If there's anything that I have learned about dolls and children's toys is that kids love toys that do extremely specific things. So it is not, I suppose, all that remarkable that Mattel decided to capitalise on this with the Barbie and Tanner Playset.
Tanner was a beautiful dog who liked to play games and eat food and... poop it back out. Tanner came with a set of brown pellets that he would eat and then poop back out. Barbie had a pooper scooper accessory to clean up after Tanner.
This is a little weird, but not wildly so by children's toy standards. I didn't see the appeal in pooping dolls as a kid, but I know plenty of kids who did.
However, there was an extra problem here.
The problem with this particular playset was that the poop and the pooper-scooper were magnets. This is a real problem for a children's toy, and was officially recalled due to safety concerns.
Essentially, this isn't just a trivial matter of small plastic items being a tempting thing for little kids to stick in their mouths. Magnets, if swallowed, can stick together and cause intestinal blockages or perforation.
The set was officially re-released as less of a hazard for small children, and all was again well with the world.
