« Too rich | Main | The Book of Lost Things »

November 02, 2009

Post creepy animals

I hope to pull together a Halloween round-up but in the meantime, a question:

What the hell is this?

Weird horse

It's called "Horse Rita" which is helpful, since I'm not sure I'd ever have guessed. I thought it was a Bactrian camel. Anyway, it looks abashed and a bit abject. It hopes you won't beat it. 

The company, which is called Esthex (i'd expect to see this name attached to something like a blackhead extractor, but what do I know, maybe it's the founder's actually name: Oleg Esthex, of the Central Transdanubian Esthexes) makes many products  seemingly born for a life of exile on The Island of Misfit toys, iincluding the puzzlingly named "Cat Door":

Weird cat 

That's what it says: "Cat Door." If that thing above is Rita the horse, then this is, I suppose, Door the cat, but why? Is their dog called "Leash?" Why is Rita there not called Stall, or Shit,  or some other random noun occasionally associated with the word "horse?" There's just something about calling a cat "Door"  that seems directly translated from the Toddler (2-year-olds are forever naming their loveys things like "Sponge" or "Balloon" or "Velcro") or possibly, via Babel Fish, from the Betelguesian. That thing just does not have any of the markers that constitute "cute" on this planet. Nor does it have any but the most rudimentary vestigial ears or tail, so its chances of reading as "cat" are pretty slim. I think it vaguely resembles a four-legged arachnid, or possibly one of the probably miss-reconstructed beasts from the Burgess Shale

Perhaps the indie-born trend toward "quirky" stuffed animals, which began at places like Etsy (which means the worst examples should be showing up at Regretsy) before taking off for the big time in the jolie-laide persons of the Ugly Dolls, should be running its course by now. Critters meant for kids have gone from quirky to just plain ugly to frankly alarming. I'm all for nontraditional standards of beauty, but that thing isn't nontraditional, it's just wrong.



Comments

Jessica R.

I think they are sorta cute, but they in no way look fun as kids toys. Anorexic semi stuffed animal doll creatures seem much more appropriate for teens than toddlers.

The comments to this entry are closed.