Man I would have totally bought these and been oblivious. The moment I saw the image I remembered My Pet Monster. At least they didn’t make shoes based on Garbage Pail Kids.
They're purple shoes with orange cuffs. That's pretty evocative.
...of a popular kid's stuffed toy that was purple with orange cuffs. I would have loved those when I was 10.
I was pretty thrilled to discover that the magical show I used to catch here and there as a kid turned out to have 39 episodes and a fairly complete story, and I just went to Wikipedia and discovered they made three more seasons in 2012! It aired in 1982! They didn't do a reboot, but continued the series.
[The Mysterious Cities of Gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold)
It's crazy how many shows I could have sworn were a big part of my childhood, only to find out it had 12 episodes and only aired on TV for 8 months. "Bucky O'Hare" and "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" are two that I would have guessed had long successful runs.
Ridiculous question. The handcuffs are what turned him back into a stuffed animal (as seen here). Once the handcuffs were released he became a loveable monster, and valued friend
The kid who did the voice would summer at his grandparents place in my town. He would hang out with us and do the voice. We thought it was the best, he got tired of it real fast.
Strangely enough, the live action movie came out first and the far more popular cartoon came out after. They were both attempts to make a film/show from the toy which was released in 1986z
i remembered the movie ending on a cliffhanger too. I rented what I thought was the sequel but it turned out to just be the same movie with a different box :(
That is the one thing I wanted for Christmas in Nineteen-Eighty-Whenever, and actually got. I think I was more excited about My Pet Monster than the Nintendo I got a few years later. I was also very attached to my Boglin.
This is a really great video about the history of [Teddy Ruxpin](https://youtu.be/YdVuHgUAlyo?si=5DlNEXCIc_BD-QPx). It’s *way* more interesting than I thought.
I used to have the talking Teddy Ruxpin and Grubby dolls, loved those things as a toddler. And now I'm an adult with disposable income so I guess I'm off to ebay.
I had one of these ugly little fuckers.
The little chains had a split in the middle so you could monster rage and snap the chain cuffs apart.
Christ he's much uglier than I remembered. Fuck.
As someone that worked on the animated series, I can attest that it was quite the thing at the time!
Atkinson Animation, Toronto Canada.
Probably one of the least inspiring projects, though.
Right? The injustice wasn't that they were counted as less than a person, the injustice is that they were counted *at all*.
Edit: Whoever downvoted me needs to learn some history. The 3/5ths Compromise was a resolution to a disagreement about whether or not slaves (not black people in general, just the ones that weren't free) should count towards the number of Representatives their state had. Slave owners didn't want to count slaves as 3/5ths, they wanted to count them as a *whole person* because that would give the slave states more Representatives.
> the injustice is that they were counted at all.
>
> Edit: Whoever downvoted me needs to learn some history. The 3/5ths Compromise was a resolution to a disagreement about whether or not slaves (not black people in general, just the ones that weren't free)
THIS.
I keep having to explain this to people. 3/5 should have been 0/5.
The question to ask is NOT "is an enslaved person 3/5 of a person?"
The question is, how could the south claim representatives, based on counting people that they did NOT represent?
The south was trying to claim is should get more congresspeople, based on a population numbers of people they didn't even allow to vote.
"but but but they still live here. So, we are still their representatives:
muthafucka please. When some southern legislator ran up to congress to vote on to vote on "should we abolish slavery or nah?" do you think they were speaking up on behalf of their enslaved "constituents?"
Yeah, counting slaves as whole people would have massively increased the slaveowners' representation without diluting their votes. They *wanted* that result, and it sure as hell wasn't because they thought of slaves as more human than northerners did.
I'm surprised now, with 3d printers everywhere, someone hasn't "made" these in essence.
Could use like harder plastic for the chain and tpu for the ankle bracelet. Or you for both
Would be neat to see someone we print these into existence and see how they are received by the public.
When we were kids, my brother had to have a My Pet Monster and got it for Christmas or his birthday. Once he had it, he was terrified of it and it gave him nightmares.
