Walmart Pulls Children's Toy That Swears and Sings in Polish About Doing Cocaine (ctvnews.ca) 81
An Ontario grandmother who bought an educational toy for her 15-month-old granddaughter was shocked when the dancing cactus started swearing and singing about doing cocaine. From a report: "This toy uses swear words and talking about cocaine use," Ania Tanner told CTV News Toronto. "This is not what I ordered for my granddaughter." The cactus was sold on Walmart's website as an educational toy for about $26 and sings songs in English, Spanish and Polish. But Tanner, who is Polish, said when she listened to the Polish lyrics, the cactus was singing about doing cocaine, drug abuse, suicide, depression and used profanities. "It just so happens that I am Polish and when I started to listen to the songs and I heard the words," she said. "I was in shock. I thought what is this some kind of joke?" The song is by Polish Rapper Cypis, who is reportedly unaware his song was used by the Chinese manufacturer of the children's toy. "It's about taking five grams of cocaine and being alone ... It's a very depressing song," Tanner said. This singing cactus toy was also sold in Europe through Amazon and in July 2021 other families also noticed and complained about the lyrics that many felt were inappropriate for a children's toy.
Hang on to yours (Score:5, Interesting)
It's gonna be one valuable collector's item. If not, it sure makes one hell of an example how China rips off everything without knowing and we buying an Chinese trash as long as it's cheap.
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we buying any Chinese trash as long as it's cheap.
Yep. How would that be "educational" even if it sang a squeaky-clean song?
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It's indeed not educational -- suggesting polacks do cocaine is totally wrong. Our only drug comes in bottles!
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Well, actually it could. Yeah, Walmart is evil, but tired, old, and almost harmless evil compared to Amazon. If Amazon is selling the same doll, I hope they've sold a million of 'em and now lose money on each of those sales. Can't make that up on volume. You remember the bad math joke about the steaks, right? He makes 200% on each $3 steak he sells for five bucks.
(Reading a silly fantasy pastiche of Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu right now, and now wanting to cast Bezos in the evil minion role?)
As regards this FP branch. I gotta stop fixating on the disappointment, but the moderators so far agree with me that the joke was too weak to deserve a Funny mod. I think it's fine if the discussion starts with humor, and the best wits can crank out the jokes quickly, but that joke failed in the execution. This topic was a tree packed with low-hanging fruit, but FP apparently whacked at the trunk with a shovel? The idea of it becoming a collector's item had a lot of potential.
On parent's contribution to the thread, it depends. If the educational purpose was supposed to be teaching your kid to sing in Polish, then that could have been legit.
Having said that, I'm not sure how to construct a really funny joke on the topic without overt racism. Too many of the potentially funny angles are problematic. I think Slashdot used to have some comics of that caliber, but they seem to have moved on ior worse. Unlikely Slashdot is going to train any fresh ones unless the incentive system is tweaked to reward Funny more strongly...
Quoted in response to troll censors who have nothing to say in defense of their fantasies ior lies.
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It sings in three different languages. I presume the educational benefit is language learning.
It's a popular meme song (Score:5, Informative)
Cypis - Gdzie jest biaÅy wÄ(TM)gorz? [youtube.com]
100% that a Chinese manufacturer came across the popular meme song and decided to put it into their toy. Because it's a funny cow! They do this all the time by printing tshirts with memes and other junk they actually have no clue about.
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They do this all the time by printing tshirts with memes and other junk they actually have no clue about.
I recall, back in the 1980s, a friend of mine who was from Norway had a "you-clah" T-shirt he really liked. He had no idea what "UCLA" meant though.
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That's nothing. I have seen girls with shirts that say "bitch". Kids with shirts that say "fuck" and "I want pussy".
Re: It's a popular meme song (Score:2)
Kids shirts ive loved:
"I've hated you since before I was born. Let's end our relationship today!"
"hate nitrogen!"
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Reminds me of seeing some t-shirts in a store in India, with English vulgarity and sexual innuendos on it.
I assume the sellers have no clue what they meant, since it would be odd for people in that area to buy such things on purpose (small town, so presumably not many English speakers).
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It's still quite common today in the UK. Lots of people have Superdry clothing with Japanese writing on. The writing is complete nonsense, pure gibberish.
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> Walmart Pulls Children's Toy That Swears and Sings in Polish About Doing Cocaine
It wasn't flammable, it wasn't full of melamine or cadmium. I think this was a win for Chinese manufacturing. They've come a long way.
Re: It's a popular meme song (Score:2)
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I am pretty sure what's going on in China is a bit different. I think there are two cases and one fits close to what you say. Instead of being dumped in a more post-retail sense, they are extras that don't meet quality control or the order somehow changed.
The other case, is they genuinely put words they don't understand on the shirts because they think it's funny. Some of them might know what the word means but they say they can easily "declare" ignorance after the fact.
FYI, I live in China.
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You mean akin to people getting tattoos with Chinese signs they know fuck all about and are a total ass to the tattoo artist, so they go home with a Chinese soup menu on their forearm?
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I miss George Carlin.
