Pity the child born this side of 2020 presented with what you may recognise as a Walkman, a device from 1979 holding what appears to be a cassette, a device from 1963. There are headphones on the Walkman, but more than that – there is a cat up top with its own headphones. The cat looks like it’s tripping balls.
Consider that the child is of an age where they are quite happy to push the red PLAY button and make the little coloured balls in the cassette (don’t you remember the little balls in cassettes?) jump about. The cat however is not satisfied with that. No. In a voice that sounds like Patsy Stone on helium it lets you know I’M A HAPPY KITTY THAT LIKES TO SING! SING! SING! SING! YES! I LOVE LISTENING TO CLASSICAL MUSIC! At which point a blast of MIDI will pump some classic they will later in life be forced to belt out in a piano lesson. Flight of the bumble bee – you know the sort.
The yellow button bumps the cat up and down with a fair chance of getting I’M A SINGING KITTEN! {GIGGLE} followed up on a melody howled out on the meow-o-phone. If the kid tries to crawl away it’ll repeatedly suggest that LET’S LISTEN AND LEARN TOGETHER! MEOW! At which point any sensible parent is going to turn it off so that the kid can just shake the little coloured balls in peace.
But parents are not sensible. They buy things that remind them of their own childhood – cassettes being one of them. They then measure the worth of the purchase by how much the toy will engage their child in apparent intellectual busywork (“oh listen – little Timmy is listening to Mahler”) whereas the kid is experiencing a blur of blinking lights, posh cats and what does this taste like if I shove it in my mouth? My own snot!
It’s not easy coming up with these toys. You know what the kid wants doesn’t matter – they are not paying for it. It’s what the parents think is educational. I don’t blame toy makers, it’s a business.