From another article, we can see it was based on Fisher-Price's "Ocean Wonders Aquarium". It was also stated the toy was being manufactured in China, though this really doesn't help to narrow it down much. I'd recommend we scavenge Walmart.com's site archives from around the time of the controversey to see if we can locate the item, as it seems their site has actually been well archived.
Yes,as far as I understand,this toy was meant to be Walmart's cheap ripoff of the very popular Fisher Price aquarium toy. Good idea to check the archives,I'll head over to WaybackMachine right now
Back in 2003, there was a minor controversy over a certain toy meant to "soothe" babies. It was one of those typical little fake aquarium things with the plastic fish which you're supposed to hang on the side of the baby's crib,and then when you press a certain button it plays a continuous track of ocean sounds which are meant to soothe the baby at night. The toy was sold at Walmart,under Walmart's own brand,Kid Connection. Now,the interesting thing about this toy is that some people claim that there is a subliminal message hidden within the ocean sounds soundtrack. Some people say that after listening to it closely,they could hear a faint voice in the background repeating "I hate you",again and again. Many parents complained about this,and the toy was quickly pulled from Walmart's shelves. Why this message was there remains a mystery to this very day. I think it would be very interesting to try and research this toy and solve the mystery. As of now,I cannot find any recordings of the toy and it's ocean soundtrack anywhere. This would be great to find,in order to confirm the presence of the subliminal message,and also just to be able to hear what it sounds like. I would also appreciate any info on the toy,it's manufacturer,the designer ect. Basically,anything you can pull up on this toy is valuable,imo.
Here is a good description of the toy from the news article:
The unnamed toy is tugboat-shaped with four small cartoon-like figures on the front – a fish, starfish, crab and an octopus. It is blue and white with a red anchor on the side where you push a button to make it play either music or the ocean sounds.
Here is an image of the toy,tho it's quite low quality:
I remember being able to access some Teletoon flash games on the wayback machine from the 2000's. I played this one old game they had where you're supposed to wedgie everyone you see except for this one old lady. Not every game worked though, which I'm kind of grateful for because I almost tried out a mega babies game which I assumed would've been disgusting as fuck, but it didn't work.
Oh yes,I've already been messing around with teletoon.com on WaybackMachine a lot actually haha. Sadly,it's not on there . I think I've actually found the page the game was on,but it doesn't work.
It would be nice if you tried it out too,just to rule out the possibility that it's an issue with my browser or something. I really doubt it tho,it seems like it's just dead :/
Btw,the wedgie game you mentioned is called Edgy Wedgy,and it's pretty easy to find,you don't even need WaybackMachine. It was very popular back in the day and many people saved it and reuploaded to other sites. Ex. Here it is on SWFChan : swfchan.net/38/189459.shtml (Warning : SWFChan is somewhat NSFW,there's all sorts of shady pop-ups there,sometimes porn pop-ups). I love this game,I remember giggling at the expressions the people made when they got wedgies as a kid lol,ahhh the nostalgia .
I know all of these Teletoon games really well,because they're a huge part of my childhood. They were literally the first video games I ever played. Airheads Bubble Dog's Crazy Mission is a really rare game,only up for one month. If we could find it somehow,it would really mean a lot to me.
The documentary is called "Nevidljiva Smena (Invisible Crew)". It is about how a "Neva" rocket system crew shot down an F-117A stealth fighter during the Yugoslav conflict and NATO intervention in 1999. Really interesting stuff on how stealth technology was beaten. It includes interviews with all of the crew members and reenactments. Also interesting is how it reveals how it seems that the crew commander(Zoltan Dani) got all the glory and awards,despite the fact that in reality his contribution was minor.
I've found parts of it on youtube,but can't seem to be able to find the whole thing anywhere.
The best I could find was this video,which for some reason cuts out half way through and continues on as just a still frame : www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCq_gwF-Uy8
Part 2/3 was taken down,and 3/3 is still up(the last 14 mins of it).
I would really like to find this in full,and it feels so close,but there's still huge chunks missing :/ .
You can just replace the floppy drive,it's not that hard. It would be much easier than finding a repair guy who is still familiar with floppy drives. You can find a replacement by looking around at places where they sell old computer parts,like Goodwill,flea markets,pawn shops,electronics recycling depots ect. I've found that the best place by far to find parts like this is this recycled electronics reseller NPO called Free Geek,so you're really in luck if there's a Free Geek in your area. If you can't find the FDD itself for sale,you can always buy a PC that has the FDD and just take it out of that one and put it into yours,since these older PCs are dirt cheap. All you have to do is take a look at which model FDD you need,and then you can start searching for it.
