rootfish:

gunwildversuseverything:

dream-cassette:

coolstuffifoundatgoodwill:

thehorrorsofgoodwill:

This seems unnecessarily complicated and a million things that could wrong.

A true essential tool for all fire fighters, able to eliminate fires at the mere mention of their existence.

SR sent me a video of this shit and it’s so fucking stupid

Okay, I had this thing. I admit it. Obviously a child could get a kick out of voice-activated water firing (or voice-activated anything), and the idea I had was that I’d wear it while doing a water gun fight anyway, as extra firepower. Seems fun, right?

Here’s the thing: being hands free, it used a motor to fire the water instead of manual air pressure. A cheap motor powered by a few batteries, and the motor itself had to also be tiny to fit inside a waterproof housing. This thing could not shoot water as far or as hard as it did in the commercial. Not even close.

Oh, and the pack you had to wear on your belt (What child wears a belt?!) was heavy and hard to refill, and didn’t hold that much water anyway since so much of it was devoted to the batteries. Plus, the crosshairs on the eyepiece were thick and cumbersome, and bore no relationship to where the water would actually go.

Not to mention that you did really have to get above a certain volume to make the thing shoot. Otherwise it would just sputter out a weak, dribbly stream. Your voice would get tired of either shouting “Fire!” or bellowing a warcry, or maybe some funny things that were an effort to think up.

I still love the commercial, though, because Cap Toys (the underdog brand in the water gun world) clearly wanted to paint this toy as superior to Super Soakers. That’s why all the other kids in the TV spot have those huge, hideous, impractical weapons with awkwardly-positioned tanks. I’d love to know how the prop guy on the commercial decided those things should look.

Still, the moral of the story is that Super Soakers were and are big sellers because they work, based on simple hand-pumped air pressure. If you’re buying a water gun for a kid (or yourself), keep things uncomplicated!

Also, brightly-colored. Because neon-colored toy guns are safer, and also awesome.

Oh man, this post has taken on a life of it’s own.