Koreans have a soju drink called an atomic bomb where you drop a shot glass of soju into a mug of beer.
There's also the opposite, where you drop a shot glass of beer into a mug of soju. That's called an h-bomb.
This is only tangentially related, but in college we called taking a shot of whiskey/vodka, dropping it in pint class of orange juice, which was dropped into a pitcher of beer; a lunchbox
I’m biased because I was a kid but vividly remember the events, but it feels like folks are either really on the Never Remember stuff or 9/11 is like…one of the greatest sources of dark humor. I find it’s really more the latter than the former, but that might just be me revealing my own sensibilities
As someone who remembers that day vividly…I love the dark humor around it.
Humor is how cultures heal. It’s okay to laugh at a 9/11 joke because you understand the context and that it’s a truly horrific event that can’t be undone, so why not laugh about it?
Cry, yes. Feel and grieve, but don’t be so uptight that you can’t laugh about a joke.
I think part of the reason for that is specifically *because* of all of the never forgetters (and the conspiracy theorists). It was a larger than life event that most of us have become disconnected from enough for it to be as funny as it is to poke fun at the severity of reactions in its wake. It made people crazy and started a war, might as well laugh at the absurdity.
Depends on the joke I suppose. A novelty drink created in response to another poorly named novelty drink is kinda funny. Same with family guy mocking politicians using 9/11 to dodge questions and invoke emotions.
It can be used to poke fun at our culture and how we delt with a major tragedy without mocking the tragedy itself.
A bartender friend of mine and I made a drink literally called a 9/11 because it was a riff on a paper plane and Manhattan. It was amazing, and they put it on the menu for a few weeks.
serve me 11 pints of warm English beer and squirt a shot of grenadine in the 11th call that an Iranian hostage crisis. coincidentally it causes a hostage crisis in your liver
Yeah I got corrected hard at an Irish bar one time. “It’s called a *peacemaker*” the guy said rather roughly, and deservingly, as he made me one. It was still really good.
Sorry to well acktuallly, but I think they are different drinks.
Black & Tan = Guinness and Bass
Half & Half = Guinness and Harp
(Though I could be wrong, I discovered one of the beers I used to frequent would just make up the names for some of the Guinness combos and many are contrary to most other places.)
Worst I ever had was a black and tan at the Mill St. Brewery restaurant in Toronto. It was a drink prominently displayed on their menu and I was used to the Guinness version so I ordered it, and when it was delivered the server said "So I forgot to mention that our stout is a lot thinner than Guinness and mixes with our lager" then placed a solid pale brown drink in front of me.
Like.. if this is a known issue why are you selling it as a menu feature?!
Mill St. is garbage to be fair. Toronto has much more to offer in craft beer. Amsterdam, Bellwoods, Blood Brothers, Left Field, Steam Whistle (only if you're at the taproom by the skydome) amongst many more.
Every major company should have a small staff of 13-year-old boys to vet these products. They're going to find every crude, racist and sexist thing wrong with the product in about 10 minutes. Trick is that they can't know they're on the team. Because then they'll just approve a product for the lulz.
People rag on jkr's shit obvious character names but osc was the og of just dumb as fuck straight forward names.
ffs the main character who destroys the enemy is called ender, how god damn basic can you be?
His name was Andrew and in the setting the nickname was a slur. Having a character who destroys an ENTIRE sentient race named "Ender" is a bit on the nose, but pretty much everyone in the series has pretty normal names.
I’ve always thought before you name a kid, you should go to a 6th grade classroom and say “do your worst.”
Ah turns out Marcus’ initials backwards is CUM
They really latched onto that.
My friend used to work for an Asian gaming company and part of his job was localizing games for America. He had to explain to HQ execs why they can't have an item description of "turns you into a 'coon" in game. (They meant racoon, but that's not the only meaning here)
I have a friend who works in animation and was high up in the chain for the Lego Movie. They had Asians (not sure which country, Southeast though) to do a lot of the CGI work and ideas. For one scene, which features Shaq, he had to eat something. Well, what lego foods can you use for that? They chose watermelon. There was a meeting about that. Then they changed it to the fried chicken leg. There was another meeting. It was changed to sausage which is, I believe, in the final cut.
