To landfill and beyond! Why Disney is recalling a Toy Story 4 Forky toy
Name: Forky.
Age: Brand new.
Appearance: Faux-naif.
Bless you. No! Faux-naif describes something that has been carefully designed to look like the artless work of a child.
I knew that. In this case, Forky – on one level, a disposable plastic spork clumsily combined with modelling clay, stick-on googly eyes, bits of pipe cleaner and a broken lolly stick to form a toy. He is a new character in Toy Story 4, which is in cinemas now.
I see. Of course, on another level, he is a sophisticated CGI rendering of all that stuff, made by extremely skilled artists and ferociously powerful computers, so that his arms bend and his eyes realistically pop off when he falls over.
How many more levels are there going to be? Last one. Forky is also a series of soft and hard toys Disney has released as merchandise in the real world.
So Disney made a movie that celebrates children’s creative capacity to make their own toys from worthless rubbish, then bring them to life with love and imagination … That’s right. It’s really interesting philosophically because, at first, Forky insists that he is not a toy. He struggles to understand why he is alive and keeps trying to throw himself in the bin, thinking he is still trash.
… But now Disney is exploiting the wholesome idea of Forky to make as much money as possible, by selling thousands of factory-made toys, which involve no creativity or imagination at all. Well, there’s a “make your own Forky kit”, which provides all the components and instructions that a child needs in order to pretend they have the creativity and imagination of Bonnie, the little girl in the film.
This is depressing. Don’t worry. There’s some schadenfreude coming.
Woo! I love it when strangers who annoy me suffer!Disney has announced a product recall for one of its Forky soft toys, which had sold about 81,000 units in the US and Canada.
It has caved in to pressure from an outraged public? Not exactly. “The ‘googly’ plastic eyes on the toy can detach, posing a choking hazard to young children,” according to the US Product Safety Commission.
Oh. That’s not good. Thankfully, no children have actually choked so far.
So the real Forky has defied Disney’s efforts to make him into a toy, by popping off his eyes and throwing himself in the bin? Well, Forky owners “should immediately take the recalled toy away from children and return it to any Disney Store retail location … for a full refund”. But yeah, I expect Disney will throw it in the bin after that.
Do say: “In Toy Story 5, could he at least throw himself in the recycling?”
Don’t say: “To landfill and beyond!”