Found out about this story from the lost media wiki forums and thought it was so interesting and funny. I am hoping toyblr can have more info on this toy.
In 2003, there was a toy recall at Walmart, but not for any of the expected reasons. The toy was a baby's sound machine, meant to soothe babies to bed. The toy was shaped like a tugboat, with some cute sea critters to top it all off.
The problem? Many parents listening to the ocean wave sounds heard a faint voice repeating "I hate you" over and over again. Whether the audio of a voice saying "I hate you" was actually in the sounds, or if it is a case of pareidolia is unknown, however interestingly in one news article*, Walmart did not chalk it up to the phenomenon, calling the noise parents were concerned about "beeps" instead.
The toy was very quickly recalled, no evidence of its existence is documented outside of photos and news articles from the time period. It is a miracle the high quality photo displayed above exists at all.
This is where I think toyblr could step in, if any of you guys have collected toys from 2003 or know someone who has, see if you have this toy and if its audio still works. It would be an incredible find for such a bizarre and somewhat funny search.
More important info:
This toy was under Walmart's "Kid Connections" brand and was presumably manufactured in China. However, the toy could have been manufactured anywhere outside of America as stated in a rant against the brand:
To save money, Wal-Mart contracts with manufacturers to make several private label toys, which are sold under names such as Wal-Mart's Kid Connection. Profit margins on these products, many of which are manufactured outside the United States, are often twice those of brand-name toys, said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he continues to do business with the retailer.
This toy was made as a cheaper alternative/competitor to Fisher Price's Ocean Wonders Aquarium toy. While there's similarities in design and function, Ocean Wonders Aquarium does not share the same audio as the recalled toy.
I would love for this to be found some day, for the novelty factor and curiosity if the audio really did include that "subliminal message".
*which I will not link to due to it coming from a very alt-right news source, however is linked in the lost media wiki post for those truly curious on the full story
Sunny from the ETA (Electronic Toy Archive) here!
If anyone is reading this: please check your local thrift store for this soother. Please go and find it, it’ll be worth the 3$ you spent on the rare tugboat soother… if it works.
Now, for some advice on recording audio from most electronic toys: you can either take it apart and direct it, or you can just buy a coil (around 3-8 dollars US) and place it where the speaker is. The coil is an easier method and is recommended if you don’t want to break the toy trying to direct the audio from it, especially for it being a ultra-rare one like the recalled Kid Connection soother. The coil recordings count as HQ audio and the direct recordings are, well, directly from the toy’s motherboard.
But theres a catch with the coil: if the toy has motors it will also pick up the motor noise. (If the soother has a sound-only setting, use that to record with the coil)
It may also pick up some background noise not from the toy.
The coil plugs into a 3.5mm input and will record electromagnetic pulses, like the ones a speaker’s voice coil makes as it makes sound. I record toy audio using Audacity on a computer with a 3.5mm audio input and a coil. Some laptops may also ask what type of device you plugged into the port (the one I have, an Acer laptop, does this)
Before you begin, confirm that it’s recording from the coil by choosing the source for the coil (it would probably be the realtek microphone for most computers since it usually blocks off the built in mic to use the coil.)
Then, set the recording channel to mono. That way, the audio won’t play in the left ear when you play or export the recording. Coils are mono only, and I doubt there are stereo coils out there.
Try speaking for a bit. Coils work different to a microphone - mics pick up sounds around it, and coils pick up electromagnetic pulses. Do you see a waveform on screen? You may have not plugged it in fully, or chose the source that corresponds to the coil. Try again until you don’t see the waveform show when you talk. Now that you got that all set up, get the toy of choice (like the tugboat soother for example) and find where the speaker holes are. Place the coil on the speaker holes and now hit record. Turn the toy on and record the audio from it - all the things it plays, including the lullabies (I’m betting it’s square wave music with 2 note polyphony and that one of the songs are Brahms or Twinkle Twinkle) and the ocean sounds it plays.
Please reblog this as it is very important advice for those who ever find this toy and want to archive the audio properly instead of doing a mic recording.
Reblogging this and sharing some more images (if that's ok??)
Photo source
Yeah thats fine! I only wanted to share some advice on archiving audio from toys
Also i looked at the photo source. The website is in a different language but theres a gmail address at the bottom of the page. I have no clue what language the site is in but i will send them an english language email about the boat toy (if the email is still active)
Epic. Good luck with getting a reply from them! Also, their blog is in Thai.
This is the email i sent. Hoping to get a response soon. Also the email address is apparently still active because i havent gotten that “message not sent” email thingy yet
Update!
No video or audio footage spotted yet, but here's another photo from an archived version of an article that talked about the incident:
I think there would have been a news report on TV about it by WDSU, since this looks like a still from a news segment.
There's also another archived article that was available from wreg.com. It had video footage of it, but the videos are missing.
So there's definitely some old school news footage of this thing out there! Searching the first news station shows its in New Orleans, so for those interested in the search that lived in the area, check and see if you have any recorded tapes.
EDIT: Also second news channel may be in Memphis! Might be a wee bit more difficult for that one, since I don't know if the clips were web-exclusive or not, but anything is possible.
OFFICIAL NAME IS SWEET DREAMS CRUISE WALMART DISTRIBUTED BRAND APPEARS TO BE STEP AHEAD WE ARE SO CLOSE GAMERS
tiny pic from the manley website aka toy quest aka that company that made these guys:
