Ever get a really bad piece of candy while trick-or-treating? Of course you have. Everyone has. But! If you coldly wrote the shitty candy-giver off as a thoughtless asshole, please, read on, and see if I can’t change your mind.
For every person who offers up bad candy out of apathy towards the whole Halloween endeavor (meaning they just grabbed the first cheap bag of treats spotted after a two-second search at the local supermarket), there’s another who is just innocently clueless when it comes to modern candy trends. I feel bad for these people. Always have. Especially since they always seem to be cute old ladies.
I recall being a pretty polite trick-or-treater. There were definitely instances when I was rude to the gift-giver, but by and large, I treated my extended neighbors with respect and gratitude. Still, I knew when someone gave me shit. I’d always feel horrible for the people who did, because I knew what kind of day awaited them — a Halloween spent looking at painted-face frowns, if not outright verbal protest. I’d come across treat-givers who were just so proud of their unspecified brand of retirement community caramel chews, and all I could ever do was smile and gulp and move on, hoping that the next trick-or-treater wouldn’t smirk or openly scowl at what was very decidedly not a fun-sized Snickers bar.
I’ve seen this stuff firsthand. The friends that I used to go trick-or-treating with weren’t exactly masters of subtlety. They wore their hearts on their sleeves. They’d bitch and moan if someone gave them junky candy, not just during the aftermath, but even as they reached into some poor old woman’s bowl and stared her straight in the eye. It always made me so uncomfortable and embarrassed, and only as an adult do I realize why: You can seriously make a person feel out of touch and used up if you react badly to the candy they give you.
I’m so afraid of ever having to feel like those people did, so I overcompensate. When trick-or-treaters knock on my door, I give them friggin’ Ziploc bags full of pop brand candy. I pretend that I’m being chivalrous, but the reality is, I just can’t stomach the idea that a kid will leave my doorstep thinking that I don’t know the difference between good candy and crap you throw at errant birds while wandering the neighborhood.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably too old to go trick-or-treating. Buuuut, you may be in charge of or connected to someone who isn’t. Teach them the right way to be. When someone gives you free candy, you say “thank you” and smile. No matter what. Even if it’s a dusty Mary Jane. If you don’t, you are a horrible person who deserves to die.
Anyway, happy Monday! Happiest day of the whole week.
I realize that the Bunjie Battle brand had to exist before this surprising Halloween spinoff sprung up, but even my geekitude has a limit: I never heard of the fucking things before spotting them at the end of Target’s “random spooky crap” aisle, which for whatever reason is situated directly next to the aisle where they sell all of the generic brand seltzer and fruit snacks. I never understood that. If you’re the type of person who is willing to spend ten bucks on a pair of Bunjie Battle Halloween dolls, you damn sure ain’t eating a Fruit Roll-Up that doesn’t come tie-dyed with Batman characters etched onto it. I love Target, but in terms of demographical buying statistics, the stores are a geographical nightmare.
I didn’t know what the dolls were. A quick perusal informed me that they were kind of like doggy chew toys, but with really stretchy arms. I found two of the four available dolls (”The Zombie” and “The Vampire”), and decided to just go with those after a desperate, fifteen-minute search confirmed that my shitty local Target simply did not carry “The Eyeball.” (Whose head is simply a giant eyeball, in case you were wondering why I yearned for him so.)
Not sure where else to put this, but it needs to be said: “The Vampire” has a codpiece.
The dolls betray their cheapo carnival prize materials with clever details and interesting color palettes, but if that smells like bullshit to you, note that you can stretch their arms to unfathomable distances, rubber band style. The dolls also make strange, alien chirping sounds when you punch them in the chest. These are huge plusses.
There seems to be a lot of discussion about whether the items I review are worth their retail cost or not, so with the aid of arbitrarily assigned values and a bootleg bullet list, let’s see how these add up:
* Halloween-themed: 2.00
* Chirps Like An Alien Bird: 1.00
* Stretchy Arms: 2.00
* Includes Codpiece: 1.50
So “The Zombie” is right where he needs to be, while “The Vampire” is actually worth more than he cost. Put aside your petty financial deconstructions: These stupid Halloween stretchy dolls are value-friendly.
Now…what the hell are they for?
Ah ha! These aren’t just toys…they’re GAMES! I’m pretty sure that the game aspect was retroactively forged to give such odd toys a sense of purpose, but I don’t care. I don’t care what the reason was, because this “game” instructs me to turn my stretchy-armed Halloween dolls…into slingshots.
Yes, you’re supposed to yank back and shoot your Bunjie Battle doll at a target, and conveniently, each doll’s package doubles as a target. The rules of the game are printed on the packages as well, and they’re….wow, they’re completely insane. Ten points if you hit the target. An additional ten points if the doll chirps when it hits the target. Fifteen points if the doll lands face up on the floor…ten if he doesn’t. What?
And just to make sure that every game ends in a horrible debate over who really won, they tell you to add thirty points if the doll “did something really cool.” That’s verbatim, folks.
I gave the Bunjie Battle game a whirl, and had the distinct sense that what I was doing was the stupidest thing anyone was doing at that very moment across the entire planet. Skip the lame game and enjoy these things for what they are: Weird Halloween dolls with stretchy arms that chirp like Green Bamboo Mystery Peanuts. I think that’s good enough.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
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