Collectiblog

As the holiday season rapidly approaches, I find myself thinking of turkeys. Not just the birds that have become such a symbol of our Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas feasts, but the other kind of turkeys: items so badly conceived they earn the metaphor of "turkey."

There are so many bad ideas out there, I could (and probably will) write many blogs on the subject of flops and bad ideas, but for this entry, I will focus on my three absolute favorites from my collection.

1) Oobi. The first thing that comes to my mind is a toy so obscure it really may be one of the biggest kiddie failures of all time. I've been told that Oobi was the worst-selling toy in the history of Parker Brothers, but I can't authenticate the remark other than observing the scarcity of the Oobi from the public consciousness.

Oobi was based on a hippie notion of communal mail delivery, sort of like a cross between a fortune cookie and note passing via a lot of hands. It was a cute, red plastic oval with a slit in its back for sticking in a note and a place to write a destination on the top. The packaging gave instructions that Oobi didn't like mailboxes, so it was supposed to be left in some public place to be picked up by a stranger to leave in another location until it was filled with notes and eventually made it to its destination. I can remember seeing a TV commercial for Oobi back in 1970, and wishing that someone would send one to me. I found an Oobi 30 years later, but with the email and texting, it seems even more absurd than ever.

2) Growing Up Skipper and Earring Magic Ken. Barbie is the best selling doll line in history, yet. Mattel unleashed two incredible turkeys under the banner of the Barbie Empire. The first was Growing Up Skipper in 1975. This was Barbie's flat-chested little sister Skipper, though she was equipped with a special arm crank that made her breasts grow and waistline pinch in to the impossible proportions we've all come to associate with Barbie. Most kids of the appropriate age were embarrassed to play with this doll.

In 1993, the same people came up with Growing up Skipper revealed Earring Magic Ken, who had such a Castro-Street feel to his wardrobe that he was soon dubbed "Gay Ken" by the media. The world simply wasn't ready for the shirtless, earring-wearing pretty blonde boy doll who wore a round metal ring around his neck which I will leave to your imagination why it may have symbolized gay culture.

Today, Earring Magic Ken would fit in comfortably with the My Generation Barbie line, but in the mid-'80s, it was still rather unthinkable and a very poor seller outside of the collectors' world and was pulled from stores. Mattel was able to salvage the necklace accessories and included them later in one of the outfits for Beverly Hills, 90210 Brenda doll.

3) The New Monkees. There have been many ill-conceived products based on licensing, but one of the worst ideas ever to be merchandised was The New Monkees.The original Monkees TV show was a huge marketing success with products selling in the millions. When the show and band made an unprecedented comeback in the mid-1980s, some marketing genius missed the fact that the excitement was based in nostalgia, and thought it would be a grand idea to re-launch a New Monkees TV show and band with a 100-percent '80s sensibility. The sound of this show flopping was heard around the globe and practically no one bought any of the hastily produced merchandise -- the show was cancelled within a few weeks of its debut. A toy New Monkees guitar, a New Monkees Mustang GT Convertible model kit and a CD of original music were released and went straight to the cut-out bins as fans of the original Monkees and their kids all preferred the groovy version to the New Wave reboot.

There are so many more I could add, but that's enough turkey for one day. What toys are on your worst-ever list?

• Discuss these and other classic collectibles on the Classic Collectibles board
• Chat about The New Monkees on The Monkees board