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The number of pornstars with Chinese tattoos is actually a rather interesting fact.
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... that's something I'll have to do some ... research about.
Re: It's a popular meme song (Score:2)
Riley Reid is one. Down the spine. I live in China but don't know the language that well yet. I think the last character is "you" so we can imagine it's something about sex acts.
Seen similar tattoos on a few others. Some Chinese girls have these too, like a yoga teacher I know but tattoos in China can be a huge issue for jobs, so it's primarily club girls or yoga teachers.
If you find a really classy girl, she has a tattoo in Tibetan.
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Well.. .. my wife used to tell me about a friend visiting Japan who left his clothes with a business whose sign said "Laundromat". When he came back the clothes had been carefully put into a parking space. The business actually was a parking lot. The owner thought that "Laudromat" was a good decorative motif.
In the US I've seen arabic used that same way. AFAIK nobody has a clue as to what the signs mean, I sure didn't, but it *was* decorative.
Reminds me of (Score:5, Funny)
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Nope. That wouldn't be banned in Holland.
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This. In Australia you're not allowed to say Fuck on the radio. I visit the Netherlands turn on Radio538 and one random afternoon they had a segment called "What the Fuck" where the intro was just audio clips of people from movies saying "What the Fuck" over and over again. There was more swearing in those 5 minutes than in a whole Quentin Tarantino movie staring Samuel L Jackson.
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In Scotland they sell Peppa Pig toys that talk just like in the cartoons [youtube.com]. 'Onnist.
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Commercial radio maybe. They do on the public broadcaster all the fucking time.
The public broadcaster is *not* allowed to swear without presenting a language warning clearly over the air beforehand. You'll also find the hosts are not the ones swearing but that isn't a legal requirement as much as an adherence to the code of conduct.
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Umm, as an Australian I have to assert that you CAN say four letter words on the radio
Yes you can. But radio hosts don't. They may interview people who do, and they may play music which does. Both of those are universally preceded by the host themselves giving a language warning, and that very much includes on Triple J and Double J (seriously, I'm questioning if you're actually Australian calling it JJJ rather than Triple J, heck, correct would be "triple j", quick exam question to save your Australianness, What's: "Doing a Bradbury" and What's "a maccas"? Reclaim thy honour, passing grade i
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It wasn't banned in the Netherlands. The text at the end of the AD is Dutch and I remember seeing it on TV :)
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The "banned" claim seems to have been clickbait.
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A dollar store in Dayton, Ohio is selling a magic wand that reveals the horrifying image of a demon girl cutting herself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Polish cow? (Score:2)
Is this the "dancing Polish cow" song?
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Yes it is!
Prepares the kids for school (Score:2)
Where they'll learn much more profanity and drugs...
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Polish profanity.
That is the educational part.
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Polish profanity.
Isn't that redundant?
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You mean a pleonasm?
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pleonasm /plnazm/
noun: pleonasm
the use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning (e.g. see with one's eyes ), either as a fault of style or for emphasis.
It IS educational! Thank you for a word new to me. This supports my feelings of narapoia.
Gotta train early the future CEOs (Score:2)
Speaking of banned products (Score:5, Insightful)
This was also removed [youtu.be] from shelves at some big box stores.
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My kingdom for a mod point...
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"I want a refund!" (Score:3)
Her: it started swearing and singing about cocaine!
Me: where can I get one?
Not a Walmart product (Score:5, Informative)
It's not from Walmart, it's from a third-party seller who sells things through Walmart's website. It's just like a random eBay seller.
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Agreed. And the same is true of Amazon, no matter what they claim.
Congrats to that gramma (Score:2)
What a surprise (Score:2)
What a surprise, chinese vendor steals and cheats. Somehow I thought it wasn't going to be a US, Norwegian or Polish vendor
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Why Polish though? (Score:2)
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Presumably because the polish song is from an internet meme and kids don't like eating mandarins while listening to French?
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Polish was cheap because they didn't have to buy so many vowels.
I see (Score:2)
Fuck the swearing, the scaring kids, the profanity...this is copyrightmurderpiracy.
Barbie was much more direct.... (Score:2)
Hey, I believe the great American icon Barbie said it best: (Paraphrasing)
"Meth is hard!"
-Yo Grark
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Isn't that quote incomplete? I thought the second half was "Let's go shopping!"
Ya, but surely ... (Score:2)
Any kid playing with this thing can relate to a lonely cactus singing about doin' a bump -- in Polish.
I'm thinking the Chinese nailed it...
Hi, I'm Chucky, Wanna Play? (Score:2)
Hi, I'm Chucky, Wanna Play?
Suing Chinese for copyright infringement (Score:1)
LOL gl
Cultural Appropriation? (Score:1)
But which one?
Original song (Score:1)
There are others? (Score:1)
" ... many felt were inappropriate for a children's toy."
There are some that thought it was appropriate?
The real story (Score:2)
The real story here is that the Chinese took the song without obtaining rights to the IP.
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The Spanish song... (Score:2)
She bought a doll that swears about coke (Score:2)