The Little-Known World of Cloverleaf Corners

There is a world. A special and secret world where animals live in peace and harmony. They form relationships, have babies, plan birthday parties, dress their children in stupid outfits, and create picture-perfect 2.4 child families. That's right folks, animals are becoming more and more like people.

Posable animal figures, that is. I found these little gems on a toy shop shelf in a quaint seaside town. Because my feelings about these "toys" were so strong, I thought I might share my amazement-tinged horror with the world.

Here is what happened: I was on a day trip to this tourist town with some friends. Many of the activities turned out to be somewhat "girly." In order to accommodate the male-folk, we went into a toy store. When I wandered into the first aisle, I was planning on amusing myself by checking out the newest in mind-numbing toys. I only made it a few steps when my eyes forcibly shot from their sockets and I vomited a little in my own mouth.

The Wilder Panda Family, miniature animal family playset:

It turns out these guys are part of a whole line called, "Calico Critters of Cloverleaf Corners," which infers that all these stupidly dressed animal families live in a subdivision or something.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that there were more. Many, many more. Each family has one dad, one mom, and a son and daughter. (Talk about boring, mainstream, heteronormative toys! What about all the kids with two mommies? Or a single dad? That, however, is for another day.)

To be fair, I remember having posable animal figures as a child. Not only was their attire limited to a bowtie or an apron, they only did cool things. They went on adventures, lived in dollhouse mansions and had miniature McDonald's Happy Meal Beanie Babies as their children. They most certainly never, EVER had twin posable hedgehog babies named Hazel and Henry Pickleweed.

Yes, friends. They now make crawling posable animal figures.

But that isn't even the scariest thing of all. I was already so horrified that when I saw these next guys, I almost peed my pants.

COSTUME CRITTERS?!?! Why would animals EVER need to dress up as animals? AND, I can only assume that they are wearing the skins of their former neighbors in Cloverleaf Corners. What kind of example are we setting for American children? From what I can tell, we are saying: It is okay to murder your classmate and wear their skin as a costume to a birthday party. Seriously! Those Costume Critters are children! Posable animal figure children! And they're already murderers.