Outside of Toho Kingdom, I'm rather
notorious among my coworkers for being the proverbial
"wet blanket" when it comes to practical
jokes. Perhaps it's just my philosophy to always
try to make a prank friendly or to always have it
end with a sigh of relief; regardless, practical
jokes are a rarity for me. Nevertheless, the internet
provides a medium that allows for my style of humor,
and there is one day in the year where there is
a universal, unspoken law that gives me an outlet
for my shenanigannery.
TK
Staff Trading Cards
(Collect Them All!)
The day in question is, of course,
April Fools' Day; and what better way to celebrate
than by adding a completely unusable web store (2010),
posting an unnecessary flash
intro without the benefit of a skip intro button
(2009), contributing to a self-indulgent blog (2007),
or even hiring on completely fictional staff members
whilst plunging the forums into a sea of random,
word-censored confusion (2006)? But I digress, let's
concentrate on the most recent one.
For 2010, I had two ideas for the
April Fools' Day prank. I submitted them both to
Anthony for consideration, just on the off chance
that he didn't have a joke already planned. The
first idea was a Toho Kingdom quiz, where members
would have to answer trivia in order to gain access
to the site. The second idea was a Toho Kingdom
store, where users would be offered the chance to
buy overpriced, overrated memorabilia.
The
blue kanji, which were superimposed onto several
of the original images, roughly translate
to "April Fools' Day".
The second idea was agreed upon,
and work began to make what I thought would be an
instantly unbelievable store to showcase a variety
of completely asinine items. The kiosque was posted
on the index page, situated above an inactive checkout
button.
I personally thought that nobody
would buy it (pardon the pun). Don't get me wrong,
I was very excited to pursue the idea, but I simply
thought it would end up being a purely fun prank
without anyone finding themselves "taken in".
I even posted the notorious March 32nd date in accordance
with tradition. Nevertheless, an email from a concerned
visitor warning that our prices might be a tad too
high (and our quantities a bit skewed) toppled my
preconceived notions about the potency of the practical
joke.
For those of you interested in just
what we had to "offer", please see below.
Originally, photos accompanied these descriptions.
Since the prank was only going to last a day, there
wasn't an immense need to worry about usage rights;
so we are now quite incapable of posting many of
the photos that were initially used:
The
Hat:
A hat temporarily
worn by Akira Kurosawa during his well-known
1989 visit to Miami, Florida. We think it was
around this time that he wrote the scripts for
both Dreams
(1990) and Madadayo
(1993). John McCartney, who currently resides
just outside of Titusville, saved the hat and
donated it to Toho Kingdom back in 2004. Today,
we're proud to sell it at an exorbitant (technically
infinite) profit:
Price:
899.99
Qty. Remaining:
10
Miki
Saegusa Action Figure:
Miki Saegusa,
proud psychic
defender of Japan and international face of
the Heisei Timeline. Equipped with LED eyes,
her powers are clearly superior to those of
other psychics.
She fought the nuclear leviathan with her mind
powers in Godzilla
vs. Biollante (1989), a feat only SpaceGodzilla
has since been able to boast. Please buy her;
her excellence speaks for itself:
Price:
199.99
Qty. Remaining:
30
Female
Godzilla:
The King of
the Monsters herself? Queen Hatshepsut,
I presume? This is the rarest-of-rare of Godzilla
action figures... Female Godzilla (only 200
were produced back in 2005). You can tell she's
female due to the biological idiosyncrasies
of the upper tail region. After years of searching,
we've managed to amass a pretty substantial
collection of these rare dolls, thereby cornering
the entire market:
Price:
399.99
Qty. Remaining:
210
Goji
Berries:
The name speaks
for itself. A three week supply of anti-oxidant
rich Goji Berries, Godzilla's berry of choice.
Widely found in pretentious pseudo-hippie stores,
these dried little joys will bring a much-needed
infusion of radioactivity to your nuclear core:
Price:
49.99
Qty. Remaining:
80
"Don't
Stomp on my City!"™:
Rights to the
phrase "Don't Stomp on my City!"™
are available only here. What better way to
show your girlfriend, wife, or Japanese Anime
body pillow that you love her than by buying
her the rights to this stomptastic bit of phraseology?
From our hands to your hands and back to our
pockets:
Price:
1999.99
Qty. Remaining:
1
Signed
Photograph:
Would you like
signed photographs of your favorite Toho actors,
actresses, and/or rubber-suited beasties? Akira
Kubo, Kumi
Mizuno, Toshiro
Mifune, and Nancy
Cartwright are among the few personalities
available upon request, in autographed photo
form! There are so many more:
Price:
399.99
Qty. Remaining:
Unlimited
Anguirus:
The Board Game:
Anguirus:
The Board Game, produced in extremely limited
quantities following the release of Godzilla
vs. Gigan (1972) in Japan. This is
the ultimate for any Angy-Fan (or "Angy-Fangy",
if you so desire). Roll up in a spiky ball and
make your way across 47 challenging spaces with
23 heart-pounding situation cards. Will you
end up in Siberia, or will you find yourself
massively pwned by Mechagodzilla? The possibilities
are finite!
Price:
743.26
Qty. Remaining:
3
Advertise
on Toho Kingdom:
Do you have
a brand of soda that you would love to market
to our nerdy demographics? Do you run an MMORPG
that you feel our users would find "groovy"?
Are you a representative from a financial
institution that boasts a suspiciously ambiguous
mission statement? It doesn't matter; we want
your money! And we're willing to put advertising
wherever you so choose. We have a simple formula
for determining the costs of our advertising
services; please have the Harvard graduate
students that you've Shanghaied into indentured
servitude explain to you the simple metrics
behind our even simpler formula (n = the net
worth of your business):
TK Staff
Trading Cards:
I'll trade you
two Chris Mirjahangir's for three Steve Johnson's.
What can we say? Young minds are impressionable
and trading cards are lucrative. There's nothing
better than having the full collection of anything,
right? All TK Staff Trading cards are the same
low price, with the exception of the ultra-rare
Anthony Romero Holographic Starter Card
(only triple the price of the other trendy cards):
Price:
74.99
Qty. Remaining:
100
Uranium
(Replica):
Hey, Godzilla
eats the stuff for breakfast; why shouldn't
you? This is uranium-235 that we've procured
through mostly legal means, and we're pleased
to present to you this highly volatile, easily
fissile material at a relatively low price.
Please remember that uranium-235 can
be used to make atomic bombs, and therefore
should NOT be used in this manner.
All interested parties will be asked to sign
a pledge stating their capitulation with our
expectations. (Note: This is a replica, not
the real stuff.)
