UPDATE: I thought Part 2 was running a little short, so I added a few new items. If you’ve already read this, read it again.

Moving right along…

“Ring Toss” and “Strong Man Game” Circus Toys: Nah, I’m not looking to rail on these — I think they’re pretty cool, all things considered. Dollar Tree had a huge assortment of sideshow and circus-themed mini-games, all packaged like these, all in the same scale. There were enough sets to fully recreate the Big Top on your dining room table, and I would, but the last time I did, things didn’t pan out so well.

I like these. The packaging is inspired, and the toys are about as well made as you can expect for things that were produced with dollar store landing points in mind. Plus, they’re the correct scale for use with most action figure sets, and who wouldn’t want Darth Vader and Duke to settle their crossover differences with a spirited round of, um, Strong Man Game?

The toys are on the cheap side, but that’s no surprise. They do actually work, though. Hit the target with a plastic mallet in “Strong Man Game,” and a ball will fly up towards the…hey, where’s the bell? How can you have a Strong Man Game without the damn bell? What’s the payoff? While we’re at it, I’m having a little trouble deciphering the units of measurement as listed on the tower of power. They appear to be measuring strength in quarters. Why?

The Ring Toss game is cute. There’s a little flipper gizmo to propel the rings to their posts, and it’s challenging-but-not-impossible, like all games should be.

I wish I could remember which other sideshow games were on sale, but my Dollar Tree visit has become a bit of a blur. I have the distinct recollection of a Skee-ball set, but that doesn’t make sense, because why would I go home with Ring Toss instead of that? Incidentally, if you transcribed this paragraph in cursive using a pink-inked pen, you’d have today’s entry in my secret diary.

Gummi Lizards: Hey, it’s another classic candy from our friends at Alpine Brand! They can do no wrong!

Dollar Tree’s candy aisle is…well, I’m not sure if there’s any one word to properly describe it. It’s multi-faceted, that’s for sure. Some of the candy is perfectly fine, and much of it isn’t any different than the stuff you’d pay four times as much to get at a regular supermarket. Other candy is so putrid and conceptually incorrect that you’d swear that Dollar Tree only stocks it to maintain their quietly growing clientele of gloomy webmasters who need easy material.

I think these “Gummi Lizards” fall somewhere in the middle. There’s nothing offensive or unusual about gummy lizards, even when their makers insist on using the alternative spelling. But somewhere along the way, whether by a production mishap or sheer age, things went awry…

Those are decidedly not lizard-shaped. Gummi Fish, sure. Gummi Tadpoles, maybe. Gummi Lizards? Fuck off, Alpine Brand. Stop making candy. Just stop. Your company name so obviously predestines you to produce cans of generic dog food, so go do that instead. You do not deserve to make candy.

And I’d complain about the lazy holiday color scheme of the so-called “lizards,” but I can’t, because I took all of these pictures with a holiday tablecloth in clear view. But I would if I hadn’t.

Wrestling Action Playset: The company behind this toy has a far different definition of the word “playset” than I do. Does an action figure that comes packaged with a crutch and a boot count as a “playset?” Am I delving too far into semantics? Is that supposed to be Rey Mysterio?

Pro-wrestling toys have long been a staple of dollar store toy aisles. It’s pretty easy for low-rent companies to produce action figures that look like actual, popular wrestlers — but not so much so that they have to worry about lawyers taking a speedboat out to their remote island production facilities so they can serve them papers.

I wasn’t kidding about the crutch and boot — the wrestler guy actually came with both items. Not a set of crutches or a pair of boots, mind you — just one of each. And I know that you want to argue that they’re intended to be foreign objects, but no respected masked wrestler would resort to such tactics. Besides, you’re giving the playset’s designer way too much credit if you can rationalize the inclusion of one random shoe.

Squirt Devils: I bought two, so this counts as two of the 25 items, even if you think it shouldn’t. These bumpy monster heads were quite obviously “inspired” by the Madballs brand, with unmistakable ripoffs occurring in both the packaging and the products themselves. I love Madballs, but they haven’t exactly set the world on fire with their latest release. Seems like an odd brand to steal things from. I’m guessing some random bootlegger was triple dog dared.

I had some obvious reservations about buying these considering their apparent condition, but once I removed the packaging, they resumed their original shape and seemed to be well worth the investment.

I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a worm or a wound above the blue guy’s right eye, but whatever it is, we know it starts with a “w.” The red guy appears to be mimicking Madballs’ “Slobulus,” but I always think that things are ripping Slobulus off when they have big eyes. My tragic flaw. I’ve cried wolf in Slobulus’s defense so many times, it’s hard to tell when the gripe is warranted. I’ll let you be the judge: This is Slobulus. Is Red Guy ripping him off?

