Aldi's Xmas Aisle Of Shame Is The Best Yet!
Don't know about you, but I'm reaching for the Discover card every step of the way
At first glance, the legendary cookware firm Crofton’sAnimal Holiday Pancake Pan is a no-brainer for breakfast around the tree, although you just know that getting the batter into each one without splatting any of it on the stovetop, resulting in an angry burnt scent filling the kitchen, is unlikely at best. Seriously: Have you ever seen the pancake station at the nearest Holiday Inn Express at the end of breakfast, when they’ve already turned off CNN, and pages from the USA Today sports sections are scattered about like so many sagging Dali clocks? No? You’re lucky. Check out the pancake section some time. Or don’t.
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The “easy-to-use control dial” (featuring snappy Seventies industrial design!) is probably what sets Ambiano’s version of this must-have appliance apart from the many also-rans on the market, although, also, the “automatic shut” off is a terrific bonus, and could probably save many a home fashioned of plastic-type materials from a potential spark-induced raging inferno.
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Possibly, the subliminal appeal of ZURU’s RAinBOCORNs FAIRYCORN PRINCESS SURPRISE
is its uncanny resemblance to a plastic squeeze bottle of French’s mustard gone horribly wrong. Kidding; The appeal is obviously the mystery, as well as answers to the tantalizing questions: What, exactly, is a “Princess Surprise?” I mean, what sort of thing surprises a princess? And whatever it is, how can it be that small and still evoke an authentic, spontaneous emotion in the kid who opens it through the top, underneath the authentic-pearl crown? ? And lastly, doesn’t “jewelry” have only one L?
Or is one of the surprises an actual jewell?
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No one doubts that anything bearing the Bee Happy label isn’t first-class stuff. Its rainbow is reliably sturdy, the pieces are hard to swallow — at least , for a well-intentioned 18-month old — and the stacks’ virtual seamlessness between layers would put the original Pyramid designers to shame. Our only concern is that if you’re teaching a kid about rainbows, shouldn’t your model have, like, more than one color, and shouldn’t that one, the yellow, sort of look more exciting than three-years-in-the-freezer corn? Also, I don’t get the bird on the upper right, unless it’s meant to be flying near a bland rainbow, which is dangerously unscientific fodder, especially for a fast-growing 18-month brain.
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We don’t mind how un-nutritious Benton’s clever construction is, but couldn’t there have been a better place to have the cookie sit? Then, having bitten into the wet leg, where do you put the rest of the poor one-legless kid? Now you’re left with half a cookie and a mug of mulled wine with wet pieces of “cookie” still in it. Benton’s is usually a little more sensitive, but kudos for the lovely seasonal graphics.
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The good news is the week’s obvious steal. Really, why would anyone sell a box of original Skittle Book of Awesomes on a discount shelf? Why not Godiva’s? And what about the riveting plot of the work of literature itself? Didn’t “Book of Awesome” appear in this week’s “Also Notable” section in the New Yorker?
