Dollar Store Halloween Roundup '05!
There's something magical about the dollar store.
It's not a good kind of magical. Actually, it's a very bad kind of magical. See, although actual, genuine worthwhile merchandise can be found there, most of what they sell is crap, and not just any crap. Dollar stores sell Dollar Store Crap: Things which in any other store would seem silly and misguided, but which are somehow a bargain when displayed in a dollar store. Ever see a Zen Garden Pen? It's a cheap ball-point pen with a plastic globe on top. The globe is filled with sand and pebbles which (in theory) are supposed to look like a Zen garden. In practice it's a pen with some rocks in it, just waiting to be stepped on and ground into your shag carpet. Wal-Mart wouldn't even stock these puppies, but they're two for a dollar at the dollar store.
Dollar stores always have an abundance of tacky holiday merchandise, from plastic Saint Patrick's Day ale mugs to Thanksgiving-themed pin-the-feathers-on-the-turkey games (as opposed to Memorial Day-themed pin-the-feathers-on-the-turkey games). Halloween is no exception, and can be a pretty exciting time at the dollar store. This year I stocked up on the best Halloween crap the dollar store had to offer, and made a side trip to the less cheap but equally obtuse Big Lots. Here's what I found:
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ZipperSeal Holiday Zips
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Let's start this one off with a whimper. You're probably wondering why I'd want to review a box of plastic bags, but honestly, if you'd seen the rest of the Halloween merchandise, you wouldn't wonder. Besides, I needed some sealable plastic bags at home, and with their Halloween theme, these babies are guaranteed to keep my scariest sandwiches frighteningly fresh. I'm really sorry for the end of that last sentence. Having set the bar appropriately low, we'll continue:
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Bag 'o' Spare Parts
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It's tough to be a mad scientist these days. The government is cutting research grants left and right, it gets harder and harder to sneak uranium through customs, and cosmetic surgery has made deformed servants somewhat of a commodity. Grave robbing to find parts for your monster? Who has the time? Frankly, who has the stomach? The Dollar Store to the rescue!
This 15-piece kit has everything you need to build your monster, provided that you already have everything but the facial features and one of the fingers. Included are two ears, a nose, a mouth and a finger -- one set each in fleshtone, purple and aquamarine.
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Gross Ooze with Body Part | What's Halloween without ooze? Actually, for me it's just Halloween. In theory, I always really loved this stuff, but my parents never let me have it because they thought I'd probably stain the carpet with it (which is probably true). I did manage to get my hands on a can or two of He-Man Slime back in the day, and I can say with conviction that ooze technology (or Oozology, as I've suddenly decided arbitrarily to call it) has made leaps and bounds since the dark days of 1986. First of all, like all technology-related products, ooze has become both more compact and (presumably) more effective. The pedestrian 1986-vintage ooze came in containers at least three times the size of this one, and required clunky, wicked-awesome playsets (such as the Masters of the Universe™ Slime Pit® (ahem˛)) to operate. Newer ooze can be enjoyed without the hassle of enviable toys, and Gross Ooze with Body Part ups the ante by giving you a little something extra. Mine was a slightly malformed nose which smelled like kerosene, but the store display assures me that everything from eyeballs to feet comes packaged with Gross Ooze. If that's not cool, I don't know what is.
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Poppin' Skulls
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If the picture looks blurry, I can assure you that it isn't. Poppin' Skulls are another bad idea from the people who brought you Poppin' Pumpkins. I'm not familiar with Poppin' Pumpkins either, but they were part of the same store display as Poppin' Skulls. Poppin' Skulls are hollow, waxen skulls filled with confetti and plastic insects. I'm not sure whose idea this was, but I can't imagine why it ever saw fruition. "Let's encourage kids to break waxen figures so that they can grind the shards into the carpet!" Not a good idea. Seriously.
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Squishy Monsters
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Squishy Monsters are the sort of unremarkable toy that sells anyway because really, who doesn't like squishy monsters? The answer is that I don't. Sure, the vampire looks like a character from Beavis & Butthead, and you can put them into provocative poses, but according to the packaging, they "may stain cloth materials," and (more importantly) they're filled with what appears to be caviar. The vampire's collar sprung a leak and bled little plastic beads all over my bed.
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Scary Wiggler
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No, Scary Wiggler was not my high school nickname. It's the Halloween edition of what we used to call a Water Wiener or a Wiggly Wiener or (more frequently) One of Those Things With the Water Inside That's Hard to Hold On To and Looks Like Some Kinda Wiener. The Scary Wiggler is the same as the others, except that it's decorated with the silhouettes of bats and dead trees, and is emblazoned with a "small parts may present a choking hazard" warning, which I can only assume refers to the hundreds of pieces of glitter inside. Like all good toys, this one "may cause staining on household fabrics," which makes me wonder just what it's filled with. I'd love to poke a hole in it to find out, but there's another warning on the package which says "Keep away from sharp objects." If I learned one thing from the movie Gremlins, it's that safety warnings are not to be disregarded. Set this thing next to a scissors, and there's no telling what kind of water-inflated condom it might turn into.
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10.23.05