Will Tummy Stuffers Fool Your Brat into Cleaning Up?

The success of Pillow Pets unleashed a torrent of copy cat infomercials with obnoxious jingles selling stuffed animals that double as something else. A whole new crop of these kind of ads has hit the airwaves recently. But whereas the older products tended to be stuffed animals that turned into something else such as a pillow, backpack, or slippers, the newer products remain fully stuffed animal and fully something else in a hypostatic union.

The two prevalent themes are stuffed animals that double as storage containers and stuffed animals that double as lighting. Today we’ll look at infomercials marketing their toys as surefire ways to get your messy brats to finally tidy up.

Tummy Stuffers

“Tum Tum Tummy Stuffers. Yum Yum Tummy Stuffers…You don’t need to get a broom. Tummy Stuffers’ll clean your room.”

If your kid feeds a dog doll to the Tummy Stuffer dog, or a unicorn doll to the Tummy Stuffer unicorn, will that begin to lessen his natural revulsion toward cannibalism?

Perhaps not, because the commercial indicates a complex and esoteric set of rules governing what a Tummy Stuffer will and will not eat:

• Socks are “cool” but “not your brother’s sweaty socks.”
• “They’ll eat your clean clothes, but no dryer lint.”
• “All sorts of things, but not a cat.”
• “There’s almost nothing they won’t munch, but don’t worry they won’t eat your lunch.”

Fortunately each Tummy Stuffer comes with a copy of its own Mishnah providing detailed instructions on how to keep it kosher.

Seat Pets

“Seat Pets! Seat Pets! Buckle up and snuggle up. Seat Pets! Seat Pets! Ride with me.”

This seat belt cover is a bigger and more elaborate version of the Tiddy Bear, but without the off-color name. Seat Pets are available in a variety of animals, but every one of them has a body shaped like a hot dog and a head with the contour and proportion of Stewie’s from Family Guy.

Seat Pets also hops onto the storage pockets bandwagon with the questionable implication that kids will neatly store their items away instead of randomly throwing their crap all over the car floor. The infomercial even makes the audacious claim that “Are we there yet?” is “one question you’ll never get with Seat Pets.” No doubt they have an extensive set of rigorous double-blind studies and peer-reviewed research to fully back up that statement.

Although this girl does appear to be having an unseemly amount of fun sticking things into her Seat Pet:

(In an earlier version of the product, the Seat Pets were not animals but ghastly creatures straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft story.)

Next time we will look at products that promise to relieve your precious child’s night terrors by sticking a light bulb inside a stuffed animal.