Well, one thing is for sure: a lot of us had creepy experiences with toys. And not just old-timey ventriloquist dolls. But I suspect that’s mostly because they’re old-timey, so we didn’t have a chance. Because this? Is creepy.
What child doesn’t love a black-eyed, mush-faced troll in a butcher’s smock?
A number of you responded to last week’s Weekly Question of the Week with similar answer, so I had to go with whomever submitted it first, for a finalist. But suffice to say: Teddy Ruxpin? May have not died of natural causes. But what do you think? What’s the creepiest of the bunch? Be sure to vote, and to check out the winning entry from last week below!
Well, the votes are in on the Star Wars baseball caption contest. Those of you who’ve never seen the series: I hope you did the right thing and watched the original trilogy this week. But you voted pretty heavily for List of X’s entry, making him this week’s blogger of the week! Congratulations, List of X! Please take a moment to enjoy the caption, and then check out his site.
“Darth Vader was disqualified for attempting to force-choke an umpire.”
The Byronic Man 
June 16, 2012 at 3:09 am
I can’t hate cymbal monkey- look at that face- he’s trying to warn us and as with most doom-seeing prophets, he’s coming off as creepy and menacing. So missunderstood, so missunderstood. If only we would heed your warnings flocked skelatal primate of the stripey pants- we’d all be safe right now. Bang on- you have lives to save and unintentionally weird out.
June 16, 2012 at 5:38 pm
All this time the poor monkeys are thinking, “why won’t they listen???”
June 16, 2012 at 6:21 pm
I still pause with the monkey… Too many horror movies I guess. Not as creepy as the pile of dolls my mother forced onto a shelf in my room with all of their glass, staring eyes. *shudder*
June 16, 2012 at 3:52 am
I don’t find cymbal monkeys creepy, but I was just listening to a book this morning that features creepy and evil cymbal monkeys. And it’s a kid’s book.
Hmm, maybe I voted wrong.
June 16, 2012 at 5:39 pm
So we make the toy, the write books about how terrifying the toy is… That’s some weird synergy going on there.
June 16, 2012 at 4:05 am
Personally, I can’t hate the cymbal monkey, or as I have taken to call it, “Ching Ching” Monkey… cause that’s the sound it makes, and it’s the sound I make wearing armloads of bracelets and bangles when I clap. I never saw the Growing up Skipper Doll. Jack in the Boxes ARE bad, but it’s more of a startle reflex combined with creepy clown. Teddy Ruxpin (or however it’s spelled). Ugh! Weirded me out.
June 16, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Your comment is great, but the name of your blog is just fantastic, so I got kind of stuck there!
June 16, 2012 at 7:23 pm
It’s almost like the the Chicken Dance Song…. you just can’t get it out of your head!
June 16, 2012 at 4:44 am
I don’t think I can vote. Every time I open the page I’ll have to see that “doll”, which resembles a stuffed human being, and frankly scares the crap out of me. That’s not scary, that’s Silence of the lambs scary….yes, there is a high difference.
June 16, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Quid pro quo, Life With The Top Down. Quid pro quo.
June 17, 2012 at 2:33 am
Thanks for the homework, you really do learn something new every day! Yes, I had to look that up..Jeez
June 16, 2012 at 5:54 am
I am officially traumatized. Thanks for the photo, Byronic.
June 16, 2012 at 7:11 am
I’m here to help!
June 16, 2012 at 5:57 am
Thanks Bryonic. I have never made it to the finals before! In anything. Now I will have to figure out another complex to substitute for my inferiority complex.
June 16, 2012 at 7:10 am
There are so many wonderful complexes to chose from, it seems a shame not to try several out.
June 16, 2012 at 2:54 pm
All in good time, all in good time!
June 16, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Go Elyse! Go growing boob doll!
June 16, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Whoo-hoo. I only say that because I don’t know how to write out the sound of guys whistling!
June 16, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Yeah. How do you write that? I’m still having a hard time figuring out how to write the sound one makes when feeling disgusted, bitter and disappointed. I thought Pbbst said it all but Peg says no.
June 16, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I use the F word for that. Peg might not approve of that though, either.
June 18, 2012 at 7:16 am
Yeah, let’s go with the F- word. Fbbst.
June 16, 2012 at 5:42 pm
I would like to propose a series of shirts, or mugs, or stickers that read, “Go, growing boob doll!”. I love that.
June 17, 2012 at 4:27 am
Hmm, yes, I do believe you have something there. Disturbing and crossing over the line marketing…you’d sell billions!
June 16, 2012 at 6:51 am
I’m excited to make it to the finals too! 😀
June 16, 2012 at 7:08 am
I recommend slandering the other entrants.
June 16, 2012 at 6:56 am
In that baseball pic all I see for caption is C-3PO yelling out “Who’s YOUR daddy?”
The monkey. Hands down creepy. Jack-in-the-box isn’t creepy, it makes me shit my pants when jack pops out and I giggle in anticipation, but the monkey… His face is freaky. And why does he go on and on with his cymbals? Only psychotic people go on and on with something.
June 16, 2012 at 7:07 am
There was a Stephen King story about the cymbal monkey. Shoot, what was that called…?
June 16, 2012 at 7:10 am
I don’t know, I’m still shaking my head at how oh so cliché I was. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
June 16, 2012 at 7:38 am
(The Monkey – it was in Skeleton Crew)
June 16, 2012 at 5:44 pm
THERE we go. Thank you.
June 16, 2012 at 7:38 am
I had to vote for the monkey. Monkeys are evil and those are the MOST EVIL. [shudder]
June 16, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Even Curious George??
