Top 10 Creepiest Kids Toys of All Time
#10: Furbys
Over the years, Furbys have been rebooted and relaunched many times, making them a staple childhood toy for decades. But no amount of re-designs will ever make them less creepy. They will stare into your soul with those large, dead eyes, and thanks to their language-learning capabilities, they only get scarier over time. Okay, so they don’t actually learn to speak, but that doesn’t stop them from being so unsettling. Even worse, because the Furby craze took the world by storm, few households are without a decrepit Furby hiding in a box somewhere. And the practice of collecting and modifying Furbys has also taken off, with Furby fans actively making them even worse than they were already.
#9: Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces
If you’ve ever wondered why Mr Potato Head is a vegetable rather than an uncannily realistic adult man, this is probably why. In 1975, Kenner released “Hugo”, the “Man of a Thousand Faces”: a strange, bald puppet that came with a variety of disguises. It seemed to be a boys-equivalent to the dolls marketed to girls, which have always been highly customizable, but it severely missed the mark. Hugo is a frightening companion straight out of an R.L. Stine story, and his accessories include weird hairpieces, fake glasses, a disturbing mask, and several plastic wounds and injuries. Hugo is a great toy... for kids who thought regular puppets just weren’t awful enough.
#8: Kewpie Dolls
These dolls originally went on sale over a hundred years ago, and have aged more poorly than other old toys – and that’s saying something. Based on baby-faced cherubs, which can be unsettling in their own right, Kewpie Dolls most often resemble nude babies in strange poses with weird facial expressions. Many different lines of Kewpie Dolls have been released as their popularity waxes and wanes, but they always keep that trademark Kewpie creepiness. On the bright side, many of them are now valuable collectibles; so at least something good could come of keeping one in your house for years.
#7: Erwin the Little Patient
This toy is designed to teach young children about anatomy, but even with such noble intentions the end result leaves much to be desired. Erwin looks like a standard kids’ plushie at first glance, but if you take off his medical gown you can unzip his torso and pull out all of his internal organs. While an invaluable tool in classrooms, there’s something undeniably disturbing about Erwin’s placid facial expression and wide-open eyes while you shuffle his innards around. The gruesome contents of Erwin’s belly include the kidneys and bladder, lungs and heart, and the entire digestive system in one long, soft tube.
#6: Amazing Amanda
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These days, Alexa, Siri and Google Home have taken over the tech market, helping people to organize their lives and stay on top of things. But what if you could have all that inside a plastic doll, rather than a sleek cylinder? Amazing Amanda is just that. Launched back in 2005 before the craze of smart speakers, Amanda was certainly ahead of her time. She can tell different objects apart, can speak to you, and more bizarrely can identify her own fake poops. She even reminds you of what you’re supposed to be doing; who doesn’t want a doll that knows where they are at all times?
#5: Little Miss No-Name
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Seemingly Barbie’s evil cousin, Little Miss No Name was a doll marketed as being a homeless girl, and it was down to you – yes, you – to take responsibility and find her a new home. Unfortunately, even if you gave her the best home in the world, it wouldn’t change her permanently distressed expression; she even came with a lonely teardrop on her cheek. Though she is endearing in her own strange way, the macabre marketing meant Little Miss No Name never really took off – though she does make for an interesting collectible now. Maybe guilting people about neglecting a small child isn’t the best way to sell toys?
#4: Early Mr. Potato Head
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Hugo was bad, but the earliest Mr. Potato Head sets hadn’t perfected the “disguise” formula either. Rather than coming with a plastic potato for you to customize to your heart’s content, they came with only the accessories, leaving it up to you to decide which fruit or vegetable you wanted to impale with googly eyes and giant ears. He may be a friendly, childhood icon now thanks to “Toy Story”, but in the beginning, these playsets were a great way to ruin a perfectly good meal. This toy will leave you never wanting to eat a potato again.
#3: Elmo Knows Your Name
Is it a selling point, or a threat? Elmo might be one of “Sesame Street’s” most popular and beloved characters – though, that’s a high bar – but that hasn’t stopped toy manufacturers from doing everything in their power to make you hate him. This infamous toy was a mechanical version of Elmo that spoke to you and, yes, learned your name. The plush Elmo would then repeat your name back to you, sometimes completely unprompted and perhaps even in the dead of night. There was even one notorious case of Elmo reportedly saying he was going to “kill” the boy he belonged to, which upset the boy’s mother when she heard her son repeating it.
#2: Jolly Chimp
Now a horror movie cliché that has been around for decades, it’s difficult to imagine a time when this threatening primate was ever a legitimate toy someone would give to a child. But every villain has an origin story. When the cymbal-banging monkey toy is activated, it looks as though it’s been possessed, with a manic grin and perpetually bloodshot eyes. Nowadays, seeing this mechanical chimp clap its percussive instruments together is a definite bad omen, warning that doom – and angry poltergeists – might be on the way. It’s not clear exactly why watching the chimp scream and bang cymbals together would be a good pastime for a kid. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few Honorable Mentions: Face Bank You’ll Never Want Your Money Back After This Piggy Bank Has Eaten It The Bones Family What Could Be More Fun That a Skeleton with a Child’s Head?
#1: Baby Laugh-a-Lot
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If you’ve always dreamed of combining what appears to be haunted dolls and haunted rocking chairs, then look no further than Baby Laugh-a-Lot, Remco’s doll from the early ‘70s. Baby Laugh-a-Lot will violently cackle and rock back and forth with a permanent smile on her face. The original commercial doesn’t try to make it any less scary, either, showing everybody in its presence infected by laughter; it’s easy to imagine it becoming a ghastly monster after dark. Remco quickly went out of business after the launch of the toy – was it simply a misfire, or did Baby Laugh-a-Lot send the company to an early grave?
