Happy New Year Everyone!  I am still working on my year end blog summary – amazing how long it takes to go through and get the annual blog stats.  While I am still working on that, figured I would go off topic a bit and highlight a trend that appears to be growing.  Unfortunately, this trend is not a good one, in fact, one could say it is a downward spiral (an appropriate toilet pun) … at least from my perspective.  I started seeing signs of this while shopping at various places during the earlier part of the year.  It didn’t really hit home until the November-December timeframe while out picking up presents for family and friends.   It seemed like in every store we bothered to go to this year, there it was, smelling up the aisles.  Toy after toy, decoration after decoration focused on a particular theme.  I decided it was time to highlight this on the blog as evidence in case any fake mainstream media wanted to go off on what a shitty year this was.

The weird thing is the thrust of the [bowel) movement seemed aimed at children.  I bring you example number one found at Bass Pro – Doggie Doo: When you gotta go, you gotta go complete with exclamation point.

From the look of the packaging, this particular toy involves a wiener dog that farts out smelly bees.  This results in not only the bystanders being offended, but the smell has apparently bored a hole through the ozone layer causing a fouling of the sun.  I had to know what this game was about – deep down hoping this was just a typo and they were really not offering a game of clean up poop to our children.  Nope, unlike CNN, there was truth to the story.  This was indeed an exciting game of pick up excrement (making the CNN reference surprisingly accurate).  Let me get this straight, they spin a wheel, squeeze a pump attached to a leash which eventually causes the dog to choke out pieces of crap which the kids happily grab up to earn themselves a fart token.  The kid that manages to scoop up the most crap is crowned the winner.  Linda, can I get this for our nephew and nieces!?!

Hit the jump to see some more crap!

Can’t wait until next year when they come out with the sequel – Monkey Doo – basically you just set the monkey on the table and try to catch its flinging poo in your mouth.  Most crap caught gets you a crown and a guest appearance on CNN.

Don’t worry, there is a lot more coming your way.  One stupid game would have just been a cute novelty and not have caused that much intrigue.  Instead we immediately came up this literal turd while shopping at Target.

That’s right, Play-Doh has decided there isn’t a funner thing to make with their product than shit.  Nope, trying to ride the profit wave from the stupid emoticons, the geniuses at Play-Doh decided that kids would be thrilled to play Mr. Potato Head with dough shaped like crap.    I can imagine a thrifty kid realizing you really have infinite supply of the materials – especially after chili night.  Scoop it out of the toilet, slap some funny looking eyes on it and presto – tomorrow night’s table centerpiece.  See what Johnny made? Our kid is so crafty, we’ll put it right here on the mantle next to all the participation trophies.

Holy crap!… look what’s on the shelf below.  Screw the Play-Doh crap, with this set you can make UNICORN POOP – and I am not talking about just the bloody stool episodes ,nope, complete with yellow, green, orange variety.  So let me get this straight.  You first make a batch of white slime.  Add some form of “magic” and next thing you know you have a product right from a unicorn’s rectum – S U R P R I S E.  Linda, can I get this for our nephew and nieces!?! . . but it’s magical.. sigh.

Turns out this shitty marketing campaign isn’t just targeting the older kids who already understand the joys of human waste.  Why leave out the young children when it comes to scatological fun.  Here we have Daniel Tiger’s Potty Time Playset.  Apparently Daniel has a serious waste management issue to the point he has ceased wearing pants.  They probably should have leveraged the enticing marketing as the first toy – “Daniel says – when you gotta go, you gotta go, no time to remove those pesky pants”.  There were other people in the aisle so I opted to forego hearing the real flushing sounds so proudly boasted on the box.  I can’t imagine how proud the 4 year degreed electronics engineer feels when he tells his friends at the 10 year reunion about the fruits of his labor.  I also noticed the toilet has a suspicious joint in the front – oh boy, maybe you can open it up and really get a good look at what Daniel had for lunch.

By the way, I am going to recommend Daniel find a lawyer as soon as possible and sue “the pants off” of the ornament maker below.  Clearly they saw the cute little caricature bowl in his toy and stole if for their ornament design.  Not to be outdone by Monkey Poo, Daniel’s next product will be “See me potty in my new mansion thanks to Brian’s great idea and a shady lawyer”

Nothing says festive more than a toilet on your Christmas tree.. unless it comes wrapped under the tree.  If Kim Kardashian has taught us one thing, it’s pee can make a lady famous – that and a video camera, but that is a completely different story.  Channeling that Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous storyline, Mattel brings us a young girl’s dream toy – Barbie now comes complete with a “Potty Pup” and the accessory that makes the chauvinist world stand up and take notice, the pooper scooper.   This puppy isn’t your ordinary dog.  Unlike most canines that require you get a 2 year degree in dog psychology just to have a chance of knowing when they need to be taken out, this puppy just needs Barbie to touch its tail.  Going to be quite the mess when it gets excited and starts wagging that tail into things.  Not exactly sure what pose Barbie is making.  Almost seems like she has successfully scooped up some doo all by herself and now looking for a participation trophy.  Linda, can I get this for our … screw it, I’m not even going to try for this one.