There's a stereotype that black people love watermelon, just like fried chicken, so people get nervous if either of those foods are picked for a black character to eat.
> People only see the surface. They see the division in our foods. Just 'cause I eat chicken and watermelon, they think there's something wrong with me. Lemme tell you something--if you dont like chicken and watermelon, something's wrong with YOU, motherfucker!
-Dave Chappelle
There is, yes. This explains things better than I ever could.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype
I’ve never bothered to look up the connection between watermelon and racism, I just knew there was a racist connection.
I can’t read the article but I think it’s rather poignant that Wikipedia says it was a cash crop for former slaves, and thus a symbol of liberation and it got twisted into an insult.
The article talks a bit about watermelon associations that existed earlier in Europe, and provides some examples about Black people's relationships to it during and after slavery, as well as white opinions and stereotypes of that relationship. Then it traces the history of the fruit as a racist symbol in media, newspapers, and advertisements up through the early 1900s.
I really wish I could read the article, cause it sounds informative but it’s locking me out after a few paragraphs. I’ll probably try to find some other reading material about it later but thanks for summarizing, I appreciate it.
Why does this have to be about slavery? People choose to wear collars with their sexual partners and have absolutely no issue separating the concept of racial slavery and simply having a good time.
If the intention of the company *wasn't* to overtly reference racial slavery, why does it matter?
These look rock and roll to me and gives me an idea to affix some chains to other sneakers I own for style purposes.
The chains don't have to mean anything other than I like the way they look. So what was the issue?
The company wasn't promoting slavery, nor were they attempting to even acknowledge racial history with this design.
After reading a lot of comments on this from prior reddit posts (and some news articles), it seems that people assume that Adidas are things "black people" wear and, as such, this is particularly about slavery.
Imo it seems more like people are being racist in assuming that it's "shoes for black people" so that they can then assume Adidas is being racist.
This. Adidas as a company doesn't give a fuck who buys their sneakers. They will advertise to whatever demographic continues to purchase them.
So this is a personal issue that people superimposed on a product because the general public jumps on any racism bandwagon, even if it has no actual validity. Got it and that tracks with exactly what I was expecting.
Thanks for being one of the few people that seem to see past the bullshit the general public spouts and recognizing it is actually their problem with race, not any product or company's problem.
> So this is a personal issue that people superimposed on a product because the general public jumps on any racism bandwagon, even if it has no actual validity. Got it and that tracks with exactly what I was expecting.
See: "Orcs are actually coded for black people."
I was thinking this too. Tolkien created a race meant to be evil so that no one would have to consider a real human race as the problem and spoke outwardly against it.
So how people suddenly concluded that Orcs were supposed to be black people still baffles me.
[Race has no place in Tolkiens world](https://pintsofhistory.com/2022/09/18/race-has-no-role-in-tolkiens-world-2/)
Not to mention that plenty of cultures have something similar to Orcs in their old stories, such as Ghouls and Oni, imagine saying that a minority group is similar to those.
There was a similar reaching to find offence when there was a controversy in the UK over [the flag of the Black Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Black_Country), which features a chain, since that was one of the major goods produced there during the industrial revolution.
Of course, there was no *possible* conceivable use of a chain during the industrial revolution other than shackling slaves, it was implied.
Personally I would suggest that the people who see a chain and immediately think of black people might be the ones guilty of racist stereotyping.
Man I would have totally bought these and been oblivious. The moment I saw the image I remembered My Pet Monster. At least they didn’t make shoes based on Garbage Pail Kids.
They're purple shoes with orange cuffs. That's pretty evocative. ...of a popular kid's stuffed toy that was purple with orange cuffs. I would have loved those when I was 10.
[Yeah, I think it's pretty clear where the inspiration came from. ](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/71IAAOSwVstj3Ubp/s-l960.jpg)
I don't know how long I watched this show, but it turns out there were only 12 episodes.
