My fellow collegues at About.com have their own toy experiences to share. Here's a collection of the worst toy experiences from a bunch of people here at About who are experts in their own field, whether it be cooking, music, history, religion or anything else under the sun!
Fiona, the expert on Low Fat Cooking says,
"Last year my then-five year old got a Finding Nemo inflatable fish tank with colored sand and vinyl stickers of the characters. The idea was that you could squirt sand into the water-filled inflatable tank (which took me forever to inflate) and make sand sculptures with the colored sand. It simply didn't work. Either nothing would come out of the squirt bottles or the sand came out in small blobs and we could do nothing with it. My daughter was very disappointed. We put it in the trash later that day."
Shereen, About's Nutrition pro shares:
"A few years ago, my daughter wasted 50 bucks on the first Video Now that only played worthless little black and white cartoons on a tiny screen....and it fizzed every time you moved it.
And...speaking of Play Doh, my kids had the Barber shop Play Doh set that was above and beyond the call of Play Doh messiness.
My daughter says Polly Pockets aren't so good since the rubber clothes break and the tiny shoes and accessories get lost easily."
Huda, Islam says,
"I can think of quite a few toys in the category of "Payback Time! Toys for grandparents to give to their grandkids." Ours was the push-pull "popper."
Rebecca who's our Horror guide hates the Slip-n-slide. She thinks it's "Very dangerous!"
Lianne - Exotic Pets and Shelley - Art History both share an aversion towards Hot Wheels tracks, race car sets and the accessories that come along with the cars.
Luanne has to say , "I don't like Hot Wheels tracks (the cars are fine) - the fancy ones with moving bits and electronics and stuff. They often don't work well and fall apart too easily. We swore off them after the last two disappointments (a magnetic one and an Alligator chomping one)."
According to Shelley,
"The cars are great, it's the junk Mattel produces around the cars that nobody should ever buy. DH and I once spent most of a day assembling a "parking garage" and applying roughly 7,000 decals, only to find that the ramps the cars were supposed travel down really didn't follow the laws of physics. The kid played with it, maybe, fifteen minutes - and then I dusted that 2'x3' pile of plastic crap for nearly a year before sneaking it to the dump.
Who doesn't hate those cheesy fast food toys.
I'm not a health food freak by any means, and I have certainly eaten my fair share of fast food and other junk food, but I think those branded McDonald's play food sets are pretty revolting. Some examples include the McDonald's Food Cart, McDonalds etc
Megan, World Music
Now on to the mess that kids are capable of creating ...
Jone, Women's History has her own experiences about super messy toys.
"One of my sons got one of those cheapie gizmos that you can throw at walls and it will stick. He thought it was great fun to throw it at the ceilings.
It WAS kind of funny, until the dust landed on the sticky parts and we had a real mess on the ceiling and walls to clean up. And it's kinda difficult to make a 5-year-old clean up a ceiling. (Can you guess that I was a "natural consequences" sort of disciplinarian?)"
Of course, the Bratz and Barbie dolls are not far behind.
Fiona, Low Fat Cooking says,
"I dislike the Bratz Dolls (what's with the leg stumps?) and the Barbie My Scene dolls, which frankly look like street girls. My six year old was given one for her birthday last week. She wanted to know why the doll's skirt was so short and why her belly button was pierced. I also had to explain bling-bling to her.
Barbies in general have been disappointing as they're difficult to remove from packaging, are hard for adults (never mind kids) to dress, and they don't stand up."