Congratulations! Hollywood Pictures is making a movie of your life. We'll get to things like casting, treatment, genre, and musical score later. But short term there is a more pressing issue: toy tie-in. A little giveaway item to promote the film version of you. Available with any meal. Production needs to get started right away.
Your job is to design the toy. WHAT DOES THE TOY FROM THE MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE LOOK LIKE AND WHAT DOES IT DO? Keep in mind it needs to be pretty simple and cheap. Still, it should capture the essence of you, or at least the you character from the film. And please describe how the toy is played with. BONUS QUESTION: At which restaurant is your toy distributed?
I'll go first:
The toy me is seated on a couch with a laptop computer. The computer screen is blank. Above my head is a plastic thought balloon saying "DEADLINES!!" in creepy gloomy letters. Around the couch are children in pajamas who are not going to bed. When you pull a little lever, my hand reaches up to my hair and pulls on it in stressed out fashion while the pajamaed children punch each other in the head.
The toy is available only at Paseo, a Caribbean restaurant in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. Negotiations to distribute it at Dixie's in St Paul fell through.
So once more:
WHAT DOES THE TOY FROM THE MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE LOOK LIKE AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
and
At which restaurant is your toy distributed?
_
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Pop culture and some news put through a filter of optimistic cynicism. Also, lots of vanity. And seemingly a great deal about children. More than some might expect. Written by John Moe
Of Interest
- Conservatize Me, a book I wrote, in hardback
- Conservatize Me, a book I wrote, in paperback
- What Matthew Baldwin, the Defective Yeti proprietor, who made me what I am today, has to say
- Talking Points Memo
- What Jeannie has to say
- What Scott Chicken has to say
- What Tina has to say
- What Dup's Blog has to say
- Deadspin
- Seattlest
Mappy thing!
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6 comments:
Oh my gah, John Moe! PASEO. Words cannot express my love for that wee shack and all the foodness housed therein. That there item has caused my first truly powerful homesick pang since I left Seattle last year.
I know this is not the question at hand, nor indeed a question at all.
I shall return with more appropriate commenting.
But oh - PASEO. Tofu Con Gusto, how I miss thee. Thee also, Midnight Cuban Dinner.
Well, distribution is the easiest question: Jack in the Box. Because that way I could get one every time we went there, which is far more often than we should.
My toy would actually be similar to yours, and not just because I've modeled my life after yours (because if I have I'm clearly a failure). Couch? Check. Laptop? Check. But it's not blank, it's showing Facebook Wrestler.
As for the surroundings, rather than punching kids my toy will have one studiously not doing his homework and the other screaming. You don't know why she's screaming, but you can tell it's really loud. And incoherent.
The action button will flip the laptop screen image so it says "Your move was BLOCKED!" and my face will then grimace while the kids continue ignoring homework and screaming.
And if there's budget for an extra character it will be the wife sitting in a chair knitting. Her action would be, well, to keep knitting.
I would need two representative toys.
There will be a series of interconnecting cubicles. My figure is one of many found in the cubefarm. My unique "action" involves you, the human, pushing my head forward onto my keyboard. When my head pops up a fortune is displayed on my forehead, ala Magic 8-Ball. Featured fortunes: No, go away, I'm not done yet, It's here somewhere, send me a link, Isn't that your job?, and WTF?!. This toy will be distributed via workplace vending machines between the always present Chili Fritos and "Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch Flavored" Doritos.
The 2nd toy will be a little blue Volkswagen Beetle with mother driving and a teenager in the passenger seat. You can pull back on it to wind up the wheels. When you let go it it moves forward and releases a variety of whiney utterances all starting with the line “I need a ride to…” and end with words like practice, the game, home, the dance, the mall, so and so’s house, etc. This toy will be handed out with each order of "Mexi Fries" purchased at Taco Time.
When I first read your post I thought the creepy gloomy letters in your thought balloon said "DEADLINESS!" That made me giggle. Words are funny. Like that bit on "Arrested Development" with the Analrapist. Giggle. Giggle. Snort.
1. Toy should be like the Nancy Purl doll, only I want removable accessories, so I can go from mild-mannered, distractible college professor to funky way cool woman-about-town. Accessories will tend to fall off or not fit quite right, and hair will never lie the way it's supposed to. Key accessory: venti Starbucks cup with stains that match those on outfits.
2. Starbucks, of course. Because they've gotten enough of my money since adolescence, and I want a little back. And I'm sure this would be a HUGE seller. Very aspirational, no?
Ok, I'm back, having given this some of my best quality, mediocre thinking.
My toy would be shrinky dink representations of the various parts of my head: eyes, mouth, ears, hair, nose, brain, teeth - and a big U shape for the head outline. String and 3 stubby colored pencils (red, yellow, blue) included.
One would color these parts, then make a shrinky-dink mobile of my head parts, which would then be mounted outside, where my head parts could flap in the breeze, just as they do now, but in a more figurative manner.
I would like this to be sold at that place where they pimp slap ice cream around on a cold slab of rock.
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