The museum’s curator lauded its versatility by commenting “It can be a Wild West horse, a medieval knight’s sword, a boat on a stream or a slingshot with a rubber band.”  He neglected to add it could also be a mechanism for identifying poor kids that nobody would ever want to play with.

“After Christmas is over you can pull as many twigs off the tree as you want.  Who needs a PSP?”

While I can appreciate their whimsical notions, we’re far enough removed from our pioneer roots to acknowledge toys have evolved for the better.  A stick can be a wild west horse, but so can a Furreal animatronic pony.  Try wrapping both for your niece and guess which one she’ll be losing her shit over.

The animatronic mouth is quite soft and doesn’t discriminate against non-carrots.  Trust me.

The romance of using a stick as a plaything quickly fades when you’ve seen a little boy weilding one.  It may allow endless possibilities to a fertile adult mind, but for boys the spectrum of options really only exists between “broadsword” and “warhammer”.  If that sounds sexist, consider this scenario:

You see an 8-year-old boy charging toward you with a large stick in his hand and a grin on their face.  Your first reaction is they are going to…
A)…challenge you to a wizards duel
B)…pantomime conducting an orchestra for you
C)…puncture your spleen

Toy manufacturers know our children are unimaginative turds with a Tarrantino-esque fetish for violence.  That’s what drove these 2008 additions to the Lil’est Mercenary Playset.

NERF VULCAN
Some would say that NERF jumped the shark when it manufactured a sniper rifle, since the addition of a plastic scope still doesn’t extend the accuracy range beyond 5 feet.  Besides, teaching our children to savor anonymous headshots probably isn’t the healthiest idea.  NERF reacted to this bad press by showing our children that there’s no problem that can’t be solved by throwing more bullets at it.  Enter the NERF Vulcan – a fully automatic dart gun.

“C’mon in, Timmy.  ‘Old Painless’ is waiting…”

How Can They Top It?
The only frontier that is left – the NERF BFG.

BLITZ II: THE LEAGUE
Many would assume a video game title flagged here would be one of the rabble of post-apocalyptic shoot ‘em ups featuring sabre-toothed aliens with boundary issues.  I don’t consider those particularly violent because they don’t simulate reality.  Not that aliens don’t exist or that they aren’t bent on earthly conquest, but I’ve seen enough sketches from alien encounters to know they are all emaciated pussies.

You’re not conquering dick until you up your protein intake, Slim.

Blitz II provides rich gameplay options like precision-aim tackles and player-controlled touchdown celebrations.  They’re precisely the types of features that make parent-friendly bulletpoints on the packaging so they don’t catch wind of the virtual steroid use and indulging your players with the occasional hooker.  The steroids are particularly useful for the victim-targeting system, which alows you to seek out a player to selectively brutalize in hopes of incapacitating them.  Their decision to name the series “Blitz” rather than “Keepin’ It Classy Football” is becoming clearer.

“America Wants YOU (to vent your homicidal whoremongering ways)!”

How Can They Top It?
A Gears of War crossover season, where the fate of the planet hangs on Marcus Fenix’s crew being victorious over the visiting team  of “Angry Alien Face Rapists”.  Also, there should be hookers.

Iron Man (And Some)
Iron Man’s creator, Tony Stark, is known in the comic for a certain level of arrogance.  It’s funny how fabricating a do-it-yourself SUPERHERO tends to shotgun some bravado through your veins.  That said, even he might find this action figure a bit garish:

Snowball Blaster
A snowball fight is a quintessential component of tender winter memories and a classic expression of youthful exuberance.  Hammacher.com has a deep appreciation for this.  That’s how they knew it would take something equally perverse and shocking to convert this:

into this:

Their Snowball Blaster allows you to manufacture 3 snowballs at a clip.  The designers found that accessory quickly became a necessity after the kid got a taste for delivering icy retribution on those over 50 feet away.

How Can They Top It?
Fisher Price releasing their “My First Trebuchet” line:

Ian Cheesman would have gladly taken on the Soviets in “Red Dawn” if he was armed with that Snowball Blaster.  Consider yourselves lucky, circa 1984 ficticious Russians.  [Witty transition here] and read my website InternetSensation.com.