But wait, what if we go for a more realistic peeing puppy.  Who needs Barbie to get in the way.  You get a life sized toy mutt that goes “Weeeee” all by itself (hey, their high powered marketing word, not mine).   No need for any tail touching here.  I am a little alarmed by the squeeze bottle accessory.  Maybe this toy adds a whole new dimension with doggy enemas.  Oh wait, sorry, the picture on the insert shows that you feed the puppy with the bottle – marketing research missed an opportunity there.  4 out of 5 children think the concept of giving an enemy is funner than going to Disney World.

Just saw the “Doodle” on the packaging.  Apparently this toy comes with a complimentary bag of snow for name writing – going to need a few refills of the bottle to get K A R D A S H I A N spelled out.  Not to be left out, they also have offerings for the cat lovers out there.  The FurReal producers opted not to go with their prototype line of Cuddle Killers.  That innovative toy captured the true nature of cats.  Kids would scatter the provided set of creatures (insects, birds, mice etc.) around the house.  With a simple press of a button, the cat would be activated and proceed to find the harmless creatures scattering blood and appendages everywhere – why they would have nixed a toy that was both education and incredibly fun for the toy below baffles me.   Instead we simply have Kami, My Poopin’ Kitty that apparently likes being led by a leash (already a complete lie) that eventually poops in four languages (Fait Ses Besoins, Hace Popo , Caguinha (in case you were wondering).  Adding to the incitement are real life sounds – translated … MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW.   Note, good thing they copyrighted that name, don’t want anyone else entering this lucrative poo zone.

Imagine my surprise over Christmas when my great niece in law opened FurReal’s Ricky.  Admittedly, this didn’t click when I first saw it.  Just looked like an upgraded version of the old barking dog we grew up with as a kid.  Now it does tricks, licks and allows you to feed it treats.  Gone are the days when a kid is fascinated for hours with a dog that just stands there and moves its legs while barking incessantly.  Admittedly, the bone on the nose trick was pretty cool.  Place the magnetic bone on the top of its muzzle and it would pop it into its mouth – now that engineer will be proud to show off his product at the school reunion.

… wait a minute.  Seems like the FurReal cat line didn’t get all the fun!  While my great niece and her mom were playing with the toy, they noticed an opening below the tail.  Oh no, they didn’t.  Sure enough, after reading the side of the box they learned that they get the full experience with this toy.  Those treats you give it for doing those treats.. well, there is only one way to get them back.  Stroke its back and you’ll be the one treated as it “toots and poops”.  Everyone knows the best part of owning a dog is cleaning up after it.  I can’t imagine how much more fun those old mechanical barking dogs would have been if they had the ability to squeeze one out – I probably would have NEVER left the house – screw a pick up game of baseball, I’m going to watch this yappy dog poop – then stick some eyeballs on it for even more fun.

While out with Linda who was picking up a few clearance items at JoAnns, noticed this sitting near the checkout.  Not just any pooping reindeer, but the Super Dooper Reindeer Pooper.  Totally shocked this is still here post Christmas.  What were people thinking?  Based on my quick observation, you can fill said reindeer with poop colored jelly beans.  Through some mechanism (sorry, Linda made me put it back before I had a chance to read all the details) the reindeer would poop them out so you can happily scoop them up and put them in your mouth – yummy.  Seriously Linda, are we going to pass this up, it’s on clearance, yeah, but it poops tasty jellybeans, but its super dooper, but I wan…. once again Linda crushes my joy.

Somehow I missed the next decoration the first few visits down the Christmas decorations aisle at Menards.  I begrudgingly walk down this area trying to hold my tongue the best I can about how they pushed out the Halloween decorations weeks before Halloween so they can bring out xmas decorations earlier.  While looking at an outdoor lighted raccoon (which I did end up getting), a disturbance behind me caught my attention.  I turned around to see Santa emerging from none other than the most obvious of all Christmas icons, the outhouse.

Really, is this what our decoration geniuses have left in their idea box – an outhouse.  Let’s see, what to get, what to get.  How about a lit up deer… no, doesn’t feel right… a snowman, hard to go wrong with a snowman.  No, okay I have just the thing – lookie here at this outhouse complete with toilet paper.  Now if you don’t think this will look good in front of your house, you are a modern day Grinch.

I have only one thing to say to the toy marketing organizations out there – in the immortal words of the great psychologist Bob Newhart – just Stop IT! Children do not want to be entertained by bathroom themes (that comes later when you are older and have your own blog).  Stop trying to indoctrinate kids into fringe activities because your creativity barrel has nothing left but monkeys (no, that is not an opening for the Monkey Poo game).  Lastly, for all the parents out there, please stop buying this crap (literally).  All you are doing is encouraging toy makers to settle with their worst ideas.

Note, the good news is, once you start the year with a post about poop, it can only get better from there HA!