Dave’s Cool Toys Blog

This morning, I had an IM discussion with my sister-in-law about Ultraman. Please tell me you remember Ultraman? She had no idea what I was talking about. If you don’t remember him, or would like to refresh your memory, there’s a good bit of information at Wikipedia. But my best recollection of the series is that an alien was traveling near earth, and crashes into Hayata, an Asian gentlemen, killing him. To save his life, he somehow joined with Hayata. He gave Hayata this thing called the Beta Capsule, that he could press if he needed Ultraman. Of course, these giant monsters would attack Tokyo every week and Hayata would drop the Beta Capsule just out of reach and eventually, he would get it, press it, and Ultraman would appear. Ultraman would wrestle and fight with the giant monsters (did I mention Ultraman was also a giant?) and use some sort of ray that he shot by crossing his arms (as you can see in the picture). I think Ultraman was basically solar and if his power got too low, he would die. Of course he would be just about to run out of power when he’d finally kick butt, kill the giant monster, then turn back into Hayata until the next episode. I seem to remember something about him flying into space to recharge as well, but I’m not so sure about that .

One of the things I remember most vividly about the series was the cool claylike swirly opening segment, which, I think they used at the end as well. On the right is a rather poor copy of the opening sequence.

I’d forgotten about the kinda funny silhouettes in the opening sequence. This video doesn’t do the swirly clay stuff justice. I don’t think it was that blue.

Well, when I was growing up, we loved Ultraman. I have looked for DVDs of Ultraman before and, apparently, due to a legal dispute, there were none available. However it seems that the legal disputes have been resolved and Ultraman: The Complete Series is now available on DVD.

Amazon also has A bunch of Ultraman items available including action figures, masks, video games, and the Ultraman Theme Song Collection. I kid you not.

Just as I was finishing this post, I found a website with full episodes of Ultraman. I would like to think that they do not violate any copyrights, but I can’t guarantee that, so proceed at your own risk.

I stumbled on a video today that I thought was funny. Maybe you will too. I was actually looking for natural ketchup.

For Christmas, my boys got a Grow Your Own Elf in their stockings. They are one of those little creatures you put in water and they soak it up and grow many times their size. So I found a large jug for them and my son, Josh, put his in. I think he expected it to grow in a few hours and was disappointed when the instructions said it would take 10 days.

But out of curiosity, we measured the "before" elf and he was 1.5 inches. The package said he would grow 600%, which would put him at 9 inches. (My son was not happy with me when I asked him to do the math on that one.)

So we waited, and watched, and he started growing in the jar on our kitchen counter. He was a lazy elf, lying on the bottom of the jar. We moved him when we needed the counter space, then put him back so he could continue to grow. Eventually, as he grew I realized the jar I used (a 1 gallon pickle jar) was a bit optimistic. And he never quite reached 9 inches. He stopped growing at about 6 inches on about day 4 and never really grew any more.

My wife thinks he looks like Butch Patrick. I’ll let you decide, he’s pictured here.

You can see from the picture on the right that my son took, that even though he didn’t reach his full potential, he sure grew quite a bit in 10 days.

Out of curiosity, I did some research to see why these grow creatures work. I discovered that they are made of a "superabsorber" similar to the material in diapers (also marketed as "Instant Snow"), combined with a polymer to keep their shape.
Specifically, they are "a plastic called a graft copolymer of hydrolyzed starch-polyacrylonitrile (commonly known as “Acrilan”, “Orlon” or “Creslan”)". Got that?

As I looked online, I discovered that these growing creatures make a great science experiment for school or home. Kids start with several identical grow creatures, and grow them under different circumstances, such as both tap and distilled water, or adding salt, sugar, or vinegar to the water and measure if they grow more or less. To see some interesting experiments done by Jack Spangler, a kindergartner, with grow creatures, check out his blog, here. It is excellent!

Now that I’ve composed this blog post, I’m wondering what would happen if I kept our little friend in water indefinitely. Will he continue to grow after, say 2 months? Or will he reach a limit? Well… we have one more, so check back in a few weeks!

Kent Rogowski has created one of the most unusual books I’ve ever seen. Simply called, "Bears" He opens up Teddy Bears, turns them inside-out, re-stuffs them, then takes their portrait.

The absurd creatures that result from this make for the most interesting photos. Many of them seem a bit sad, some seem to be on life-support due to what I believe are noise making devices, now on their outsides.

The description from his website states "They are at once hideous yet cuddly, disturbing yet endearing, absurd yet adorable, while offering a metaphor for us all to consider. These bears, which have lived and loved and lost as much as their owners, have suffered and endured through it all. It is by virtue of revealing their inner core might we better understand our own." OK. I think that might be going a bit far. But I was fascinated with them.

Check out some of his inside-out teddy bear photos here.

Link.

I came across this horrible misrepresentation of a toy today. It’s the Banzai Wild Waves Water Park . A savvy consumer, David Ng scanned the “Water Park’s” box and took a photo of his children standing next the actual product to show how extremely misleading the product shot is. Many manufacturers spend a great deal of time and money making their product look as good as possible, but this obviously goes well beyond that and purposely tries to deceive the consumer. Apparently, the box also claims that you may not return the item to the store you bought it at (try and stop me!)

I checked on Amazon for this item and the photo there (at left) was a somewhat more realistic version. Clearly the children in this shot were photoshopped in. Probably at the last minute to avoid prosecution. The box also states “product may not be as appears on image”. Well that may well protect them legally, but that statement opens the possibility of putting anything you want on the box! One of the many strengths of the Web is the ability of consumers to get the word out about poor quality products, and they certainly have done that at Amazon.

For a fascinating look at the difference between advertising photography and reality check out Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality.

So you’ve got about ten Mr. Potato Head‘s sitting around your house. You’ve used all the eyes (even the “angry eyes”), ears, mouths, even the pipe (if you have one). Maybe you even have Darth Tater.

But now you’re bored with the accessories you can purchase. What to do? I know! Bacon!

That’s about all I can figure this guy was thinking when he created this excellent Mr. Bacon Head.

Incidentally, I think I’m linking to the original photo of this guy, but I couldn’t be sure.

And… while I was bopping around on the web, looking for other Mr. Potato Head items, I found this cool little article and pictures of Walt Disney Imagineers working on a giant Potato Head Animatronic.

I also came across the most amazing story (I couldn’t link to it because this is a G-Rated blog and some of the comments were not).

The photo you see here is not an octopus hat for a Mr. Potato Head. It is a picture of Louis the octopus at the Blue Reef Aquarium, in Cornwall. He was given a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas and he loves it so much he will become agressive and attack the net when workers attempt to remove it from the tank. He’s even learned to get food out of the secret compartment in the back.