Suckerman and His Friends

The thing about Suckerman, the clinging vinyl critter, is that he doesn't stick. Don't believe the box. He simply doesn't grip most surfaces. Despite the suction cups that bulge from his body, he makes but the feeblest attempt to cling to the wall of the Jordan Marsh toy department, bouncing off again and again with his shallow vinyl grin intact.

But Suckerman, failure that he is, at least has character. There's never been a T.V. show or a movie about him. He has no video roots. So if he stuck, even at $8.50, he might be a reasonable investment, forcing, as he does, the exercise of some imagination.

As for the rest of the Xmas crop of toys and gifts for the youngster, they all have a hook. Somewhere, deep in their past, there is a superhero. Or even better, a supervillain. Darth Vader Death Star space stations are hot this year, even at $40, a clerk explains. And why not--they've got an Alien Trash Monster, a Rope Swing to Safety, an exploding laser cannon and even a "working elevator."

And to accompany your Death Star: C3PO models, Star Wars Give-A-Show, all manner of action figures, all sadly inert, as well as a plastic model of a "Patrol Dewback" and a Star Wars Playdoh set. For the Star Wars afficionado with everything else, there is the official plastic "Star Wars mini-action figures collector's case."

A decade after Apollo, other space motifs also abound. Battlestar Galactica cruisers must have caused problems at some point--each bears a red label announcing "Redesigned Toy-Missiles Cannot Be Launched." Kind of makes you wonder.

Even Playskool, which once made toys for liberals, has gotten into the act. "Star Rider" has "all the controls and special effects necessary for trips to distant galaxies." When it turns out that all that seperates you and distant galaxies is three different kinds of sirens on a plastic dashboard, you feel almost cowardly not to plunk down the $75.

Some of the adventure toys are truly freaky. Woolworths has an aisle devoted to the Megabugs--Megaspider Gladiator, Scorpion Megabug and Dragonfly Megabug. They are "the combat machines of the future." They cost $8.29, but include "bug bomb, working winch and insect sound." You can manually operate the wings on Dragonfly Megabug.

Even literature comes to life, after a fashion. "Shogun" was the story of 17th-century Japanese warriors. In a major mutation, Shoguns have evolved since into $7 "die-cast metal warriors" with arm-mounted rocket launchers. Not only that, they have "vertilift" airplanes. Not only that, people buy them.

And another literary toy. A designer has created small dolls that "move when you push their helmets." Pushkins, they're called.

Comic books provide inspiration for some of this year's collection. Mattel's think tank christened a green artificial limb, definitely a best buy at $3, "Hulk Hand." An identical red limb--Spiderman Hand--is available for the same money.

And where fantasy has been exhausted, there is still real life to some toys and games. Popular music, for instance. There is the Bee Gees rhythm machine, not an instrument really, but instead a true rhythm machine. There are three rhythms a child can select.--latin, pop and disco. Perhaps it is appropriate that the Bee Gees have lent their names to this product.

Overall, electronic devices have replaced instruments as the source of music for children. At an age when Beethoven was grinding out major works, children today are encouraged to buy the "Magical Musical Thing." Shaped vaguely like a rifle, its maker promises you can "play it like a piano keyboard" or "play it like a guitar and be a star." Either way, "Touch a tune or strike a song, let your fingers creep along."

An argument could be made for the relative superiority of the Magical Musical Thing, though, when it's stacked up against the electronic games dominating what the marketers call the "high end" of the toy business.

The electronic games seem to encourage simple repitition. (Although at Jordan Marsh they encourage nothing since the display models are mostly out of batteries except for one called "Einstein," which sounds, from its weary beep, to be operating at about one-tenth normal charge.) One machine obviously designed to increase a child's self-confidence, boasts simply "I am programmed to beat you." Even Etch-A-Sketch, once a marvelously cranky mechanical drawing toy, has been automated.

The toys that don't mess with your mind mess with your hair. Mork and Mindy's Ork Egg is full of "icky, gooey, yucky gucky Ork goo," which "sticks to rugs, fabric and hair." And only $1.75.

Obviously toys today cater to a media-conscious following. And for those not in the know, shopping can be disheartening. An older gentleman speaking in heavily-accented English wandered through the Jordan Marsh toy department. Approaching a stranger he demanded excitedly "Where are the Legos? At FAO Schwartz, at Filenes, at everywhere they say no Legos, try the Jordan Marsh. Where are they?" The stranger pointed him in the direction of Suckerman