Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy: (The Original) (RP Minis)

You get what’s advertised, but on the whole it is not very satisfying. I think the technology or physics of the full-size real thing does not scale down well. The movement is too fast and it tends to flop over for longer periods of time before standing up again. If there were somehow a way to reduce the velocity without the tube collapsing, it would probably be more fun. Maybe if the tube material were thicker or a less flexible material it would be better. Also the fan/blower is too loud to operate for any length of time near any person who is trying to get things done. A variable-speed blower perhaps would let you fine-tune it to get a tube behavior that is more enjoyable.

It’s so cute and funny. Makes a great gift!

Works great and is very funny to watch. Husband happy – is a great extra gift or stocking filler

This small simple birthday gift for my 3 year old is a HIT! He always loved these when I would drive by them and he would demand that I pull over, unbuckle him from his seat, and get out of the car to go examine/talk to/play with the flailing tube man. He could do this all day, so when I had to put him BACK in the car, it was a meltdown! (If we didn’t stop at all it was also a HUGE meltdown) so I bought this as a bit of a joke.
Little did I know, this was an undiscovered parenting hack. Now when we drive by a Flailing-Arm Tube Guy and my toddler asks to stop and I know the meltdown is coming. I just give him this. We keep it in the car and we have been meltdown-free ever since! (At least about that anyway)

I received this as a stocking stuffer from my wife… a small gag because of my love of a family guy gag.
I open it – it needs a battery – common enough.
But can I open the battery compartment with my hands? No! It is sealed with a tiny phillips head screw – too small to get a regular screwdriver into, requiring me to go to my tools to fish out a sufficiently small headed screw driver.
I get it opened and go to where I have batteries, careful to hang onto the tiny screwdriver to close it. But does it need a common battery? No – it needs a 9V – the kind that I used to keep around for smoke detectors but now not even smoke detectors use them.
So I have to scour the house for a 9V battery, still looking for this to but a smile on my face. I find one and put it in only to discover that in my battery search, I’ve set down the tiny screw driver which I have to find. Now to close it up. Lo and behold the battery compartment is not the type that unlocks but holds the screw… the tiny screw is completely gone.

Lastly – my item completely didn’t work. It was getting power because the fan would turn for little bit but there was no waving. This actually wouldn’t get a 1 star review from me though because I understand that sometimes items are just defective or break in transit. What makes me write this is the experience of using this. This is an item that needs to just work with limited user setup – it’s a gag after all. You can’t have users for this chasing down special tools and relatively rarely used batteries. You may say, aren’t these your own problems – I’d argue that these are the results of unforgivable design negligence. There is no way the makers of this product actually walked through the total user experience of using this item (which I remind you is a novelty product with no practical application – not a life saving device) from unboxing to end and decided this was acceptable. Instead of getting a chuckle (the intent of the item), I was absolutely enraged by the time I was ready to flip the power switch – and on Christmas morning.

可愛くて大好き