The Fisher-Price Teaching Clock I had as a kid is long gone, but the kid honed right in on Joel's yesterday at the flea market. She bought it for ten bucks. [I know, but I wasn't planning to teach her how to haggle until next week.]
When I looked online to see how bad we was robbed [eh, not too bad.], what do I find, but Fisher-Price Classics. It looks as if they've reissued throwback replicas of the clock. And that awesome/annoying Chatter Phone ["this is what phones looked like when Daddy was little, honey."]. And that xylophone's coming out in a few days.
But waitasec. F-P has been touting the nostalgic charm of the Chatter Phone for years; and that xylophone looks like plastic, not wood. But the kicker is the reissued Teaching Clock which, according to the Amazon comments, is not wood, either, but a shabby piece of plastic junk, manufactured by a now-bankrupt licensing outfit called Sababa Toys. Supposedly, it doesn't even have the tick-tocking sound anymore.
I would totally make this my ringtone, except that if K2 keeps playing with the clock this much, I'll never know when my phone is ringing.
Fisher - Price [sic] Classic Music Box Teaching Clock, supposedly $25 [amazon]
But Fatbrain says MSRP is just $16.50 [fatbraintoys.com]
Oy. Just track down the original Fisher-Price Teaching Clock on eBay for $10 or whatever. [ebay
My mother kept all my old FP toys, much to the delight of my son. He's so fond of the clock in particular that we had to pack it up and bring it home with us. He insists that it be wound up every evening when he's going to bed.
I bought this one for my daughter last year. It isn't plastic but more like hard cardboard. Unfortunately the winder broke last weekend and we had to toss it.
My mom always says, "you can no go back once you've left." I guess that applies to toys as well. I miss all the classic toys I used to have, but I know deep down that any attempt to replicate that experience would be inadequate at best. It's a shame that they have to take great classic toys and sully them with these reissues.
Ah, but do you know the words to the song it plays?
Between this, the crawligator, and all the F-P "little people" and accompanying playsets, I really need to get digging through the grandparents' basement...
-g
Ahh! it makes me smile every morning.. thank you dad !..