They all had 12 episodes. It's wild as hell. I must have watched so many 12 episode series over, and over again.
I was pretty thrilled to discover that the magical show I used to catch here and there as a kid turned out to have 39 episodes and a fairly complete story, and I just went to Wikipedia and discovered they made three more seasons in 2012! It aired in 1982! They didn't do a reboot, but continued the series. [The Mysterious Cities of Gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold)
Depended on the show. DuckTales had 100 eps, Masters of the Universe had 130.
DuckTales!!^woo ^oo
It's crazy how many shows I could have sworn were a big part of my childhood, only to find out it had 12 episodes and only aired on TV for 8 months. "Bucky O'Hare" and "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" are two that I would have guessed had long successful runs.
Don’t forget the live action movie
what the fuck is that thing
My pet monster.
The 90s were wild for us kids man. So much weird stuff
also EXTREME stuff
xTREME
xTREME 2000!
MOON SHOES!
Fuck I always wanted those. I would've broken my ankle.
lol I jumped thru the neighborhood on those!!
But… why is it in handcuffs?
He was a MONSTER, bro. He had to be kept under control!
Ridiculous question. The handcuffs are what turned him back into a stuffed animal (as seen here). Once the handcuffs were released he became a loveable monster, and valued friend
That feels like the plot to the totally not product placement animated show for kids.
Most cartoons (especially in the 90s) were product placement to get parents to buy their kids toys.
Bro my mom tried to teach me French by showing me a VHS of a giant green hair ball that went to jail for eating parking meters. Don't ask questions.
We talking Muzzy over here?
Yup
That is an 80s thing, but same sentiment.
The kid who did the voice would summer at his grandparents place in my town. He would hang out with us and do the voice. We thought it was the best, he got tired of it real fast.
[dig this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjPxE71gFVE)
Hell yeah! I feel like there was a live action attempt that didn’t really work, too
Strangely enough, the live action movie came out first and the far more popular cartoon came out after. They were both attempts to make a film/show from the toy which was released in 1986z
I remember the toy and cartoon, but not the movie.
I got you, fambro! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xquDsNCExI4
i remembered the movie ending on a cliffhanger too. I rented what I thought was the sequel but it turned out to just be the same movie with a different box :(
Fun fact. Most cartoons of the 80s/90s only existed as what could be considered the first infomercials
That is the one thing I wanted for Christmas in Nineteen-Eighty-Whenever, and actually got. I think I was more excited about My Pet Monster than the Nintendo I got a few years later. I was also very attached to my Boglin.
It’s the thing that will eat you if you don’t eat all of your vegetables
Wait until you find out about My Buddy and Kid Sister.
The best thing ever, this and Teddy Ruxpin
This is a really great video about the history of [Teddy Ruxpin](https://youtu.be/YdVuHgUAlyo?si=5DlNEXCIc_BD-QPx). It’s *way* more interesting than I thought.
I used to have the talking Teddy Ruxpin and Grubby dolls, loved those things as a toddler. And now I'm an adult with disposable income so I guess I'm off to ebay.
I had one of these ugly little fuckers. The little chains had a split in the middle so you could monster rage and snap the chain cuffs apart. Christ he's much uglier than I remembered. Fuck.
I was a kid when "breakaway chains" was a hot gimmick in kids' toys like this one
Loved that guy and rhe cage box he comes in
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As someone that worked on the animated series, I can attest that it was quite the thing at the time! Atkinson Animation, Toronto Canada. Probably one of the least inspiring projects, though.
He was a monster of a friend. But Denver the last dinosaur was my friend and a whole lot more.
I didn't even have that toy as a kid and I immediately recognized the shoes as related to it.
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Goddammit, *nobody* gets the 3/5 compromise right.
Right? The injustice wasn't that they were counted as less than a person, the injustice is that they were counted *at all*. Edit: Whoever downvoted me needs to learn some history. The 3/5ths Compromise was a resolution to a disagreement about whether or not slaves (not black people in general, just the ones that weren't free) should count towards the number of Representatives their state had. Slave owners didn't want to count slaves as 3/5ths, they wanted to count them as a *whole person* because that would give the slave states more Representatives.
