That is funny but unfortunately it made me sad. It looks just like the commercials I see on tv today-- it reminds me of the Tonka one that's currently driving me crazy by reminding us 'boys are just built different'-- you know, because no girl has ever wanted to ride on a little car or (gasp) make a mess.

Funny but a sad commentary on how far we haven't come.

I can't decide if it's critiquing how toys are marketing to girls, or mocking how "girls" play with things...

There's only one thing to do: get Jack Bauer to interrogate the commercial until it confesses.

Well now I just feel bad that I used to make the 'horsey' gallop around the board.

Probably has something to do with the crockus.

Surely this has something to do with the crockus.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004926.html

I just had this weird flashback to the giddy feeling I got when presented with the gawdy pink aisle in the toy store.

Funny thing is (and a testament to just how well this marketing works) is that I didn't actually like any of the toys down that aisle. In fact, the one year my grandma got me a pink My Little Pony, I cried (I hate horses, and especially frilly ones).

My mom would always drag me out of the pink aisle in exasperation, saying "you know you don't like these toys. Let's find the K'nex and the chemistry kits." That shit had me in a complete purchasing daze...

I was never good at being a "girl." I spent my childhood detesting the color pink, playing with Legos, avoiding Barbies and other dolls, playing chess and other board games, and I think the only girly thing I did was the doll house thing. And those doll houses were always funniest with hamsters in them, IMHO.

Thank you, Mr. Marketing Guys, for eliminating my chance of not feeling like a freak through out elementry school. What would I have done if not in social isolation, anyway?

I'm a really sore loser... I lost to a friend of mine recently... a couple really crushing defeats. He was all civil and crap because he was a former chess master in, like, elementary school, but I just glowered at him for the rest of the day.

This is why, even as a gamer, I don't play competitive head to head games.

I think my parents would beg to differ on what constitutes "old school" SNL.

And even though I'm a male, I used to play with my sister's Hello Kitty house. All my parents ever got me was Legos and Construx and Transformers and things of that nature. Who doesn't want to play with a scale model of a whole house? You can do all kinds of crap there. Gender roles have nothing to do with dollhouses.

This is old school SNL? It has Will Ferrel in it. For old school ya gotta at least be talking Julia Sweeney, Victoria Jackson.

*sigh* If only little girls didn't make messes. Life would be so much easier. I agree, doll houses are much more than little girl marketing tools. You could do a lot of fun stuff with a scale model of a house. Plus it was fun for those of us who like miniatures in general.

I remember I had a little play kitchen that I wanted soooo bad but when I actually got it my parents put it in my room and my brother told me there were ghosts in there so I never got to learn how to cook those plastic eggs. Maybe that's why I'm such a bad cook today. :)

that is indeed simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. one thing i like, though, is the bit where the bishop is getting ready to go to the beach? well i am in the anglican church in australia where women cannot be bishops - something we are challenging at the moment. so it's kind of nice... er... maybe... to see women bishops featured in this ad/chess game... hmm :)

I was recently in the market for new rollerblades, and there was a pair of "girl rollerblades" that were actually great quality and reasonably priced but they were horrendously hyper-feminine. They were pink, had lots and lots sparkly things and even the model name was written in pretty, loopy cursive across the front of the skate. They were just too creepy. Maybe pretty pink rollerblades are less threatening to people who find athletic, fast-moving women too much to handle?

I was recently in the market for new rollerblades, and there was a pair of "girl rollerblades" that were actually great quality and reasonably priced but they were horrendously hyper-feminine. They were pink, had lots and lots sparkly things and even the model name was written in pretty, loopy cursive across the front of the skate. They were just too creepy. Maybe pretty pink rollerblades are less threatening to people who find athletic, fast-moving women too much to handle?

Sorry for the double-post!