September 2- 8, 2004

naked city

Bad idea factory

Bad Toys: Whatcha gonna do?

Last Friday, reports flooded the Web detailing how small plastic toys depicting a plane suspended between two skyscrapers had been dropped inside 14,000 bags of candy and unwittingly sent across the country to be sold before finally being recalled. The candy wholesaler, the Lisy Corp., claims to have been duped (the product was coded as a "plastic swing set"), and the importer, Miami's L&M Import, has refused comment. It got us wondering, would it be possible to make a more tactless children's toy?

The Bad Idea Factory's theoretical Island of Totally Offensive Children's Toys:

1. Baking-soda-activated dive-and-resurface Kursk
2. Glowing Three Mile Island Yo-Yo
3. Radio-controlled Challenger
4. Donner Party nesting dolls
5. Fully poseable Rick Santorum Heroes of the Senate action figure (head inserts into ass)