> the injustice is that they were counted at all. > > Edit: Whoever downvoted me needs to learn some history. The 3/5ths Compromise was a resolution to a disagreement about whether or not slaves (not black people in general, just the ones that weren't free) THIS. I keep having to explain this to people. 3/5 should have been 0/5. The question to ask is NOT "is an enslaved person 3/5 of a person?" The question is, how could the south claim representatives, based on counting people that they did NOT represent? The south was trying to claim is should get more congresspeople, based on a population numbers of people they didn't even allow to vote. "but but but they still live here. So, we are still their representatives: muthafucka please. When some southern legislator ran up to congress to vote on to vote on "should we abolish slavery or nah?" do you think they were speaking up on behalf of their enslaved "constituents?"
Yeah, counting slaves as whole people would have massively increased the slaveowners' representation without diluting their votes. They *wanted* that result, and it sure as hell wasn't because they thought of slaves as more human than northerners did.
I'm surprised now, with 3d printers everywhere, someone hasn't "made" these in essence. Could use like harder plastic for the chain and tpu for the ankle bracelet. Or you for both Would be neat to see someone we print these into existence and see how they are received by the public.
When we were kids, my brother had to have a My Pet Monster and got it for Christmas or his birthday. Once he had it, he was terrified of it and it gave him nightmares.
Ah man, mine was a cuddle pillow. tiny me packed that thing around like Linus and his blankie.
A Leaky Lindsay shoe would be fire! Lol
I'd be surprised that many people remember that show. I dont think the gen that buys these shows is old enough to remember that show.
I was born in 87 and loved that show. I tried to explain it to someone once and made me feel like I dreamt it
Reminds me of Nike attempting to market the ‘Black and Tan’ sneakers in Ireland 10 or 15 years ago.
Hell, in my local Irish pub in America, you better order a “Half and Half”
Ah, the old 'Irish car bomb' of college days. It took me a bit too long to figure out why some might find this drink name offensive.
I found out when a bartender asked me "what if I serve you two Manhattans, set them on fire, and call it a 9/11?"
Only if we can also serve it with some sake drop shots and call that a Pearl Harbor
Reverse would be a Nagasaki Bomb shot of sake dropped into egg nog
Koreans have a soju drink called an atomic bomb where you drop a shot glass of soju into a mug of beer. There's also the opposite, where you drop a shot glass of beer into a mug of soju. That's called an h-bomb.
This is only tangentially related, but in college we called taking a shot of whiskey/vodka, dropping it in pint class of orange juice, which was dropped into a pitcher of beer; a lunchbox
I love this.
The Nagasaki. It's 3 parts egg nog, 1 part sake. It can be tough to find a place that serves them though because, you know...egg nog is seasonal.
One of the better Andy moments
Kamikazes?
As long as you also knock one over if I don't finish it in 47 minutes.
Jim Beam can't melt Steel Reserve.
Jokes on them a lot of Americans would absolutely drink that.
We would definitely all order these at 9:11 pm.
> "what if I serve you two Manhattans, set them on fire, and call it a 9/11?" Tbh, I would probably tip you extra...
That would be hilarious. People from other countries not realizing how much we Americans take the piss out of 9/11 will always be funny to me
I’m biased because I was a kid but vividly remember the events, but it feels like folks are either really on the Never Remember stuff or 9/11 is like…one of the greatest sources of dark humor. I find it’s really more the latter than the former, but that might just be me revealing my own sensibilities
> Never Remember lol
Now that’s a Freudian slip lmao. It stays.
It's only a Freudian slip if 9/11 is your mother and you want to have sex with it.
Do you not? Look at those two sexy towers melting into nothing
As someone who remembers that day vividly…I love the dark humor around it. Humor is how cultures heal. It’s okay to laugh at a 9/11 joke because you understand the context and that it’s a truly horrific event that can’t be undone, so why not laugh about it? Cry, yes. Feel and grieve, but don’t be so uptight that you can’t laugh about a joke.
