Too Tired to Think About Anything but 90's Toys

I can't believe this is going to be my 2nd post about toys.  There's no justification for it, only that my new job is really mentally draining and that it's Friday night.  I went out for happy hour after work with some co-workers and the fiance, and that was fun.  Later hubby-to-be and I strolled downtown in a Car2Go, which I will post about later when I'm more coherent and will now refer to them as deathboxgolfcartonwheels (although statistically they're safe blah blah).  Once we got downtime we found a chill outdoor bar with a really trippy projection on an empty stage.  I think the DJ was reliving his rave days, but whatever.  The rest of downtown was covered with skank hos and guys who wear dragon shirts - joy of all joys.  So now I'm home, sober as a judge and wondering what the hell happened to the littlest pet shop.

If you haven't caught on by now, I love miniature things.  I have conspired with my brother to grow a miniature farm of miniature vegetables (baby carrots, baby corn, cherry tomatoes, etc etc).  I have a slew of model horses and that doesn't even begin to describe it, but that's another day.  So it should be no surprise that in the 90's, a young shemovedtotexas adored "The Littlest Pet Shop."

Sure, they were simple.  This wagged its paw, but hey it had cute little plastic accessories and even more important - PUPPIES!

And this one, little gerbils that had a magnet on them, so you could make them scurry through the cages with a magnetic "wand" on the outside.  Super cute?  Yes indeed, and no pesky cedar shavings that I was allergic to that real gerbils needed.  So I think we get the picture.  Cute little animals, that actually resembled animals - circa 1992.

Imagine my surprise when I strolled through Target the other week and found this monstrosity.

What the hell is THAT?  Does EVERYTHING these days have to have those sad anime eyes?  I mean, when have you looked at a puppy recently and thought, "Oh no, those eyes aren't cute enough.  Maybe if they were bigger, and had little teardrops and exaggerated pupils... then they'd be a winner - but until then, no way puppy.  No petting for you."  I mean, what is that crap?  Pets hang out at the mall I guess, looking sad and Japanese.

This is what happens when a 4 year old is allowed to give an animal tribal tattoos.  It's Littlest Emo Pet, a sad plastic companion for your sad little child who's going to be severely confused in their first Biology class when they see that a ferret's head isn't 500% bigger than it's body, nor is it pink.  Maybe I'm just sensitive, or maybe I've been watching too much "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" but this irks me all the same.  It's a short road now to "back in my day I walked to school up hill both ways," but if they're going to keep my childhood toys in production the least they can do is not fuck them up with pink japanimation barf.

Toy Story 3: Be kind to your toys

I've been begging my lovely SO to go see Toy Story 3 with me for a few weeks.  To his credit, he's a good sport and we tried to go once but it was sold out.  Luckily for me, his mom wanted to go see it too so we headed to the awesome Prytania Theatre in New Orleans.  The best thing about the Prytania (besides the sticky movie theatre candy floors of course) are the retro snack commercials they play before the movie starts.  If you open the website on the link I sent you, you'll soon have "Let's All Go to the Lobby" stuck in your head too.

But really I can't take away from the awesomeness that is Toy Story 3 by blogging extensively about cartoon snack commercials.  If you haven't seen the final round of Buzz & Woody, go see it.  I loved it, but that's not what I'm going to talk about today.

In case you're curious, and even if you're not I don't really care I present...

The Toys that I Loved that are Living in an Attic and Should Probably be Donated to a Child who will Love them but Instead will Live in the Attic Because I am Selfish:

Okay, so it probably goes without saying that I liked/like Breyer horses.  My Little Pony's weren't realistic enough, but Breyer's couldn't (and still can't really) be beat for realism and aesthetic value.  They're a bit pricy as a kids toy, but lucky for me I had a Grandmother with a shopping addiction who wanted to spoil her grand kids rotten.  Lucky for my family?  Probably not when they had to bail her out of debt several years later, but hey I had a totally bitching herd of fake horses so I was too young to care much.  These horses suffered several broken legs due to their extensive training regiments - I had a notebook where I would write down names, disciplines, and show schedules.  My grandfather built a wooden barn custom for them that had a little sign up top with "MyLastName Stables" burned into it.  Now horses, barn, and kiddy accessories all are lovingly packed up in a box in my attic.  I actually have a decent collection of these as an adult, but the carpet herd is being saved for when I might have my own horse crazy kid someday.  With my luck, there are only going to be boys who like motorcycles and zombies.

I don't have a picture, but my best stuffed companion was Brown Bear.  Yes, I realize that is a gray bear shown  in the picture.  No, brown bear was not brown.  I had an imaginative color palette and naming scheme at two.  There was also Fluffy Puppy, though I can't remember if that was actually my brother's stuffed toy.  Throughout my childhood there was a large string of stuffed animals, many got yard saled and some tossed I think.. but a lot are in the attic still.  A high light was Refrigerator Bear (another naming gem I know) who was a pink oversized bear with a rainbow on his stomach that stood taller than I did.  My dad won him for me at the NC State Fair.  He moved on at a yard sale because he was really too big to fit anywhere reasonably, sad day.

Real life circus?  Cruel and unusual punishment for animals.  Playmobil Circus?  Best thing EVER.  The highlight was a group of 6 plastic gray horses (are we noticing a theme here?) that had pink feathers for their heads and saddles.  I was very serious about training these horses.  I would line them up and shout out the secret command "Montoyo!" (I do not know where I got these things, seriously) over and over to train the plastic beasts.  This is something my dear Father has never forgotten.  So much so, that whenever I come back from a real horse show and have done well, he'll ask me if I told the horse "Montoyo!" to get that blue ribbon.  Sigh, childhood sillies.

On that note, I need to go back to pretending to work.  I'm a bit excited on the real horse front, because I found a nice gelding on Craig's List today that is looking for a half lease.  From the owner's description, he sounds like a quality animal and that's good to hear mixed in with the ads that go something like "She likes to go real fast and you don't need no saddle because she's too fat to wear one".  Will have to see, it'd be nice to ride again!