During the Christmas season (and its immediate aftermath), I was staying in a small Southwestern town, sleeping in my van. Some nights I would park on quiet residential streets, and some nights I would park at Wal-Mart. On the Wal-Mart nights, when I went inside to use the facilities, I often wandered around the store. It was dark by 6pm, which was much too early to go to sleep, so I had some time to kill in the aisles of the world’s largest retailer.

I’m often shocked by the Wal-Mart toy department. Not only is it still very much segregated by gender (toys in drab colors for boys over here, pink and garish toys for girls over there), but there’s an over-fascination with elimination.

[amazon template=image&asin=B000ELIXA4]Barbie has a dog that shits. Well, I guess Barbie’s shitting dog has been recalled. But I saw the shitting dog in Wal-Mart’s Barbie aisle when it was still on the market.

The Doggie Doo Game is also about dog poop. Made by the Goliath company, here’s the blurb about the toy on the aforementioned Wal-Mart page:

Feed and walk your little pup, if he makes a mess, you clean it up. When you squeeze his leash, he makes a gassy sound that gets louder and louder until…plop. The first to clean up after the dog three times wins.

How is this a game?

In addition to the defecating dogs, there is always an assortment of dolls the pee and poop, as well as dolly toilets.

Consider the Fisher-Price Ready for Potty Dora Doll.

This Fisher-Price Dora Doll, Ready for Potty is learning how to use the potty. This Fisher-Price baby doll knows when she’s gotta go and will ask to be put on the potty. Once this baby Dora Doll is done using the potty, she will sing and celebrate to show how proud she is. This doll will get children interested in toilet training.

Wow! How were generations of children potty trained without Dora there to show ’em how it’s done, then sing and celebrate?

Then there’s the classic Baby Alive. These days it’s all about the snacks.

Keep your little girl engaged for hours with this fun Baby Alive Doll from Hasbro. Sara gets hungry, thirsty and sleepy. She needs someone to use the shaping tools and make her all kinds of snacks. She will drink from her pretend juice box and then poop in her diaper when she is full.

If a baby doll with a dirty diaper isn’t quite enough, how about adding the BABY born Interactive Potty Experience? (The weird capitalization  is right off the Wal-Mart website.)

Enchant the girl in your life with the BABY born Interactive Potty with Toilet Flush sound. She will enjoy training her doll to use the bathroom. All she has to is place the baby on the toilet and she will hear funny sounds when she presses the button. Lifelike sounds also include applause and giggling. The potty training baby will provide hours of entertainment for your little lady.

I could go on and on about defecating dolls, but I’ll stop after one more example, the Lalaloopsy (whatever that is) Babies Surprise Potty toy.

Make playtime more fun and interesting for your child with this Lalaloopsy Babies Surprise Potty toy. This model is specially designed to help your child better understand how the body works. This Lalaloopsy potty doll “magically” poops a surprise shape when she goes. All you need to do is feed her with the included “baby” food. When she’s ready, simply place her on the potty and she will poop it out. It’s a different shape every time.

If you view the video on the webpage cited, you can ask yourself, as I did, how what this doll does could possibly help a child understand how the body works. According the the (disturbingly upbeat and colorful) commercial, pooping happens after turning a dial in the belly button area. Also according to the the commercial, poop is colorful and imprinted with button, flower, heart, and star shapes. If I were two years old, this doll would not help me understand how the body works. If I were two years old, this doll would confuse the fuck out of me!

I’d thought all of the aforementioned toys were a tad much, but then I saw the Poo Dough. Yes, Poo Dough. (It does not seem to be manufactured by Hasbro, the company that makes Play-Doh.)

We as a society have sunk to a new low, when we think molding fake shit is a great way to play.

Here’s what the Wal-Mart website has to say about the stuff:

Make and shape your own poo! Add the Poo Dough to the mold and make your own poo-shaped creations. It includes two canisters of brown Poo Dough (in different shades) and one canister of yellow (to create corn and peanut accessories). It looks like the real thing but smells much better!
Prank Star Poo Dough:

• Make and shape your own poo
• 2 canisters of brown dough
• 1 canister of yellow dough
• Plastic mold

I took the photo in this post. The other images are Amazon affilitate links. If you click on any of those images, you’ll be taken directly to Amazon. Anything you put in your cart and purchase will earn a small advertising fee for me.

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