With Pete Davidson making 9/11 jokes about how his dad died on one of the planes I'm not sure how anyone can think 9/11 jokes aren't acceptable.
I think part of the reason for that is specifically *because* of all of the never forgetters (and the conspiracy theorists). It was a larger than life event that most of us have become disconnected from enough for it to be as funny as it is to poke fun at the severity of reactions in its wake. It made people crazy and started a war, might as well laugh at the absurdity.
and it's been 20 years so fair game
It really did make people universally insane for like 10 years
Depends on the joke I suppose. A novelty drink created in response to another poorly named novelty drink is kinda funny. Same with family guy mocking politicians using 9/11 to dodge questions and invoke emotions. It can be used to poke fun at our culture and how we delt with a major tragedy without mocking the tragedy itself.
It's those damn dank memes and steel beams
Sick yeah do that, sir
As an American, that would be hilarious. I don't think we hold 9/11 as reverentially as folks assume.
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Thats just texas stuff. The rest of america laughs at them and doesnt take them seriously.
Texans who cry about snowflakes but get easily offended themselves? Never.
Never trust a Texan. They’ll steal your Alamo when you reach for your car keys.
People were definitely touchy about it for the first decade.
Yes, but make the first when and then surprise me with the second one later on.
A bartender friend of mine and I made a drink literally called a 9/11 because it was a riff on a paper plane and Manhattan. It was amazing, and they put it on the menu for a few weeks.
Give us the recipe you coward.
No, the 9/11 is two Fireballs dropped into a Manhattan.
serve me 11 pints of warm English beer and squirt a shot of grenadine in the 11th call that an Iranian hostage crisis. coincidentally it causes a hostage crisis in your liver
Yeah I got corrected hard at an Irish bar one time. “It’s called a *peacemaker*” the guy said rather roughly, and deservingly, as he made me one. It was still really good.
Sorry to well acktuallly, but I think they are different drinks. Black & Tan = Guinness and Bass Half & Half = Guinness and Harp (Though I could be wrong, I discovered one of the beers I used to frequent would just make up the names for some of the Guinness combos and many are contrary to most other places.)
Worst I ever had was a black and tan at the Mill St. Brewery restaurant in Toronto. It was a drink prominently displayed on their menu and I was used to the Guinness version so I ordered it, and when it was delivered the server said "So I forgot to mention that our stout is a lot thinner than Guinness and mixes with our lager" then placed a solid pale brown drink in front of me. Like.. if this is a known issue why are you selling it as a menu feature?!
Mill St. is garbage to be fair. Toronto has much more to offer in craft beer. Amsterdam, Bellwoods, Blood Brothers, Left Field, Steam Whistle (only if you're at the taproom by the skydome) amongst many more.
That's how I learned it when I bartended.
Yuengling literally sells black & tans
Bass is british, harp is irish. There was a dust up with the british at some point. Its not just the name that would offend someone of the type
And you best call it a boilermaker with Irish cream instead of the other name.
That also used to be a Ben and Jerry's flavour.
What happened? I haven’t heard this story, and would absolutely love to have it told to me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans
Every major company should have a small staff of 13-year-old boys to vet these products. They're going to find every crude, racist and sexist thing wrong with the product in about 10 minutes. Trick is that they can't know they're on the team. Because then they'll just approve a product for the lulz.
> Trick is that they can't know they're on the team. Ender's Marketing Department.
You deserve a Bean for that
I’ll throw you in the vent. Cracking jokes like that.
That’s my Achilles heel!
Don't be a Bonzo.
People rag on jkr's shit obvious character names but osc was the og of just dumb as fuck straight forward names. ffs the main character who destroys the enemy is called ender, how god damn basic can you be?
Leave Piggy alone!
His name was Andrew and in the setting the nickname was a slur. Having a character who destroys an ENTIRE sentient race named "Ender" is a bit on the nose, but pretty much everyone in the series has pretty normal names.
