An Official HAII Toy Review
My son loves him some Buzz Lightyear. And who can blame him? Well, my mother gave him this handy dandy battery-operated push button… multi-purpose… learning tool for his birthday.
Now honestly, what we have here us really just a toy. Kids could certainly learn on it, but I mean, come on. It’s Buzz Lightyear, and he has games. Not that these are fun, mind you. The screen is monocrome, and the buttons bring back memories of those handheld “Tiger” brand football games we had in the 80′s, where you push a button and a running back blinks on the screen until you push a button to make him juke. These are very similar. But, they are games, and kids will opt for games before learning, if left to their own electronic devices (see how I did that just now…).

Anyway, Buzz seems like he is still voiced by the great Tim Allen, and there is a narrator’s voice that helps a kid navigate to a game, or a spelling challenge, or something else. There is nothing inherently maddening here, but this toy happens to be incredibly irritating for my situation. You see, my son, who has autism, has an EXTREMELY HIGH tolerance to repetition. In fact, it makes him laugh like nothing else. So imagine him hearing the phrase “Spanish Buzz” repeated thirty two times in a row with no pause. It gets to you, you know?

Alas, I love hearing my son laugh, so I put up with this toy most of the time. But we remind Buzz that he is a TOY, and put him on the shelf when my boy isn’t playing with him. Because there are plenty of other things that make him laugh…