"The demarcations between men and wo-men will be blurred. There shall be not two sexes but one sex; a unisex. The sexes shall debate over which sex this new sex shall resemble, and the new sex him-her-self shall not know. This shall matter most urgently to those obsessed with sex."
When the Incredible Crash Dummies toy line crashed in 1993 — pun intended, and I'm not proud of it — it left behind precious few traces of its existence. As ubiquitous as Slick and Spin and Spare Tire were during their three-year peak, it wasn't long before they were swept into the dustbin and disappeared from the minds of all but a few nostalgic nerds and collectors.
Even the coolest toys of yesteryear aren't put out to pasture. As soon as the next big thing comes peaking over the horizon, whether it be action figures that talk or baby dolls that pee or baby action figures that talk and pee and say grace, the old guard is rounded up, given a stern pat on the ass, and trucked off to the slaughterhouse.
Even if that means big plans and big ideas go into the grinder.
The final two Crash Dummies figures to be released in the U.S. came bundled with VHS copies of the 22-minute cartoon pilot — a snazzy gold-and-purple version of Junkman and a new dummy named Ted, who came decked out in shades of green, grey, and black. Their card backs hinted at the release of a brand new third wave of figures that would mark the return of series mainstays Slick and Spin (now with mysterious new heavy-lifting action), and the Pro-Tek debuts of Axel, Dash, and Skid the Kid.
It never materialized. The line was cancelled before any of those new toys hit shelves. Even more peculiar, the Ted and Junkman VHS cardbacks teased the release of the very first female Incredible Crash Dummy, a lanky, beanpole-shaped specimen called "Darlene."
Turns out, this long and lanky Darlene, she of the pink and yellow Pro-Tek suit, had a checkered past. She'd been prototyped years before along with the very first Crash Dummies toys. This, from a 1992 piece that ran in Newsweek (and reproduced in its entirety right here because, damn): "In focus-group sessions, the company found that the Department of Transportation's female character, Darlene, didn't play well with little boys, who cringed at the notion of cracking up a girl. So Darlene became Daryl."
Um.
...What?
"'He still has a strangely shaped chest,' says Neil Tilbor, the former head of research and development for Tyco's boys' unit."
Well fuck me bald. He really does!
How about that? Daryl always did look and feel a little different from the other dummies. (Well, except for Pitstop, a Canadian Tire exclusive, who shares his sculpt.) No wonder! He was a boy in a girl's body!
Apparently, after two-and-a-half years spent languishing on the junk pile, Darlene, not Darlene-turned-Daryl but plain old Darlene goddammit, was finally set to make her debut alongside the boys. (Note the twin pink ribbons attached to her head, mimicking flowing hair — a neat way, seems to me, of giving a pretty genderless plastic dummy some, uh, feminine mystique.)
But like I said, it was never meant to be. Predictably, Darlene, like the newer versions of Slick and Spin, never made it out of the factory.
That seems a pretty bitter pill to swallow for all the female Incredible Crash Dummies fans. (And there were more than a few, if you'll believe the anecdotal testimony of a guy who admittedly can't recall his last meal unless he looks down at what's left of it on his shirt.) I distinctly remember being five or six years old and telling my female cousins they couldn't play Crash Dummies with my brother and I because, of course, these were "boys' toys," and girls couldn't play with boys' toys. The older of my cousins, who also happened to be about twice my size, stood her ground and barked: "Why the hell not?"
I like to think that's when the modern feminist movement was born.
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