Of course that reference to a long forgotten Saturday Night Live “commercial” is lost on today’s youth, which is really sad, because I saw this product for sale at Costco yesterday and instantly the lengthy “legal” warnings came to my mind.
Giggling like a fool at a seemingly innocent child’s toy, I was also reminded of one of my favorite TV shows that you’ve never seen, MXC…Most Extreme Elimination Challenge! Specifically, this is your own personal Clear Sphere of Fear. In the TV show, the contestant was locked in the Clear Sphere of Fear and pushed down an obstacle course that resembled a pinball table. Unfortunately, this box just has the pinball and not the obstacle course. Avoid the skulls of doom in your own backyard!
Now, I can just see some one getting a hold of this plastic bubble on a lovely summer day and doing more than just rolling it along the grass. Of course, Sacramento is not very hilly, but my hometown of Vacaville was and I can tell you, it wouldn’t have been too long before we decided to take this sucker and roll it down Cement Hill just to see how fast it would get going. And this was before the advent of YouTube. We didn’t do stupid stuff for Internet glory, we did it to laugh our asses off.
The warnings on the box say not to roll the Jumbo Fun Ball down a hill. It also says not to use it during high winds. Wow. Now, I never would have thought of doing that…I wonder if they tested it in a lab to see if they should put that warning on it or if some poor fool got it into his head to see how fast his kid would go when the breeze was up around 25 mph.