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Bag of Plagues


by Matty filed under stupida on May 31, 2004 02:53 PM

some fun on a slow day, this piece was brought over from the old site. Make plagues fun for your kids! Relive those fun, biblical stories.



I would like to state up front, that I did *not* buy this. Stina bought it for me. That being said, if I had seen it, I probably would have bought it. How could anyone resist the "Passover Bag of Plagues?"

bag_header.gif

The information starbursts on the package tell me that this package is "fun and educational", and an "Ideal Passover Game!" If you look closer, you see that these plagues are not all fun and games, as they are also a choking hazard and non-food items that should not be ingested (duh). (By the way, if you want to see what the whole, interesting package looks like, click here.)

According to any Bible stolen from any motel, (except motels in Utah) there were ten horrible plagues that befell (heh, I wrote "befell") the Egyptians because they wouldn't let Moses' people leave and get lost in the desert for forty years. Admittedly, I am not a very religious person. When I got this giftie, we decided to make a game out of it. We didn't look at the instruction sheet and instead tried to figure out what plague each item was for. This went horribly wrong. Without further ado, the plague bag.

Plague 1: The plague of Red Disappearing Ink

ink_front.gif

The explanation in the bag is that the Red Disappearing ink signifies blood. The description of the plague is "All the waters of the land turned to blood." I have absolutely no recollection of this plague.

What I do remember is that wine signified blood at the Last Supper. Perhaps the manufacturer of this product should've included a Zima in the bag instead.

I reject this plague, and its icon.

Plague 2: The plague of Jumping Frog

froggy.gif

I remembered this plague, and I accept its icon. When you push on the handley bulb-thing, the frog hops...pretty cool. Fun Fact: this plague was also visited on the film, "Magnolia."

Plague 3: The plague of Small Black Bug

bug.gif

The third plague was that dust turned to lice and covered everyone. Is dust the same thing as sand? If so, that probably woulda sucked for the Egyptians. I watch the Discovery channel and understand that there is a fair amount of sand in Egypt.

Unfortunately, I reject this icon as well. It looks more like a beetle, and as far as I know there was never a plague of Volkswagens visited upon the Egyptians.

Plague 4: The plague of animal mask

mask.gif

This mask is supposed to remind us of the plague of wild beasts that came into Egyptian homes. I reckon, this was kinda like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom without Marlon Perkins. I reject this toy. The mask was too small (like it was made for a kid!) and didn't remind me at all of Wild Kingdom. It reminded me more of these strange German films that I saw a couple of years ago. But that's another story...

Plague 5: Cow

There is usually, one standout item in any toy set. This is it. (Nancy wanted me to let you know that this toy symbolizes a plague on cattle-kinda like mad-cow disease.) Before I continue, roll your mouse over the picture above to see the fun action that this plague has. I could play with this cow for hours. Of course, you don't have the cow. You can only play with the graphic (insert evil laughter).

I don't really think that there's anything more that I can say about this one. It totally rocks! C'mon man, there are bulging eyes and everything.

Plague 6: Green Sticky Hand

sticky_hand.gif

Believe it or not, this toy signifies the plague of boils. To make boils fun for kids would probably stop most religious toy manufacturers in their track. Not so for Judaica Express. They have decided that one of those sticky hands would be fun. For authenticity, there are three white bumps on the palm of the hand. Hrm...I am kind of torn on this one. On one hand (heh), you have to give them credit for coming up with this, but on the other hand (heh again) it's really a stretch (heh yet again... wow, sometimes I can crack myself up!). Okay, done laughing, and I decided that this one is rejected. Thumbs down (heh).

Plague 7: White Styrofoam Balls

balls.gif

I don't remember hail being one of the plagues, but I am a bit of a expert on this topic. You see, a couple of weeks ago God decided that Dallas needed a little plague action and decided that hail would be the best option for this. So we had a pretty nasty hail storm, and my car has more pocks than Edward James Olmos' face. I have to reject this, because styrofoam is not a toy. It wasn't a toy when I got that big styrofoam glider when I was a kid (an aside... the repair kit was a roll of scotch tape... really), and it's not a toy now. Besides, I'm still having bad dreams about the hail... this "toy" version isn't really going to help my therapy bills.

