According to Gareb Shamus of Toy Wishes Magazine,
these toys are what all the kids want. But, says Shamus, you can't get
them, because they're sold out. I'm not sure that he's correct about
that. We checked on seven toys here, now let's try eight more.
8. Clone Wars Voice Changing Helmet: Again, Amazon's got it, not even from a third-party shipper. But it's not Darth Vader. So what's the point? According to the product description, "Kids want to be clone troopers." (That's actually listed as a product feature. Odd.) I hope that this statement is not true. If it is, that is sad. Wanting to be Han Solo, I get. Wanting to be a Clone Trooper? Say it ain't so, Bo(ba).
9. Wall-E - U-Command, i-Dance and Transforming: i-Dance they have. Same with U-Command. (Couldn't find Transforming for some reason.) However, both are from third-party folks, and U-Command is over $150.00. That seems like a bad idea unless one of the commands is "rob a bank."
10. Club Penguin Plush and trading cards: Bingo! Club Penguin Plush, not in stock as of this writing. Available from a random person. Looks kind of ugly to me but what do I know. Trading cards they have from third party folks.
11. Webkinz – Plush: It might be tough to find the specific one your kid wants (Webkinz Platypus, anyone? I just made that up) but these are out there.
12. Imaginext – Superfriends: Amazon has it! At least, they have some of them, like this Batmobile. If these are from the same series of toys that my younger son has, I highly recommend them. It's like Batman-lite – more BatMite than Dark Knight. (If you get that reference, you earn points towards your Geek Gold Card.) Fun for kids and also dads. At least this dad.
13. Nerf - all the Nerf Blasters: Well, not ALL, since Amazon has this ominously named Nerf N-Strike Recon CS-6 Dart Blaster. Weapon of kiddie mass destruction, anyone? Also not for the under 3 set.
14. Eyeclops night vision goggles: These look kinda cool, and are in stock. My problem with toys like these is that in my experience kids get bored with them pretty quickly. But perhaps your children are different.
15. Girl Gourmet cupcake maker: I'm not a fan of children making "real" food with dopey fake playsets like these. Why is that? Because I can't imagine that the ingredients of the "special cupcake mixes" are substances that occur in nature. This comment from Amazon, titled "What's that smell??" is telling and quite helpful: "At the end of the day, it was fun for them, stinky for all of us and too darn messy. You are better off with supervised baking then this junky mix." The commenter goes on to say that the product is a good idea but the "flavoring needs tweaking." I beg to differ, but hey, to each his or her own. I'm not against my children eating crap, but they should eat good old American pre-packaged crap that doesn't require further preparation.
So no offense to Mr. Shamus, but this stuff doesn't appear to be as sold out as he said. I'm thinking bad economy = easier to find popular toys. To be fair, many of the items were unavailable except through third-party sellers. But it seems like, with a little digging, you can get most of what your kids want. Not that the holidays are all about toys. But sometimes they are.
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