The right toys can create the person your child ends up becoming (some of those toys you might remember from growing up). They can also turn you into a raving lunatic, depending on how annoying the toys are.
Think you’re alone in being driven nuts by a toy you’ve made the mistake of giving to your kid? You’re not: Check out these must-have 50 toys that so many parents have been suckered into buying, all of which probably drove them crazy.
1. Bop-It
Bop-It has a lot of things going on for the listener that are pretty close to insufferable. For starters, every sound effect this game makes is cartoonish and insane.
Second, it speeds up a little bit each time, which can make the listener feel like they’re going insane.
Third, when somebody loses, which is frequent, it plays the sound of somebody screaming. And then it all starts over again.
2. Super Soakers
Can you believe people were willing to just hand children a bunch of squirt guns and let them loose on each other? If you’re lucky, the kids are playing with these outside. If you’re not, this is about to ruin your new laptop.
3. Fidget Toys
The best case scenario for anything fidget-related is that your kids are silently using them to stay focused, and you barely even know they’re doing it.
That’s never something that’s happening, because with any sort of fidget gadget, you can hear the sounds of them working, falling, flying, smashing, bouncing, crashing. Chaos eternal.
4. Play-Doh
You’ll be cleaning Play-Doh crumbs up for the rest of your days if you introduce it into your life. Worse than that, all kids seem to be powerless to stop themselves from eating it.
5. Harmonica
For some reason, people are always giving kids harmonicas. I can’t explain it. It’s a terrible call, because a child with a harmonica in its hands is an absolute menace. They’ll just be wailing on that thing all day long.
Trending on Cheapism
6. Sock ‘Em Boppers
It’s bewildering that this is a real product. The idea of selling inflatable fists to children so that they can beat the hell out of each other with them is nuts. You better believe my friends and I were constantly punching each other in the head with Sock ‘Em Boppers. I think I turned out fine?
7. Tickle-Me Elmo
Elmo is annoying enough when his voice is only coming out of the TV. He’s exponentially worse when his voice is coming out of a doll in the next room.
8. Tie-Dye Kits
This may start out as a nice art project for your kids, but the next thing you know, there are tie-dye hand prints all over the walls.
Sign up for our newsletter
9. Easy Bake Oven
At best, you’re cleaning up food and crumbs. At worst, you’re picking up burnt hair and skin.
10. Pogs
Pogs did not last long, but pogs were mighty for a time. I myself had mountains. Between trading, stacking, slamming, and organizing, it was impossible to keep track of them. There’s no chance our country didn’t have thousands of homes hiding long-lost pogs within their walls.
11. Sqand
If the whole idea behind Sqand was that it was defying all logic, it seems like the premise itself begs kids to experiment. As in: Find ways to get it wet. As in: Get the stuff all over the damn place.
12. Baby Shark
Several of the entries on this list are toys that play songs that drive you crazy, but this is perhaps the biggest and baddest of them all. The great white. This is the Baby Shark song, which only needs to be heard one time before it’s burrowed its way into your brain so deep it can never come out.
And that’s just the first time.
13. NERF
Be it balls or darts, NERF has to be the bane of many parents’ existence. Darts flying; footballs smashing important knickknacks on the mantle; NERF invites anarchy.
14. Slime
You really oughta know better than to buy something called “slime” for your children, but if not, here’s a piece of helpful info: Don’t buy anything called “slime” for your children. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and you’ll find it in your bed if you’re not careful.
15. Tamagatchi
The beeps and boops from the classic virtual pet drove me crazy, and I was the intended user. I can’t imagine what my poor parents had to hear.
16. Toy Instruments
Doesn’t matter if it’s a sax. Doesn’t matter if it’s a piano. Doesn’t matter if it’s a drum kit. It’s your nemesis when you hear it 37 times a day.
17. Talking Minion Toys
We all had a nice laugh when we saw the Minions that first time. Things were well and good. Then over the next 14 years, we were beaten over the heads with Minions until there was nothing left to enjoy about them. Parents shudder at their voices now.
18. Laugh & Learn Puppy
This is a puppy toy that says different stuff when you touch different parts of its body; in other words, it’s a noise-making stuffed animal full of noise-making landmines.
19. Joy Buzzer
This is more of a prank than an actual toy, but for a kid with an electric hand buzzer, the line between them is extremely fine.
20. Shrinky Dinks
Shrinky Dinks are a type of baked art project, which is incredibly strange. If you love when your kids do art projects, but think they’re far too safe, hook them up with Shrinky Dinks. You can introduce a hot oven into the mix and really crank up the danger aspect.
21. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Say Please Tea Set
You know how teatime playsets are generally kind of an adorable experience? Imagine, if you will, a bunch of little kids having a tea party, except none of them are doing their bad little kid British accents because instead of that, all you can hear is the sound of an actor doing a bad British accent through an electronic Fisher-Price speaker.
22. Operation
The only thing worse than hearing the buzzer over and over again when you screw up in Operation is hearing the buzzer over and over again when somebody else is screwing up in the other room.
23. LEGO
While LEGO is probably the greatest toy on the planet, both in terms of pure joy to play with and how much it helps expand a kid’s creativity, there is unfortunately nothing worse than stepping on a rogue brick. They hide in plain sight. And they hurt like mad.