Plague 8: Large Green Locust

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Apparently when I was playing with the set, and before I took the pictures, there was a mishap with the locust (it went missing). So, I went to google images, searched for "no photo available" and got this gem instead. I know that I can't back this up with photographic proof, but the plastic bug looked nothing like a locust. It looked more like a praying mantis. I will let this one pass though, since I lost it and kinda feel bad.

Plague 9: Black Glasses

shades.gif

The sunglasses are supposed to represent the plague where "the entire land was enveloped in darkness." In California they call that a rolling blackout. The shades are really small and don't work well with my face shape. Also, they are called *sun*-glasses, and light is the opposite of dark, so it really doesn't make all that much sense to me. Rejected.

Plague 10: Puzzle

sleepy.gif

Finally we have reached the tenth plague. I feel like I have been writing this for a couple of days!

The tenth plague was the deal-breaker (biblically-speaking). The angel of death swooped down and killed the first-born son of the Egyptians. This sounds pretty harsh, but apparently it worked, and the twelve tribes of Israel were allowed to leave. Well, yeah... a party trick like selective mass-genocide would make anybody give in.

This famous plague is represented by a puzzle of a narcoleptic Egyptian. This is the pinnacle of the plagues, and the fine folks at Judaica Express decide to memorialize it with a puzzle? I refuse this one most of all, scarecrow. This was a great plague, and the puzzle doesn't really do it for me.

Maybe they could've included an "Angel of Death" kit, and had the kids do their own dirty work to their older brother. I'm just brainstorming here, and I've got at least three ideas that are way better than a puzzle.

In summary, out of ten plagues, only three made good toys. But don't get me wrong, if you ever see this set in the grocery store (probably on clearance right now!) definitely buy it. I don't think that I would ever let a kid play with it, but I have already received hours of enjoyment and warm, fuzzy feelings from the "Bag of Plagues."

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read comments

Hi, this blog has been upgraded, but I'm leaving the old pages online until the search engines catch up. If you want to join the discussion, this may be the page you're looking for on the new site.

Posted by: Jennfier on April 18, 2006 01:01 AM

Oooooo, I laughed! Thanks for the review. Still laughing...


Posted by: Heather on April 18, 2006 09:59 AM

Ha! Love this review. I sent people to the plague toys via a link earlier last week, so this really got me laughing. I want that cow. :)


Posted by: MsByn on April 21, 2006 11:33 PM

OMG that is hilarious... thanks for the laughs. Your commentary/review was fantastic.


Posted by: Melissa on August 19, 2006 09:36 AM

AH!! This is so awesome!! I want a Bag of Plagues!!! Dude thanks for the review...and its okay you lost the locust, they dont live up to their cool name anyway...


Posted by: M on February 16, 2007 07:45 PM

I am inquiring on your page about the bag of plagues. Being a devout Jew I was reading and decided to point out where in the bible you could find the plauges that you were thinking never exsisted, but as i read further on I was fnding that all you were merely doing was mocking a childrens toy used for a very special and close holiday to the jews.....hmmm something i like to all passover. Ahh what peopledo for a little entertainment. Do you have nothing better to do but to mock a childrens toy? Let alone Mock the plagues of egypt that saved my people. Since you have no utter clue what your talking about, you wouldnt understand what a seder is or what the ramifications of that toy are. I am completely offeneded by your statements you and mel gibson must get along well
SHALOM
Your site on the plauge bag should removed


Posted by: toysaregoodfood.com on February 16, 2007 11:17 PM

Hi Tink781,

I'm pretty sure that there is a significant difference between having a bit of fun writing about a poorly-produced toys, and mocking a religion.

I would hope you, the reader, would be mildly amused, and perhaps a bit surprised at such a crass attempt at making a buck off of religious holiday.

I guess that it is true that a sense of humor is like an appendix. Some people have them, and some don't.

Anyhow, if you hated this article, you definitely don't want to look at this page http://toysaregoodfood.com/content/archives/000063.html.

Warmly,
toysaregoodfood.com


Posted by: Karen Webb on June 24, 2007 05:12 PM

Although I love the cow, I have to agree with "M" on some points. When you say you reject something, is it for child safety? I'm not sure it's of consequence that you don't remember some of the 10 plagues: you should bone up on your Judaica if you're going to comment on a toy related to a Jewish holiday. Even our Bibles in Utah list the plagues you seem to have forgotten. (Were you perhaps raised as a Zoroastrian?) But I do agree with the commercial aspect -- lots of people do this as an at-home craft, and as such I think it has an impact on kids.


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