Product Review #7: Fisher Price Elmo Super Boom Box (Must Die)

No. DO NOT try it. You can’t shut it off!

We don’t have a great many electronic toys, but we do have a few.  My husband and I each have our opinion on which ones are worthwhile, mildly irritating, creepy or annoying.     There is one very special toy, however, that the both of use have at the top of the list of utterly obnoxious:  Fisher Price Elmo’s Super Boom Box.

There are very few products I deeply, viscerally despise.     It is not that it is small and has no educational value.  It’s not even that it plays really short versions of of common children’s songs in questionably irritating voices.   The issue with this stupid piece of useless plastic is that it has no way to turn it off.

Yeah, you heard me right.

I want to tie whomever designed this monstrosity — with no volume control and no off button– to a chair and lock them in a room with a dozen toddlers playing with this horrendous thing. Who in their right mind decided to save five cents by not putting in an off button or a simple volume control!

“We must cut costs!  Melvin, give me ideas man.”

“Well, sir, we already made it smaller and used only  quarter length songs.  All that’s left to cut is the off switch and volume knob, ha, ha!   Wouldn’t that be funny?   That would really drive parents around the bend!”

“Brilliant! Make it happen. ”

This was given to us, and I was never so glad to see a toy die.  I could have taken the batteries out sooner, but since the toy has no other function letting it play out seemed a course of action to deter the children from asking for batteries.  And by play out, I mean outside.       It was a tough little bugger.   It did last longer than expected in the rain, in the dirt, and  in the sandbox. It even resurrected briefly for a few final tunes after I truly thought it was good and dead.    Had it not finally quit on its own I had a back up plan to smash it with a ball pin hammer.

Save your sanity and skip this purchase.  Buy some nice quiet wood toys, or at the very least an electronic toy with a damn off switch and volume control.      If you are some sort of horrible person and want to tick off some friends (or enemies) with kids,  by all means send them this toy.     Don’t be surprised if they come after you in the middle of the night.

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