24. Furby
Without question, Furbies belong on the Mount Rushmore of toy fads. With 40 million sold in its first three years, there were very few toy fads like it. They ended up as monsters who wouldn’t ever stop talking, especially in the middle of the night. I do not miss getting woken up by a haunted Furby shouting at me.
25. Jelly Bracelets
Simple, colorful bracelets, right? How bad could they be? Well, back in my day: Bad.
26. Sky Dancers
These little propeller-dressed fairy critters shot up into the air like a rocket when you launched them, so if things were going well, they landed in your backyard. If they were not going well, they landed who-knows-where.
27. Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid
There was a version of a Cabbage Patch Kids doll with a terrifying conveyor belt mouth that was supposed to eat carrots and other long, cylindrical foods. It was a living horror for parents and children alike, especially the time one of these things tried to eat a kid.
28. Pull-String Woody
We all love Woody, and we all love Tom Hanks. “There’s a snake in my boot” is charming the first couple of times, but you can only hear it so much before you can’t stand it anymore. Take your boots off, Woody! Or at least get the snake out!
29. Beyblades
The idea behind Beyblades has something to do with robot warrior battles, and that really comes through, both in terms of the noise the game itself will produce, and the noise your kids will produce. Expect screaming, crashing, and smashing.
30. Stretch Armstrong
Here’s a real story: I was once playing with a Stretch Armstrong with a bunch of friends, at some point around second or third grade. All of us were yanking on that thing as hard as we could, determined to rip his damn arms off.
Guess what? We did. We broke it. His arm finally snapped. And when it did, I went stumbling backwards so hard that I crashed into my friend’s closet door and smashed right through it. It all happened so fast. I bet Stretch Armstrong was not a popular toy with parents that day.
31. Zoomer Dino
A sort of robot dinosaur pet, Zoomer Dino is the perfect thing to scare you half to death as it turns a corner and roars at you on your way out of the bathroom in the middle of the night. Clever girl.
32. Sticky Hands
I myself was quite the terror with these things; they really help an idiot kid like me pretend to be Spider-Man in an even more annoying way. I was constantly launching these things across the living room, trying to grab onto something. Never worked. Can’t believe it.
33. Elefun
Here’s a toy elephant that shoots tiny little butterflies out of its trunk. Guess who’s picking those things up? Not your kids, that’s for sure.
34. Silly String
You already know better than to buy this for any sort of child, but at some point, you might think to yourself, “Silly string probably isn’t that bad. They’ll be responsible with it.”
That’s the last thought you’ll have before you find yourself waking up to a silly string prison you can’t escape from.
35. Zhu Zhu Pets
Zhu Zhu Pets were kind of like the original Roombas, except they didn’t clean anything and they made mind-melting hamster noises all day long.
36. Walkie-Talkies
We all have long-range walkie talkies now called cell phones, but back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for kids to keep their parents up at all hours of the night talking to the neighbor across the street.
37. Pie Face Cannon
These games must be designed by people that don’t have children. A parent would never come up with a game where you fire whipped cream at each other’s faces. And it’s meant to be played indoors, too. Shocking that this is real.
38. Screaming Rubber Chickens
You understand the premise here, right? They’re rubber chickens that make a truly horrid noise when squeezed or stretched.
39. Gak
It stretches. It squishes. It smells awful. It makes fart noises. It haunts a parent’s late-night dreams.
40. Koosh Ball
A cute little Koosh may not seem like something that might drive a parent crazy, but as a ’90s kid, I can attest: There is practically nothing more fun to throw at somebody.
41. Fisher Price Cash Register
Tring! Tring! Tring! You can already hear it.
42. Simon
Named after Simon Says, this game was based around a bunch of repeating lights and noises in a memory challenge. That means you’re hearing those lights and noises over. And over. And over. And over.
43. Jack-in-the-Box
Naturally, this is more of a toy for children in ye olde 20th century than it is a toy for children now, but a jack-in-the-box is the worst. At least with other annoying toy sounds, there’s some consistency; a jack-in-the-box is going to burst and hit you with the sound of a laughing clown without any sort of schedule.
44. Whoopee Cushion
Whoopee Cushions are always fun until you’re the one who gets pranked by one. Then again, a proper Whoopee prank is hard to pull off, so if you get nailed, maybe you deserve it.
45. Paint-by-Number Kits
Though these painting kits come with very clear instructions, that doesn’t stop paint from getting absolutely everywhere. You might need to build a plastic sheeting fortress around your kid for this one.
46. Orbeez
When you soak Orbeez beads in water, they expand into soft, squishy spheres. They’re a weird, art-adjacent toy, but here’s the only thing you need to hear: Some sets come with as many as 2,500 beads. Expect to find them all over your home.
47. Slap Bracelets
Slap bracelets are meant for music festivals and schoolyards at most. The second these things find their way into the home, they’re getting slapped and snapped across every surface your kid interacts with. Including your body.
48. Bedroom Door Basketball Hoops
Thud. Thud. Thud. That’s all you can hear from up there now. Hope you’re happy with that gift.
49. Teddy Ruxpin
If you don’t want to hear the same music over and over again coming out of a toy, avoid Teddy Ruxpin, which was originally created with an entire audio cassette tape inside of it. I had one. I bet my mom never wants to hear that thing again.
50. Super Bouncy Balls
There is no surface of your home these things won’t touch. They’re like Flubber, bouncing endlessly off everything in their path, destroying all, forgiving nothing.
