Monday, May 12, 2008

Singapore Toy Museum, Pity The Older Generation For They Had Such Ugly Toys

Last week on Sunday, I needed some peace and tranquility coupled with some amusement so I decided to just have a visit to the Singapore Mint Museum of Toys near City Hall (opposite Raffles Hotel) thinking how cool it would be to look at a 5-storey building filled with toys and just spending the whole day there. Boy was I wrong on so many counts!!! Read on to find out, this post's gonna be filled with pictures and interesting ones too! Forgive me for the picture quakity as I took it with my mobile phone.

Alright, first up the building. I was expecting a museum to be at least as big as a bungalow in Malaysia but instead I found a five-storey building 'squashed' next to a coffee-shop. Well okay I told myself maybe good collections await.


Really small building huh? Anyways, I proceeded to pay my fee of S$15 and made my way to the 5th floor as directed by the staff whom advised me to start from the top to bottom. So there I went to 5th floor themed Outerspace. Walked out expecting big area and WHAM! WTF!??? A tiny small hallway with cabinets of toys?


Okayyyyyyyyy, maybe the toys will do the hallway justice. First up, some aluminium made robot toys which were quite nostalgic (reminds me when I was a kid and I used to play with my Strepsils aluminium metal case).


Moving on, some Star Wars poster and toys, nothing special so I just snapped some Star Wars toys. Hello Yoda and Darth Vader! :)

The 4th floor was themed Characters (Batman, Superman, etc.), this should seem interesting since most of the action heroes were all good when we were young. Perhaps it won't be too bad, let's have a look. Oh oh! Cute, short and fat Batman!..................My GOD! When did Batman became like that!!! Maybe he's fit today because of the proliferation of fitness gyms or maybe it's just Christian Bale but anyways good enough, at least I am begining to see things I haven't seen before.




From here on I totally forgot about all the floor themes because everything caught my attention from here on. Let's start with the good part, just look at the nice remote control peacock....

And we have good old nice vintage cars, yeah.


Who could forget our good old spinning top :) our time had musicals not flashing lights like now.

Of course the more traditional kite, 'guli', and that onion shaped spinning thing (gasing if I am not wrong) which I used to play it in kampungs I visit during when I was a kid.


Hmmmm Hot Wheels match-box edition? :) But hey small toys with these kinda details were hand-made then!

Thereafter the horror began! You call this Mickey Mouse ? I pity the kids who were playing with them, they look so.................evil............





And this is Felix the Cat? I don't know if something is wrong with me but I felt that it really looked like voodoo dolls.


And Chinese propaganda toys? Yet they complain about Grand Theft Auto games on PS3, this toy practically had a person's head being stepped on and another being bashed, while another holds a machine gun.


Okay Donald Duck and Popeye wasn't too bad here.


Barbie wasn't that happy during hte 60s and 70s I guess due to suppression by men and having to just stay home without partying and shopping?

And why are toys from the era so creepy? Eye popper dolls and IT clown? Maybe that's why we have so many sick adults these days due to their childhood?

These teddy bears seem like they could pounce and kill anytime (not cude and cuddly at all, and why on earth of all colors are they red like stained blood???)


Didn't know racism was well present in toys too...

Okay I know so far I have been criticizing these toys a lot, but I did found a ray of hope in these other toys like Betty Boop ( a little muscular back then ), most of them are of Asian origin and they were really beautiful, especially the Cinese wooden dolls which were handcreafted meticulously.




Okay although it may seem like the S$15 wasn't worth that much of it, in fact if you have seen my blog you have seen 60-70% of the most interesting items. Nevertheless, i still recommend that you have a look at it yourself, when you see the items in person I guess you will appreciate that there have unique individual traits which signify a particular culture compared to today's mass-manufactured toys which all would probably come from China. Back then, you could most probably guess where a toy originated from based on its design cues and materials. It's easy to criticize but I keep in mind that back then they didn't have the technologies we have and if it wasn't for these pioneers, we might never have the cool toys we have today.

I'll let Mr.JFK save the day by injecting some seriousness of reading a newspaper (now I wonder why wasn't Bush and Clinton there with him too)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

hey... cool blog & interesting photos... one of those blogs that i read on instead of kept scrolling down! :)

Sparklette said...

lol I love your nasty descriptions of the toys - they're hilarious!! I burst out laughing at your rationale behind the sick adults these days.

Truth be told, MINT is one of my shortlisted places to visit one day, but the $15 admission fee turns me off. Thanks to this post, I think I can save myself a visit.

By the way, have you visited the Shanghai Museum of Toys? I have some pictures on my blog when I visited them in 2006.