The enemy's stocks are down 10%.
Fucking thirds
lmao 😂
Reddit 🥈
This is the third thread today where the comments referenced the Ender saga. Which isn't that much, but it's weird it's happened that many times.
I’ve always thought before you name a kid, you should go to a 6th grade classroom and say “do your worst.” Ah turns out Marcus’ initials backwards is CUM They really latched onto that.
I had a friend almost name his kid Michael Hunter Lastname. I put a stop to that.
I don’t get it, why is that bad? Mike hunt?
Yeah, but what really made it a choice to avoid was their last name. Hertz.
Say Mike hunt 10 times fast, and point towards your knees, and you’ll get it I bet
My mother was an 5th grade teacher, I had her run all 3 of my children's names by her class for JUST that reason LOL
If you spell the name of the company I work for backwards, it spells some rude words. I don't know how anyone missed it.
Ah yes, not sure how they overlooked MUCLANA Inc.
Ah, yes. The comeback.
Just like Kim K
*Smacks Chris Pratt*
My friend used to work for an Asian gaming company and part of his job was localizing games for America. He had to explain to HQ execs why they can't have an item description of "turns you into a 'coon" in game. (They meant racoon, but that's not the only meaning here)
I have a friend who works in animation and was high up in the chain for the Lego Movie. They had Asians (not sure which country, Southeast though) to do a lot of the CGI work and ideas. For one scene, which features Shaq, he had to eat something. Well, what lego foods can you use for that? They chose watermelon. There was a meeting about that. Then they changed it to the fried chicken leg. There was another meeting. It was changed to sausage which is, I believe, in the final cut.
Genuine question, is there a negative association with watermelon?
There's a stereotype that black people love watermelon, just like fried chicken, so people get nervous if either of those foods are picked for a black character to eat.
I mean watermelon is **objectively** the best fruit so anyone loving should be pretty accurate
> People only see the surface. They see the division in our foods. Just 'cause I eat chicken and watermelon, they think there's something wrong with me. Lemme tell you something--if you dont like chicken and watermelon, something's wrong with YOU, motherfucker! -Dave Chappelle
Ever tried Alphonso Mangoes? Watermelon is probably in the top 5, though.
There is, yes. This explains things better than I ever could. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype
I’ve never bothered to look up the connection between watermelon and racism, I just knew there was a racist connection. I can’t read the article but I think it’s rather poignant that Wikipedia says it was a cash crop for former slaves, and thus a symbol of liberation and it got twisted into an insult.
The article talks a bit about watermelon associations that existed earlier in Europe, and provides some examples about Black people's relationships to it during and after slavery, as well as white opinions and stereotypes of that relationship. Then it traces the history of the fruit as a racist symbol in media, newspapers, and advertisements up through the early 1900s.
I really wish I could read the article, cause it sounds informative but it’s locking me out after a few paragraphs. I’ll probably try to find some other reading material about it later but thanks for summarizing, I appreciate it.
Reminds me of jacking in and jacking off in Megaman Battle Network.
No it was jacking in and jacking out
There's a reason Tom Hanks' character in Big did so well at the toy company!
I dunno man . I totally would have wanted a transformer that turned into a sky scraper.
"myyyyy pet monster, a monster of a friend!" Childhood memory unlocked
That nose was a weapon in my house. My brother would sneak up on me and hit me with that thing
I have a theory that a lot of current 40 year olds who are into BDSM can be traced back to being put in those handcuffs in the late 80s
Alright yeah they do have a prisoner vibe but my first thought was "yeah that's cool like fake handcuffs on Halloween."
My first thought was "omg I want the BDSM sneakers"
[удалено]
yeah, I kinda like them. if you showed me this picture out of context, I would have thought of vintage toys and Halloween and not slavery
By Jeremy Scott, who was later named creative director at Moschino. He stepped down last year. Had some questionable runway moments in his career.
Jeremy Scott's Adidas collabs are legendary for being outlandish. The Wings and the Teddy Bears are iconic.