The first game you describe sounds very interesting,I love room escape games,and I've never seen one with RPG elements before. Do you know which model Dell computer this was? Because then finding out what software was pre-bundled with it shouldn't be too difficult...
It was! I absolutely adored it, which makes forgetting the name even worse! Still love escape the room's to this day! It was definitely a Dell Dimension. If you look at the Wikipedia page, ours resembled the black one on the right side of the first image.
Sorry for the late reply, by the way, I haven't had much free time as of late!
That is the Dell Dimension 4500. I did some looking around and found that it came with a Star Wars gaming bundle(StarWars Gaming bundle STARWAR [06-20564]). Interestingly enough,I actually know exactly what that game was,because that computer was what we had in the computer lab at my elementary school. It was a pod racing game,I have lots of good memories of playing that in the computer lab as a kid haha. Anyhow,I couldn't find anything matching your description,sorry :/ . Are you sure that that's the model of the PC,like is there any way you can double check ? Also,do you know where the PC was purchased from ? Because I was able to find that Best Buy offered the Star Wars bundle,but different retailers tend to bundle different software. If you know where it was purchased,that could help a lot.
Guys,I've actually managed to find the game! It was Syphon Filter 3. Looks like I got a lot of details wrong,like it's third person instead of first person,and it's for the original Playstation. Just goes to show you how your memory gets fuzzy over time. One thing I'm 100% sure of tho,is that we WERE actually playing on the PS2. Must have been using the backwards compatibility.
Guys,I've actually managed to find the game! It was Syphon Filter 3. Looks like I got a lot of details wrong,like it's third person instead of first person,and it's for the original Playstation. Just goes to show you how your memory gets fuzzy over time. One thing I'm 100% sure of tho,is that we WERE actually playing on the PS2. Must have been using the backwards compatibility.
Well,sadly it's not Cold Winter,I looked through the characters - no grandma there,nor is there any possibility of unlocking a grandma character somehow. Whatever this game is though,it looks pretty similar to Cold Winter,similar graphics style. I think me and Sandman probably played the same game,and it came out on both platforms.
The first game you describe sounds very interesting,I love room escape games,and I've never seen one with RPG elements before. Do you know which model Dell computer this was? Because then finding out what software was pre-bundled with it shouldn't be too difficult...
This barely fits your description but just for the sake of throwing it out there... was it Worms 3D? The playable characters were all just worms, it wasn't splitscreen, I don't remember if there was a warehouse level, and it was only first-person while you were aiming your weapons, but it does have a Grandma-type character... that you could use as a walking explosive. www.models-resource.com/gamecube/worms3d/model/6058/ (can't seem to find any gameplay videos of the weapon in use though)
No,it's definitely not Worms 3D. I'm looking through the list Happy Brian gave me now,hopefully that will help me. I've already looked through some titles that caught my eye,and so far the one that looks the most similar to what I played is Cold Winter. Could that have a grandma in it though? I couldn't find a character list for multiplayer anywhere. One thing I'm thinking is,whatever this game is,the grandma could be an unlockable character,either through an achievement or a cheat code,and I wouldn't even know it because I've never played the campaign of this game,just the multiplayer :/
So I have this very faint memory of playing this game over at someone's house back when I was a kid,it was a split-screen FPS game for the PS2,and the only thing that really stands out to me is that one of the characters you could pick was a grandma with a scarf around her head. I'd really like to know what this is...
try time spliters 2
Well,I looked through all the characters in that game,and there's no grandma. Also,from what I remember of this game,it didn't have that many characters and the character select screen was different. I would guess that it had maybe around 12 characters,and the character select screen was just a normal grid showing all the characters on the screen at once,not a slider. Another thing I can sorta remember from the game was that it looked kinda dark,like it seemed as if you were using a flashlight to see what was in front of you all the time,everything looked dark. The only map I can really remember tho was this warehouse map,which is just your standard warehouse with all the assorted boxes,the big shipping containers and all that stuff,so the darkness may have been only on that one map.
So I have this very faint memory of playing this game over at someone's house back when I was a kid,it was a split-screen FPS game for the PS2,and the only thing that really stands out to me is that one of the characters you could pick was a grandma with a scarf around her head. I'd really like to know what this is...