Wal-Mart's Dumb Products Aisle

What Were They Thinking?

Published on June 15, 2004 By Gene Nash In Humor

The "clearance" aisles and shelves at Wal-Mart should be required browsing for any marketer, fledgling or established. It's painfully obvious why some products fail. So obvious I wonder why the manufactures didn't see them in the proposal stage. Take a few examples from a recent shopping jaunt.

I've already written about how bad TV reception is here, so here is an interesting product: a combination VHF/UHF antenna with booster promising to give me clear, bright reception. What's there not to love? Especially in this area! Wait a second, there's a disclaimer. "As long as there are no mountains or buildings between receiver and transmitter and transmitter is within 25 miles." Pardon me, but if there were no buildings or mountains and the transmitter was practically in my backyard I wouldn't need any special devices. That's like a phone amplifier advertising, "Hear Grandma with crystal clarity (as long as she is standing next to you and shouting)." Ugh.

Let's venture farther down the clearance aisle. Here is something cute: a Scooby-Doo popcorn maker! See, it looks just like Scooby's head! What fun. Put the kernels in the top of his head, turn it on, and wait for fresh popped corn to come flying... out... eww... of his mouth. Just what I want to eat, a bunch of white hot stuff that just came shooting out of a dog's mouth. The picture on the side says it all. It looks like poor little Scooby is puking his guts out after an all-night bender. Double-ugh.

Not far away I find what may be the perfect complement for the popcorn puking Scooby. It's the Play-Doh equivalent of a George Forman Grill. Press down on the grill to hear authentic grilling sounds. Innocuous enough till your four year old presses down on the center of a real grill and finds out just how authentic grilling sounds can be. The truly gross part though is at the grill's rear. Flip the thing open, fill it with "doh," press down, and long tubes of various shapes come squirting out the back. That's right, folks, it looks like the grill is taking a dump. Mmmm, the perfect complement to my dog barf-corn.

Dear, would you put some ice on Timmy's fingers? I'm eating.

Comments

mignuna

on Jun 17, 2004

you. are. SO. hilarious.

*rolling on floor laughing at scooby puke*

mig XX

wnx_decoy

on Jun 19, 2004

Wow, I actually liked that article. So do you go check out the clearance aisle often? I always like seeing all of the generic toys. Toys that are "like" Barbie, G.I. Joe, and Power Rangers. I'm sure any kid would love to take Bradley, the brown power ninja, to show all of his friends the awesome toy he got instead of the Power Ranger he asked for... The clearance section is a place devoted to making people want to cry.

Capt. over and out!

Gene Nash

on Jun 22, 2004

Reply By: mignuna Posted: Thursday, June 17, 2004
you. are. SO. hilarious.

Thank God for you, Mig. Till you came along and commented I feared this article would lie there unoticed, unloved....

Reply By: CaptainCornbread
Wow, I actually liked that article.

You don't have to sound so surprised, Brandon!! (It is Brandon, right?)

So do you go check out the clearance aisle often?

Once or twice a month. There's rarely anything of value, but occasionally something amazingly good gets overlooked.

I always like seeing all of the generic toys. Toys that are "like" Barbie, G.I. Joe, and Power Rangers. I'm sure any kid would love to take Bradley, the brown power ninja, to show all of his friends the awesome toy he got instead of the Power Ranger he asked for... The clearance section is a place devoted to making people want to cry.

Last week Jay Leno was doing products from the 99 cent Only store. (Just realized I have no idea where the "cent" symbol is on this keyboard.) He held up a box of SpAderman action figures. That has got to be some sort of copyright infringement. They looked pretty good, though, unlike the "brown power ninja."

Get rid of the box and maybe no-one would know the diff. The Venom looked kinda cool. Actually, four figures for 99 cents?, if I was still in CA I might go grab that one myself.

wnx_decoy

on Jun 22, 2004

Just realized I have no idea where the "cent" symbol is on this keyboard

Sorry, can't help you.

Well, maybe I'll talk to you again soon.

Capt. over and out!

P.S.~ Yes, it is Brandon

KarmaGirl

on Jun 22, 2004

Just realized I have no idea where the "cent" symbol is on this keyboard

Never seen a keyboard with a cent symbol. Most people just write it like: $.99

wnx_decoy

on Jun 22, 2004

is there an alt + (something) to make a cent sign?

Capt. over and out!

Gene Nash

on Jun 25, 2004

¢ -- Ah, there it is. Of course I can't guarantee that is displaying properly on your computer

There's probably an HTML ampersand-semi colon equivalent I could have used if I weren't too lazy to look it up just for a comment.

Never seen a keyboard with a cent symbol. Most people just write it like: $.99

I vaguely recall my computer keyboards of the early and mid-80s having the ¢ symbol actually printed on them. What I was looking for was the modifier key which would produce it. Had I remembered I have a popup palette which displays all the available characters for a given font there'd have been no difficulty.

(I wanted to use the symbol because I was inserting a proper name and that's what the store uses.)

mignuna

on Jun 25, 2004

Thank God for you, Mig. Till you came along and commented I feared this article would lie there unoticed, unloved....

gene, you have saved more than one of my articles the same way ... and you deserved if for the snoopy puke alone

mig XX

Gene Nash

on Jun 25, 2004

Most versions of windows have a "character map" where you can select many symbols from.

Yes, Macintosh has something similar called "KeyCaps." I find it fairly frustrating, though. It works by showing a keyboard and what you get by pressing that key. When you press the modifier keys the display changes to show what the new configuration would result in when pressed. So to find what you want you have to sit there pressing the modifiers in different combinations and scanning the display hoping to spot what you're looking for. Arrrrgh!

That's why I installed the popup I always forget about.

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