A Look Inside Amazon's Holiday Toy Catalog
Plus, I get mad at a guy who is just peacefully reading a newspaper
Airing of an Airplane Grievance
You get to see a lot of interesting things when you’re flying. The George G’s took a weekend trip to see family last weekend, and on the flight home, I spotted a man reading an actual, physical newspaper. Pages and everything - a real novelty!
He caught my attention because, in order to read a newspaper on a Southwest flight, one simply must make a whole bunch of frantic commotion, and become, in general, a conspicuous idiot.
Newspapers are unwieldy, and the opposite of what you’d like to have in a cramped, coach-class seat. Whenever the guy wanted to flip to a new page, he’d need to hoist the entire newspaper up over his head, in order to create enough elbow room to unfold it. Since we were flying at night, the cabin was dark. Each time he lifted the paper, it would catch the full glare of his overhead personal reading lamp, and send a flood of illumination to all seated behind him, like a big, full, stupid, moon.
In my mind, this grown man, with his newspaper-formed opinions, was probably the embodiment of why everything’s wrong with the world today. Inflation, fentanyl, wars, Swifties infiltrating and commandeering NFL coverage, paper straws - the works. I know I could trace each of these things back to this guy, given a big enough board, and enough time, string and thumbtacks.
I watched in a mixture of annoyance and morbid curiosity, as he turned and folded the pages so that he could home in on an article about Joe Biden’s dog - precisely the level of subject matter I’d expect to catch the interest of a man who reads newspapers on planes in 2023.
Probably the main reason I felt like blaming him for the world’s problems was because, by creating a make-shift strobe light in the peaceful dark cabin, there was a real, growing risk he’d wake our 1-year-old. She had finally fallen asleep after an hour of squirming, and my wife and I were enjoying a rare moment of peace and quiet on this flight. If this paper-reading, ignoramus dinosaur woke her up, that would be tough to forgive.
On To the Article
Venting aside, I do miss newspapers a little. We used to buy one every Sunday, back when I was growing up, and there were a few things I enjoyed in there:
The sports section
Dave Barry
The Far Side
Calvin & Hobbes
The Toys ‘R’ (backwards) Us Big Toy Book
That last item only came once a year. I recall it with particular fondness, because the memory is all wrapped up in childhood, Christmas nostalgia. 90’s kids know, that catalog used to be a sacred piece of the Christmas tradition. Back in the day when Black Friday used to mean something (before it evolved into the 6-week slog it is now), the newspaper you’d get on the Sunday before Thanksgiving weighed an extra 10 lbs, due to all the extra-thick store fliers and catalogs stuffed inside. Probably over half of that extra weight was accounted for by Toys ‘R Us Big Toy Book.
This catalog served as a foundation for the careful construction of one’s Christmas wish-list. There’s been nothing else like it before, or since.
Well, not until a few years ago. You see, in 2017, Toys R Us went bankrupt. Geoffrey the Giraffe waved farewell and disappeared, and along with him, The Big Toy Book was gone.
Somebody at Amazon - probably some nostalgic 90’s kid like me, saw an opportunity and pounced! Amazon started sending their own big toy catalog to everybody who’d ever ordered from them. So, that’s basically everybody.
For the past few years, Amazon has been mailing out this toy catalog. I’m far from the first to have noted that is definitely the spiritual successor to The Big Toy Book. Ours arrived in mid-October:
Sending this thing out in October is a little repulsive - a flagrant encroachment on Halloween, let alone Thanksgiving. That aside, I approve. Amazon has gotten pretty sophisticated with this. For example, they are saving kids the trouble of making a wish-list, and integrating it directly into the catalog now:
It also comes along with its own free set of stickers, which is a nice touch. Baby G loved these, and they are now proudly displayed on the fridge:
Free stickers, and a built-in wish-list! Kids these days have it so good. There are also little puzzles and games throughout the catalog, such as this maze (spoiler alert! I completed it. Skip the image below if you are looking forward to solving this on your own copy!)
Flipping through this catalog is not only nostalgic fun, but in addition, it's a pulse-check on the toys that our kids are offered. Like, did you know that Little Tikes has now moved into the witchcraft space?
Interesting. Seems a little bit off - my mom probably would’ve boycotted Little Tikes over something like that, but I can see a Harry Potter/Tolkien rebuttal, and say it may be defensible. But what is entirely indefensible is the Fisher-Price Little People “Friends” set:
I’m not even offended by this one. Just confused. Who is this for? How do Fisher-Price and “Friends” go together? Are the Fisher-Price age kids into this? Is little Johnny over there setting up “The One Where Ross, Rachel, and a Cow Go for a Ride in a Schoolbus on the Couch”??
Also, I regret to inform you, Furby is back:
In more encouraging news, the Nerf arms market is very much alive and well! Two full pages to capture just the mere highlights of the Nerf weapons arsenal for your kiddos. The Second Nerf Amendment is cherished by the next generation.
All in all, I approve of the Amazon toy catalog. Toys R Us, as a brand, has actually been brought back from the dead this year, now as some sort of integration with Macy’s. Not sure if that’s really the most secure refuge. That seems to me, in retail business terms, like being rescued from drowning and pulled on board the Titanic.
It does make me wonder whether Toys R Us 2.0 will try to revive their own catalog, and take it back from Amazon? Are they putting it into newspapers again?
Guess I should’ve asked that guy on the my flight.