Has anybody else noticed that kids toys just keep getting cooler and cooler? I was in a store yesterday and found a bunch of die-cast all metal Star Wars toys for 7 bucks a piece. There was an IG-88 assassin droid, in particular, that just a few short years ago I would have just about creamed my jeans over. Right beside it was a remote controlled tarantula, realistic enough that I could really have scared the hell out of my friends. I saw these things and was overcome with a sort of nostalgic pain... I knew these things were totally awesome, but if I bought them they'd just become clutter. It kind of makes me want to have a kid, which I hope to do eventually.
Of course, everything's getting cooler. Computers, phones, pretty much all consumer technology. Maybe it's just that with those everyday things, it seems to happen more gradually. We see cell phones and MP3 players daily, but most of us don't peruse the toy section regularly. So, there are great leaps in toy technology that can take us unawares.
Or maybe toy designers make what they wish they'd had as kids, and therefore new toys happen to seem really awesome to kids from the past (adults). I wonder if toy technology is a generation "behind"... that is to say, adults design toys, kids play with them. Kids don't get to design toys for their own generation, and maybe they have to play with what the last generation of kids really wanted? Remember the movie Big with Tom Hanks, where he becomes wildly successful making toys that kids actually like, because he is himself a kid inside? Also, did he end up fucking that chick? Is that sort of like statutory? I mean, he had the body of a man but the mind of a child.
Anyhow, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the toy thing.
