Regular readers of Daddy Types, who know better than anyone just how fascinating and insightful I am, can appreciate it when I say that I am, without a doubt, the least interesting thing in Adweek's in-depth article about [not] marketing cooking toys to boys.

Boys 2-11 love watching cooking shows; they're taking cooking classes; they're cooking and pretending to cook. But cooking toys are still in the girls' section of the toy store, and they're all/mostly still only marketed to girls.

What I noticed, though, was that the toy companies don't like to get called out on their gender-based marketing strategies. The makers of the girliest cooking toys--including Hasbro, makers of the venerable Easy-Bake Oven and a new cake/cupcake thing called Girl Gourmet--either sidestepped the issue or declined to respond altogether. Awkward.

And then on what I thought was a completely unrelated article, the New York Times reports from some kitchen appliance expo where the big innovation is apparently one-button cooking: "Popcorn." "Steak." "Bread." Everything is becoming the 7-Eleven microwave. And all the toaster ovens have "pizza bumps" because all anyone eats now is frozen pizza.

What the hell, people? Do you see the connection? It's the Easy-Bake Oven. It was introduced in 1963. Entire generations since then have been brainwashed to be incapable of cooking with anything more complicated than a light bulb. Entire generations of girls, that is. It's now up to boys and their parents [i.e., dads] to rescue cooking before it's too late.

Toy Pitches Half-Baked [adweek.com]
Kitchen Gadgets Take The Fast-Food Mentality Into The Home [nyt]

Kids all deal with anger a little differently. Some go off and sulk, while others throw tantrums... kicking and screaming for all they're worth.

Well, my wife and I have been dealing with one I haven't seen before. Special K has been dealing with her anger in a disturbing way. When she gets angry, she will find the nearest object to bang her head on. If she's in the middle of the room, she will drop to her knees and begin banging her head on the floor. If she's near a wall, she will run over and start going at it. Our fear is that with each wall on head encounter, the nickname 'Special K' could take on all new meaning.

Her poor forehead has been constantly bruised. One solution we've come up with is making her room into a padded cell. However, I'm not sure where to even begin with that idea. We've also contemplated putting her in a helmet, but then she may become even more destructive.

Have any of you ever seen this behavior? I'm hoping she grows out of it quickly.

Since I only obsessively tracked down the info, dates, and materials for all the editions of Enzo Mari's iconic 16 Animali puzzle, I don't know which edition of Mari's sequel puzzle, 16 Pesci, has been obsessively photographed, up close, piece by piece, on Mondo Blogo.

But we know it's marbled resin, with a Danese stamp, and a 1974 copyright, and that it looks pretty awesome. Also, I hope Mr. Mari will not take it is a sign of "a didactic ruling or guidance which is, as such, always of a repressive nature," but the kid would like to point out that whales, snakes, octopus, seals and dolphins are not fish.

Enough with the art already... [mondo-blogo]

The list of "baffling things that happened in the 1980s which I was completely unaware of at the time" has grown by one: Andy Warhol was commissioned by Roger Schlaifer to make portraits of Cabbage Patch dolls in 1985.

Schlaifer, an Atlanta licensing executive, acquired the rights to the dolls, changed their name to Cabbage Patch Kids, and wrote the whole adoption backstory with his wife Suzanne Nance in 1982. They were one of the biggest "must-have Christmas toy" frenzies of our generation.

Schlaifer sold the rights back to the doll's inventors around 1987-8, who turned them over to Hasbro. Which was right around the time, ten months after Warhol's death, that the Schlaifers' firm, Schlaifer Nance & Co. signed an exclusive licensing deal with the artist's estate. The deal quickly devolved into a tangle of litigation, though, when SNC discovered Warhol's estate did not control the copyright to many of the artist's images. [Actually, lawyers for the estate and the licensor found that, because they didn't follow the copyright policies of the time, many of Warhol's works are in the public domain. This bears some serious looking-into.]

images:
Cabbage Patch Kid silkscreen, 1985, at Jonathan O'Hara Gallery [artnet.com]
Mitterand-Cramer has a pencil sketch of a Cabbage Patch Kid [mitterand-cramer.com]
DECEMBER 1987: FIRST LICENSING DEAL WITH THE WARHOL FOUNDATION IS ANNOUNCED. [warholstars.org]

And just when I think I couldn't possibly feel worse, here is a headline from the Daily Telegraph Korean couple let baby starve to death while caring for virtual child [telegraph.co.uk via slate]