The Farm Playset


I was in South Jersey this past weekend on an (admittedly undeserved) vacation, so I took the opportunity to browse through the heapload of 99 cent stores to see what scourges of society I could find this time. I had a load of fun putting together the 99 Cent City article, (which I feel is one of the best on the site) so I remained confident that there would be some stupid thing there would writing about.

I was right. The generic 'Farm Animals Farm Set' might be worth every penny, if you consider that a dollar isn't made up of too many pennies. A hodge podge of cheap animal toys obviously thrown together from various abandoned lines, it ends up being a close look into the scariest farm in our storied history. And I don't mean 'scary' because the farmers murder the cows in excessively cruel ways or anything like that. I mean scary because, if this was how farms were in real life, it'd mean we were prone to insane toxic mutations and general apocalyptic foretelling. Here's why:


At first glance, it appears pretty harmless. Just a bunch of cheap plastic toys that most kids would choke on. Fortunately, choking hazards aren't the horrors of which I spoke of earlier. My horrors are very real issues. The set is actually pretty complete for a dollar store toy - comes with a variety of farm animals, a barn, windmill, and a few assorted tropical trees in case you wanted to pretend your farm was in Chile.

Now, the packaging obscured what was actually inside it - you could make out what some of the items were, but generally, this was a pot luck purchase. What tipped me off that there'd be some scrutiny inside was the eclectic and overall odd choice of characters placed on the package: an assortment of real-life cows and cartoon ducks. They obviously weren't sure what direction they wanted to head into with this thing, but the packaging is only the tip of the iceberg there. Here's some of the more intriguing problems presented with this amazing Farm Animals Farm Set from Farmland, Farm Farmy.


Two entries into the set are a horse and a windmill - which is cool, but I'm a bit confused as to why the horse is approximately the same height as the windmill. What are they trying to tell us here? Do tropical farms have much larger horses, or simply much smaller windmills? Or maybe that's supposed to represent some sort of tribunal statue to the lead farmer's first horse, Georgie.

The horse's problems don't stop there - he's also covered in this sand-like bumpy material that makes me believe he's either got smallpox or a bad case of equine acne. From the look on his face, perhaps both. I dunno though, he might just be pissed because somebody thought it'd be funny to give him a giraffe's head. Then again, that'd explain the odd height.


The barn is virtually impossible to put together. Anytime a dollar store plastic toy includes slots and snap-together pieces, you're in big trouble. I'd have an easier time turning my car into a flying eggplant. At best, I could only get it to look like a post-hurricane barn, complete with blown off roof and casualties numbering in the dozens.

Now, if you look at the included fence pieces, I know what you're going to think. 'Oh, they screwed it all up AGAIN! That fence is too big! It dwarfs the damn barn!' Hey kids, of COURSE it dwarfs the barn - that fence has to keep a 50-foot horse from escaping! Sure, it a little odd that the horse is 400% larger than the barn itself, but one could explain the barn's current piss poor shape away by suggesting the horse tried to jump over it. Stupid horse. Stupid, size-of-a-planet horse.


Next up, Mama and Papa Pig, with their new piglets. The piglets are conveniently attached to the Mama Pig's tits to portray milk suckling, which is pretty cool, but they blew it by having the last baby pig look more like a garden shovel. Maybe it's one of those deals like where the den of foxes raises a domesticated dog as part of their pack? Instead, here we have a garden shovel as the surrogate sixth pig. Actually, those might not be baby pigs. The mother looks quite dead, like one of those hogs you roast on a spit flame. Maybe those are baby dogs going in for a feast.

Either way, Papa Pig is most unpleased. A darker shade of pink than his wife, he looks like that purple monster from Q*Bert, only instead of being menacing by haphazardly hopping across cubes, he just sits there being all pink. Not really action packed by any stretch, but I'd rather have a mean pig toy than a pig toy who displays no poignant emotions. Call me picky, but I'm standing by it.


The rest of the assortment is...well, damn silly. Included are: a sheep with a rhino's build, a dog almost as large as the cow it's standing next to, plus a fabulous assortment of ducks and chickens. Both of these fowl are seconded by a bunch of babies: the ducks are normal enough, but according to the Farm Animals Farm Set, baby chickens all look like bowling pins.

In the end, my would-be farm ended up looking more like a country freakshow, with giant horses breaking down barns and 40' pigs giving birth under palm trees. I'm not sure quite what to make of it really, but somehow I'm sad I didn't purchase a few more sets. By the way, shown in the second picture above, atop the barn, is some weird yellow hut that looks like a teepee. Can anyone tell me what it's supposed to represent? I'm totally lost - the best ideas I had were either a chicken coup, or a festive hat for the horse during the Farmy Farm's annual South of the Border margarita parties.

I'm not sure there's a moral to this story. Tales generally need a point before being privileged with morals. So I'll just leave with my tail between my legs now, and hope that you've somehow taken something important with you from this little feature. If nothing else, I hope you've all grown a better appreciation for oversized horses. I know I have.


- Matt
matt@x-entertainment.com