Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:57AM6 comments ›
Tue Jan 13, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Umm... yeah.
I don't even know where to begin.
Oh, all right, one more.
Jump to comments (6) 
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Comments (6)
Miles Vorkosigan (11:55 AM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
Well, I'm lost... Glenn, you wanna explain this? Because it makes no sense to me...
Miles
Glenn Hauman (12:12 PM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
Found 'em on failblog, they're cheap foreign something-or-others. As far as explaining what they were thinking when they made them, damned if I know... "we have spare parts we have to get rid of"?
Miles Vorkosigan (12:21 PM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
I remember reading years ago that in China and Japan, really in SE Asia period, anything with Western characters, actors, comics characters, text, anything... was very popular, whether what was on it made sense or not.
These make less sense than most. Zorro, Batman and Spidey all on the same thing? A Disney backpack with Superman on it? Weird.
Mate, I've gotta go to the library. That means putting on proper shoes. Ta.
Miles
Russ Rogers (12:22 PM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
Miles, these are pics from Failblog.org a site where people send in funny photos or video clips of various kinds of failure.
The backpack looks like it came out of a factory that was making both Princess and Superman Backpacks and this backpack ended up going through both production lines by mistake.
The Zorro Action figure was produced by someone who didn't know or care who Zorro, Batman or Spider-man are. It looks like it has Zorro on the title, Batman in the picture and a Spidey action figure in the blister pack!
Miles Vorkosigan (12:29 PM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
I get that, Russ, but it still approaches my brain and veers wildly off course. I can think of a number of reason for this, mostly having to do with having too much blood in my caffiene stream. Maybe a shortage of smoke in my lungs; ran out of cigarettes two hours ago, and just as well, I really do need to quit... Anyway, intellectually I know what it is or is supposed to be. But it's so bloody stupid that I can't accept it. Except as an idiotic mistake at the assembly line.
Zorro. Batman. Spidey in the package. Dollar Tree. Gotta dispose of the evidence somewhere...
Miles
Vinnie Bartilucci (1:45 PM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)
Don't mock Dollar Tree. It was the source of the greatest "WTF" toy of pre-internet cyberspace - The Barbie Whistle Torch. The Duck-Billed platypus of toys. This thing was all the rage of the Compuserve Comics Forum back in the day.
Take a plastic penlight, powered by two "AA" batteries. Extend the lightbulb of the light through a small spring like you'd find on those light-up antennae that we used to call "Deely bobs". But instead of illuminating little stars or something, it illuminates a pseudo-barbie doll head. Then on the other end, add a cheap penny whistle. I believe it was the redoubtable Nat Gertler who named them, but I've been known to be wrong before.
They become beloved totems to the pre-internet age CISers. If they'd appeared today they'd almost certainly been elevated to a meme. A quick Google search of "Barbie whistle torch" found a number of articles about them. One from Neil Gaiman, who was there for the initial hilarity, in which he references a blog entry from Colleen Doran (complete with photo). This fellow seems to have stumbled across them independently, and used the name "The fulchau", as marked on the bags he found them in.
And by the way...not being able to successfully write the HTML code linking to Epic Fail pictures so they show up as broken picture links on your webpage...is itself an Epic Fail.