New Toy Review: Baby Sweetcheeks

Christmas is approaching like an angry neighbour with a golf club, threatening to kill us if we don’t stop playing our German Hi-Octane Gabba Music at four a.m. As the temperature drops, children’s thoughts turn to running down the stairs on Christmas morning to see if jolly old Saint Nick has been to visit. And what could be more seasonal than having to explain to one’s bright-eyed children that Santa won’t be able to visit this year because Daddy lost his job and Mummy has to turn tricks in order to stop the house from being repossessed?

But for those of us unaffected by the recent economic shitslide, toy manufacturers are releasing some excellent new playthings to help us truly celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ (who died, for his sins).

One such new toy is Baby Sweetcheeks, a doll made by APL Toys. The company claim that this is the most realistic toy child ever created, a viewpoint with which I wholeheartedly agree. For a start, when buying this doll, the purchaser is not allowed to take it home from the store. Instead, the buyer pays for it, gives their home address to the cashier, and the doll is abandoned on their doorstep at a later date. When I got my special pre-release Baby Sweetcheeks doll in this manner it was very traumatic for my partner; she had no idea that a neonate would be delivered by this method, and she suspected for some time that I had fathered a bastard offspring that was now coming back to haunt me.

Baby Sweetcheeks is powered by some very advanced technology that means she must be fed on a regular basis, just like a real child. Failure to do this activates a small beacon in the toy, and APL employees will come and confiscate the doll from its owner. Obviously, this can be somewhat traumatic for a small child, but not as traumatic as the subsequent mock trial they are forced to endure, in which they are accused of neglecting their baby.

Thankfully, none of this happened to me while I possessed the toy, as I managed to bottle-feed it throughout the reviewing time. Incidentally, bottle-feeding is now the only way of feeding the Baby Sweetcheeks dolls; the prototype versions that could also be breastfed were shelved after an outcry from consumer groups, children’s charities and Mormons.

All of this should give you some idea of quite how realistic Baby Sweetcheeks is, while at the same time conveying how unpleasant that makes the toy. Add to that the crying: the incessant sobbing at night, during the day, before feeding, during feeding, after feeding, after taking it for its shots - and don’t get me started on that one - when out in the stroller…all like the sound of Hell itself emanating from a plastic child-shaped shell. Then, when one has recovered from this ear-splitting hellwail of Beelzebub, there’s the never ending stream of shit that pours forth from her prosthetic arse-hole. Seriously, this child spouts more crap than Bill O’Reilly. Oh, and if you’re worried that the bodily fluids end there, stop where you are: Shit. Piss. Vomit. It’s all there to ‘enjoy’.

So, in conclusion, while APL Toys are to be commended for developing such a realistic doll, they seem to have forgotten the most important aspect of toy ownership, and that is that the toy itself must be fun. Baby Sweetcheeks is so much like the real thing, nobody in their right mind is going to want it. It’s practically no different to having a baby of one’s own, and everybody knows that the best thing about babies is making them.

Baby Sweetcheeks, made by the Abstinence Promotion League, is available from all good toy stores and several crap ones. Puke refills sold separately.