capacitor across the two sets of contacts would have quenched any arc, and prolonged the life.  But who wants to sell an item that lasts?

Could not bring myself to throw away an otherwise good article.

Howard

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Hello Howard,

We’d best not start a list of similar items like your kettle and overload the forum.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I think this Topic has probably run its course now

… Perhaps Circlip could start one more suited to his vision of a Tea Room discussion.

MichaelG.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

As a general point, why does every toy aimed at children (and executives!) “have” to be “educational” – however that that was ever defined or intended beyond pure advertising puffery?

Any more than any artwork but especially drama and literature supposedly has to be “relevant” – but to whom, as defined by whom and for whose imagined benefit?

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

As a general point, why does every toy aimed at children (and executives!) “have” to be “educational” – however that that was ever defined or intended beyond pure advertising puffery?

Any more than any artwork but especially drama and literature supposedly has to be “relevant” – but to whom, as defined by whom and for whose imagined benefit?

Perhaps because it then confirms some lasting benefit.

Play for its own sake is fine, of course … but even the ‘pure’ play-value in the featured item seems [to my jaundiced eye] woefully trivial.

MichaelG.

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