Dinosaur Model and Storybook: You can always count on a dollar store’s book section to deliver at least one mighty dinosaur-related title, and Dollar Tree had plenty. Instead of going with my usual “condensed dinosaur encyclopedia” selection, I picked this one. It only has around eight pages, but four of those pages feature pop-out dinosaur models. As Eisenhower once lamented, why should we read words when we can build paper dinosaurs instead?

They’re cheap, paper models of course, but they do stand. I thought I’d have more to say about a paper Ankylosaurus, but I’m hitting a wall.

Healing Rainforest DVD: Dollar Tree had hundreds of these “relaxation” DVDs, all featuring serene visuals of natural wonders mixed with the kind of music that your old Casio keyboard used to spray out after you hit the forbidden “Tango” preset. It’s hard to believe that complete tranquility can be purchased from a dollar store, but I admire the concept.

Watching random waterfalls probably wouldn’t relax me outright, but if I played the DVD loud enough, perhaps its musical score would drown out the many awful things that swirl around my head like armed bees as another weekend draws near its close. And if it doesn’t, at least I can use the uncased DVD as a coaster for another uncased DVD that I like a whole lot better. No need to scratch up Disc 3 of The Sopranos: Season 2 when I’ve got Healing Rainforest to take the fall.

Grow Capsules: I’ve written about them before, but it’s hard to turn down Grow Capsules when they’re right there in front of you. Along with rock pencils, these spongy novelties were an absolute must-buy whenever I hit a museum’s gift shop during a class trip. I’d cry foul about the museum’s versions of Grow Capsules costing five times as much as Dollar Tree’s, but the truth is, as far as animal-shaped sponges that burst out of gelatinous pills go, these are low quality.

I attempted to take a video of their birth, but the stupid things took forever. Honestly, even in hot water, they didn’t show even the slightest signs of progress after five minutes. Frustrated, I finally took to mashing the capsules with my fingers, which seemed to give them enough encouragement to make good on their promise. (And make me feel all godlike to boot.)

If you look closely at the water, you should notice some of the capsule residue swimming around aimlessly. Capsule residue looks gross.

The animal sponges (I picked the “sea life” themed package, but they had versions for everything from birds to horses) were jussst defined enough for me to have a good guess at which creatures I had delivered life unto. I’m disappointed to see a duck in the mix, though the idea of a duck that’s twice as big as a dolphin is pretty fascinating.

Growing Cage Animal Thing: The creators skimped on the packaging, because whatever this is, it certainly is not a capsule.

As best as I can tell, it’s a tiger in a cage that will grow when dunked in water. (The tiger grows, not the cage.) According to the illustrations on the back of the package, the tiger only grows a little, so it’s not a case where you’re going to have these big, floppy, slimy paws cracking through the bars. The package also tells me that the tiger will need 24 hours to grow, and I don’t have that kind of time. Let’s save this one for a rainy day.

Parrot Statue: Oh, parrot statue. The memories you flood me with. They’re either memories of a Jersey shore gift shop or Grandma’s old windowsill; I’m not really sure, but both options are happiness.

Dollar Tree had dozens of ridiculous statues like this — animals, angels, patriotic statements, you name it. If you can locate a statue that hasn’t been chipped to death or outright cracked in half, they’re actually decent finds for the money. I picked this pair of parrots because its symbolism is so up for debate that I think that I may have stumbled upon some neo-form of the Rorschach test. Are they parrots in love, or parrots at war? Your answer just might define you.

Jump Spider: Oooh, haven’t had one of these in forever. As much as I hated opening the package (which is awesome enough to be sold without an actual toy included), I had no choice: The thrill of using a cheap pump to make an alien spider bop around a table was too awesome to resist.

Still photography cannot do such majesty justice, so after figuring out how to log back into YouTube after a yearlong absence, I give you this motion miracle:

Okay, so it doesn’t move with the same level of finesse that real spiders do, but then, no real spider would let you shove a hose up its ass to puppet it around like this. The pump is so cheaply made that I’m surprised the thing works at all, but it does, and with any luck, you’ll be freaking out small children in no time.

As you’ll see in the video, the trick is a balloon-like inflatable tube “hidden” underneath the spider, which fills with air to spring him around. There’s something obscene about it. Something akin to a horny miniature Doberman. I don’t care. It’s a spider that jumps on my command, and so few spiders do.

That does is for Part 2, but I’ve saved the best for last. Coming up in Part 3? Mystery bags.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!