RELATED: Toys That Prove Japan Has Mastered The Zen Of Weird
Weird Toys From North Korea
Knockoff Legos
With everyone’s favorite, “Toy Assembling Blocks,” North Korean kids can build anything they can dream up. So long as their dreams are state-approved, of course. Seems like “Everything is awesome” got lost in translation.
Toy Weapons
Tanks and inflatable rockets bearing slogans like “One Against One Hundred” and “The Great And Prosperous Nation” make great propaganda tools, as does the North Korean Toys ‘R’ Us jingle: “I don’t wanna grow up because if I did, death to America.”
Unicycles
Because the supreme leader Kim Jong-Un once hit 36 consecutive holes in one while riding a unicycle … on the moon! Seriously, you go figure out North Korea.
Weird Toys From Soviet Russia
Pedal Cars And Horses
In Soviet Russia, pedals push you!
DIY Potato Toys
Okay, so Russian children may not have actually made toys out of potatoes, but how sweet is that potato race car? No? Potato donkey? Tater totter? Any of these doing it for you?
Weird Toys From Nazi Germany
Third Reich Action Figures
“If you’re a very good little Nazi this year, Santa will bring you the whole Hitler Youth set!”
Model Bridges
Soldiers with firing rifles and remote control tanks are fun, but what young Nazi wouldn’t want a toy bridge? (Apparently all of them.)
Weird Toys From Communist Cuba
DIY Toys
One (relative) positive of Castro’s regime was that the lack of access to basic goods like kids’ toys fostered a nation of makers. Ironically, the US is trying to do the same thing by burying kids under a mountain of toys that teach STEM. Also, glue bottle race cars are better than potato race cars.