June 16, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Yes, even Curious George. I don’t handle monkeys very well. Childhood trauma.
AND THEN my husband watched that special on Discovery several years ago about Oliver the humanzee and I had nightmares for WEEKS.
June 16, 2012 at 8:55 am
That is the creepiest thing I have seen in a long time. I can’t unsee it, and I’m not happy about that fact.
June 16, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Hmm…interesting. Good to know, good to know. I was thinking of having him printed out and blown up on cardboard and placing it next to the guest bed in the middle of the night if you guys stay with us next month…Thanks for the idea, Lenore!
June 16, 2012 at 9:06 am
Poor Teddy. He was just trying to make a kid’s 2nd grade show-and-tell something extra.
June 16, 2012 at 5:45 pm
That’s because you don’t see what happens next. It’s like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
June 18, 2012 at 12:26 pm
And as you pointed out once, Jules, even kids with Jersey accents (“…he tells stories, he toowks…) are worthy of being saved by beloved Teddy.
June 18, 2012 at 12:37 pm
LOL! Angie, yes, you saw this comment! Have you seen previews for that new movie with Mark Wahlberg (I think it’s called “Teddy”)??? It looks RIDUCULOUS. I have to see it. (What about you, B-Man? I would LOVE to read your review of THAT! Ha!)
June 18, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Yes, I’ve seen the previews! I think that will be one of those movies I won’t see in the theater, will watch on Netflix alone when my husband is out of town (after turning him down when he asked if we could watch it), will laugh a lot, and then fiercely deny I ever watched it, much less enjoyed it.
June 16, 2012 at 9:30 am
Did anyone ever see the movie Magic? Freaked me out for years.
June 16, 2012 at 5:48 pm
That rings a bell… What happens in it?
June 16, 2012 at 8:41 pm
June 16, 2012 at 9:32 am
Thank you! Thank you! I can’t tell how much I am honored by this prize! I would like to thank my parents, my producers, God, and… wait, I don’t get the Oscar for this? No? Ok, well, then nevermind, I’ll just thank the producers in that case.
Maybe the secret to winning the caption contest was watching Star Wars, but not watching any baseball…
June 16, 2012 at 5:50 pm
That could be it. Although it might have hurt your chances if you’d started talking about Vader scoring the most goals in the match.
June 16, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Oh no, I would not make a silly error like that. I have googled “baseball” just to be sure.
June 16, 2012 at 11:23 am
Teddies are supposed to be soft, silent companions to sleep with, at least until you discover the gender you prefer.
June 16, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Then there is a whole new kind of doll…
June 16, 2012 at 11:46 am
I voted for Teddy Ruxpin because, even though I don’t remember what he looks like and have never liked ‘Ruxpin’, I like girls named Rachel.
I actually have a Cymbal Monkey… in the box, no less. It was my Dad’s and I plan to sell it on E-Bay and retire. The official title on the box is ‘MUSICAL JOLLY CHIMP’ and it states that he: ✣ Plays Cymbals ✣ Glares, Showing His Teeth and Chattering. I would say manic more than creepy.
June 16, 2012 at 5:52 pm
How valuable are those? Or are you planning a pretty simple retirement?
June 17, 2012 at 10:05 am
Actually, I haven’t looked… maybe I’d better rethink that idea, huh?
June 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm
It was the monkey for me. My mom has a doll collection in a display case that would creep you out like no other. YES, she had the monkey with the cymbals and thank the lord, sold it!
June 16, 2012 at 5:57 pm
So it’s out there… Somewhere… Remembering the betrayal…
June 16, 2012 at 7:20 pm
In someone else’s bedroom …… in the dark…… alone……………
June 16, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Had to vote for the monkey. It combines three of the creepiest things in the world: windup toys, monkeys, and windup toys. Did I say that twice? I think it’s justified.
June 16, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Definitely justified.
June 16, 2012 at 4:33 pm
I’m getting the ‘stuffed human being’ reference as well……I did a photography course last year and we had to look at Victorian photographs of the dead……posed with their living relatives……I believe one was in the act of reading a book – just wrong in so many ways and makes the monkey almost bearable…..unless of course you’ve read Le Fanu’s Green Tea.
June 16, 2012 at 5:56 pm
There’s a medical anomaly museum in philadelphia where the first president has been stuffed and is, apparently, brought out for annual staff meetings.
People are weird.
June 17, 2012 at 6:11 am
Teddy Ruxpin scarred me as a child. My cousin had one and it malfunctioned, making him a lot like Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”
June 17, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Yeah, creepy picture up there, B! Voted Ruxpin – my kids had one early on. Horrible!
June 18, 2012 at 8:43 am
I was torn between Teddy Ruxpin and the cymbal monkey for creepiest toy – cymbal monkeys have terrifying faces, but Teddy Ruxpin can talk and blink his eyes…in fact, I’m pretty sure that he could eat a cymbal monkey.
Okay, decision made. Teddy Ruxpin it is.
June 18, 2012 at 12:24 pm
That photo is terrifying. I have always had a phobia of Sears Wishbook ventriloquist dummies, particularly “Lester”. But cymbal-clapping monkeys (anything monkey really) come straight from my nightmares.
June 18, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Actually the most creepy toy I’ve ever seen wasn’t on the list. Porcelain dolls!!! Aka Stabbity Dolls. The older they are the more creepy they become!! Growing Up Skipper came in a close second though.
June 21, 2012 at 4:31 am
I think I’ll go from cymbal monkeys after ‘the monkey’ story from S.King.