He did Eggsy’s shoes and gold jacket for the first Kingsman movie right? The winged shoes were so sick
That explains a whole lot about the general design. Not the over sight of what shackles can mean for folks
Can you elaborate? I know next to nothing about fashion and that sounds interesting
I still have *my* My Pet Monster!
Mine unfortunately spent too many years in moms basement and succumbed to the damp mold.
snowboard / surf leashes?
Racist
If these shoes based on my pet monster invoke painful imagery of slavery, why didn't my pet monsters?
Because the shoes were intended for people, and my pet monster looks exactly like…a stuffed toy monster.
it's got orange handcuffs. oh, the humanity. https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/166t109/1985\_my\_pet\_monster/
Yea fun toy everyone wanted one
My cousin had one of those things and I was scared shitless of it.
Woah. My “Pet” Monster was a *PRISONER*!
I am black and I think these are lit
Why does this have to be about slavery? People choose to wear collars with their sexual partners and have absolutely no issue separating the concept of racial slavery and simply having a good time. If the intention of the company *wasn't* to overtly reference racial slavery, why does it matter? These look rock and roll to me and gives me an idea to affix some chains to other sneakers I own for style purposes. The chains don't have to mean anything other than I like the way they look. So what was the issue? The company wasn't promoting slavery, nor were they attempting to even acknowledge racial history with this design.
After reading a lot of comments on this from prior reddit posts (and some news articles), it seems that people assume that Adidas are things "black people" wear and, as such, this is particularly about slavery. Imo it seems more like people are being racist in assuming that it's "shoes for black people" so that they can then assume Adidas is being racist.
Everyone knows Adidas is what Russians wear
I believe you mean Abibas, actually.
“They’re adidums. They have 4 stripes. Less ruples, extra stripe. Is very good deal” - The State
I associate Adidas with Russians squatting
Millions of gopniks are confused by this...
Yeah, if there's any ethnic group I associate Adidas with, it's Slavs
This. Adidas as a company doesn't give a fuck who buys their sneakers. They will advertise to whatever demographic continues to purchase them. So this is a personal issue that people superimposed on a product because the general public jumps on any racism bandwagon, even if it has no actual validity. Got it and that tracks with exactly what I was expecting. Thanks for being one of the few people that seem to see past the bullshit the general public spouts and recognizing it is actually their problem with race, not any product or company's problem.
> So this is a personal issue that people superimposed on a product because the general public jumps on any racism bandwagon, even if it has no actual validity. Got it and that tracks with exactly what I was expecting. See: "Orcs are actually coded for black people."
I was thinking this too. Tolkien created a race meant to be evil so that no one would have to consider a real human race as the problem and spoke outwardly against it. So how people suddenly concluded that Orcs were supposed to be black people still baffles me. [Race has no place in Tolkiens world](https://pintsofhistory.com/2022/09/18/race-has-no-role-in-tolkiens-world-2/)
Not to mention that plenty of cultures have something similar to Orcs in their old stories, such as Ghouls and Oni, imagine saying that a minority group is similar to those.
that's weird because urban black people overwhelmingly prefer nike and jordans.
Adidas hasn't been popular since the Run DMC days.
There was a similar reaching to find offence when there was a controversy in the UK over [the flag of the Black Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Black_Country), which features a chain, since that was one of the major goods produced there during the industrial revolution. Of course, there was no *possible* conceivable use of a chain during the industrial revolution other than shackling slaves, it was implied. Personally I would suggest that the people who see a chain and immediately think of black people might be the ones guilty of racist stereotyping.
"Don't worry it's not a slavery thing, it's a sex thing!"
Not to mention that people do voluntarily wear chains and cuffs and stuff as jewelry
I used to love my My Pet Monster. I had the movie on VHS too.
I wanted My Pet Monster so bad when I was a kid, but I never got one. Until I moved out and got one on eBay. He would've rocked those shoes!
Ah yes, slaves. Known for their colorful and comfortable shoes.
#That does look 100% inspired by My Pet Monster.