Now that Christmas is coming, the children´s TV channel is awash with adverts for toys. They fall into two distinct categories – boys toys such as cars, monsters, planes and things you can bash and crash; and girls toys such as babies, dolls, pretend kitchens and things you can wash and care for. All very stereotyped! There seems to be a bit of an obsession with toy babies that have a variety of ailments and a big seller is the baby triplets set! I´m sure it´s the same in England, but Barbie features heavily and one of my favourites is the rather surreal, singing Barbie head with moving lips. Once you have the head firmly stuck to the table by the neck, you can style her hair, put makeup on her and then have a jolly good singalong!
My current favourite Barbie toys are the dog that poos and the cat that wees. If you lift the tail of the Barbie dog, a poo drops out, lift the tail again and another poo drops out and so on. I supposed depending on the speed you lift the tail up and down, dictates how well or ill the Barbie dog is feeling that day. Once the Barbie dog has deposited its parcel, you can then use the special Barbie pooper scooper to put the poop in the special Barbie dog poo bin! When you´re bored with that, you can feed water to the Barbie cat via a special Barbie syringe (although I would have though lemonade would have been a more realistic colour) and then squeeze Barbie cat´s tummy so that it wees all over the place. I´m hoping they bring out Barbie Tom Cat where you squeeze its tummy expecting it to wee, but instead it lifts its tail and squirts you straight in the eye with a foul smelling liquid. What a great present for a kid you don´t like! Of course, in Barbie world you can´t have all this mess, so you have the special Barbie cat litter tray with its own scooper.
Imagine the hours of family fun you can have with all this! And what scope for extending the range!
Just in!!! Barbie Infested Pets!! New range of Barbie cats and dogs with ticks, fleas AND worms!! Watch the life-like ticks fall off when you use the special Barbie Flea Spray! See the worms fall out of Barbie Dog´s bottom when you feed him the Barbie Worming tablet!
Yes, I´m onto something here, I don´t need to run a tour business in Granada, I just need to be a consultant to the toy industry!
New!! Barbie Roadkill Cat! See how realistic your Barbie cat looks as it´s squashed under the wheels of Barbie´s 4 x 4!
New!! Barbie Pet Funeral Kit! Wood-u-like pet sized coffin or ashes option!
New!! Barbie Buddha Reincarnation Kit! Surprise contents! What will YOUR pet come back as?!
On the adult channels, my favourite advert is for men´s built-up shoes, thus re-enforcing the cultural stereotype that all Spanish men are under 5ft 4″.
Well if it’s snowing here in the south of England, and looking beautiful, I can only imagine how fantastic the snowy Nevada must be looking now. I remember in particular the view from the park by the river in the centre of Granada up to the mountains. Now they are snow topped what a glorious sight!