Why toy manufacturers should bring out telephone crisis helplines
There was a point in the summer of 2011 that Octonaut fever gripped the under fives. For a month, parents frantically hunted down Octopods for birthdays and to meet promises.
For a month, parents were tortured by the lack of Octopods available to buy. In the days when anything you can think of can be purchased on the internet, online toy shops were sold out. Amazon couldn’t get any for four – six weeks. “Barnacles,” parents cried aloud.
“I had seen them in the Early Learning Centre, so had my daughter,” explains Jasmine the mother of five-year-old Olivia. “I couldn’t really understand her interest as I felt the Octonauts were a bit on the young side for her. But she really, really wanted one apparently.
“As I don’t usually give into these kinds of requests, but I also don’t buy toys very often, for two weeks through the summer holidays, I said she could earn up to £2 a day doing odd jobs to save up for this £35 piece of plastic.
“Eventually the day came when she had enough money for the Octopod, and I duly went to the Early Learning Centre to buy it. But when I got there, the advisor behind the counter explained there had been a bit of a run on them.
“When I returned home empty handed, there was a bit of a scene. I phoned Mothercare, Toys’R’Us, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and looked on Amazon. After the obvious shops, I looked at every online toyshop I could find. An estimated six weeks for delivery. At one point, brand new or black market Octopods were going on Amazon for as much as £60.
“Luckily, I managed to get hold of one a week later thanks to Google’s shopping search. She played with it twice.”
Jasmine’s Octopod misery was not confined to herself alone. “Bloody Octopods? Don’t talk to me about finding Octopods,” Janet Worley, mum to four-year-old Maddison says.
“What was worse than hunting for an Octopod was finding a Peso (the penguin). Once I had the Octopod, there was only a Barnacles and a Kwazii (cat). I am now hunting for a Peso.”
Parents joined Facebook groups and posted queries on parenting forums, swapping information about places to buy Octonaut toys.
The 51 part show was initially launched on Cbeebies in October 2010. Since then, the demand for Octonaut toys was so huge that Fisher Price was forced to launch a line of toys earlier than anticipated and less than a year since the first episode was shown to UK children.
The Octonauts TV series is based on a series of story books from design studio Meomi in the US.
The undersea adventure stories follow Captain Barnacles and his team of Octonauts helping sea creatures who are in trouble.
The difficulty getting hold of Octonaut toys, shows that the race for filling Christmas stockings is very much alive. Chopsy Baby predicts the Octopod and varying Gups to be big global sellers this Christmas.
On the official Octonauts Facebook page, an Australian writes: ‘Just received an octopod toy set from debenhams in the uk. This is gonna make our 4 yr olds xmas! Check out their website, good price and they will ship to Australia’.
But toy manufacturers must take some responsibility for the metal welfare of the parents across the globe clamouring for Gups and Pods.
“They should set up helplines for parents suffering from the distress of not being able to find an Octopod,” Melanie Jacobs from Bristol says.
“Otherwise, it is all whispers down the grapevine from some smug mother who has managed to get hold of the last stock and we are all left running around trying to find one. Like that silly Arnold Schwarzenegger film (Jingle all the Way.)”
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