The Children's Factory is a grandparent-run company in Missouri that's been making brightly colored vinyl-covered foam furniture for the kids institutional market [i.e. daycare centers, schools, libraries] since 1982, back when gas was like 75 cents/gallon.
Putting one of CF's hexagonal party pits in your kid's room is the nursery equivalent of stainless steel restaurant tables in your loft kitchen, at least conceptually. But even if it's not as slick as, say, a stainless steel-and-plexi hospital bassinet or an tool cart changing table, it's a viable alternative to the bows-and-bears school of decorating. [Why the relentless primary colors, though? Do kids require or respond to wall-to-wall color in an institutional setting, or is it just the way adults signal "child space"?]
The Hexi-Hollow is the cleaner design, with symmetrical color slices that Velcro together into a seamless funpad. It's bigger, and has a black gap in the middle, but seriously, don't you think Hexagon Happening Hollow is a radder name than Gymboree?
Tiny Tot Hexi-Hollow, by Children's Factory, $378 [amazon.com]
Hexagon Happening Hollow, $549 MSRP [childrensfactory.com]
Yeah, someone should really make them in more adult-friendly colors. I bet they would fly off the shelves in, say, chocolate brown and nougat...Even solid primary colors (all red or all yellow?) would be easier to stomach.