Has Lucasfilm's licensing department finally gone too far?

[thatcrazycajun]

From Gizmodo.com: Just in time for the Comic Book Guy on your holiday gift list—electric Star Wars bathtub rubber duckies! That actually swim!
Luke Duckwalker, Princess Layer, and look over there—it's Pondtrooper!

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

ARRRRRRRR!! The scurvy marketroids deserve to walk the plank!

I think the worst part of it is that you can't even change the battery. Which makes it non-recyclable. I thought the point of the saga was *saving* the universe, not destroying it! But, no, anything for the Almighty Buck...

Walk the plank over 300 fathoms, I say, along with everyone who buys one.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I don't care how safe it's supposed to be. Anything that goes INTO the tub that has "electric" in its description isn't getting within furlongs of my front door. (We have a shower radio, hanging in the window. It does get wet, but doesn't get TOUCHED while wet, usually, and CERTAINLY doesn't rest its little zappy self in a tubful of water.)

As to the ducks themselves -- no worse than the plethora of other crap out there. See, for example, Ship of Fools' 2007 12 Days of Kitschmas list (via)

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

Regarding the question posed in your headline -

They passed "too far" ages ago, probably before "Empire" was released.

I can't recall specific examples at the moments, but in addition to the reasonable amount of quality swag they've licensed over the years, there has a small but non-trivial percentage of Star Wars merchandise has been truly dreadful, inane, irrelevant, and otherwise polymorphously craplicious.

A quick google of the phrase "stupidest star wars merchandise" produces, among others, this link:

http://www.encyclopedia-obscura.com/toystiein4.html

It's the tape dispenser that gets me. It makes me want to scrub my eyes with steel wool while lobotomizing myself with a knitting needle. Truly, that thing makes baby Jesus cry.