Stomping. It's all the rage.

I saw a commercial for these the other day -- they're a new kind of slipper for kids that basically do action X when you stomp on them. They flop their ears, open their eyes, flap their mouths... It's a pretty good idea, if perhaps a tad unsafe on the stairs. They're basically a non-electronic version of those light-up sneakers all the kids had a few years ago.

I'm pretty sure they didn't they do any sort of marketing research before naming these things, though. Almost all the names rely on some sort of dumb alliteration. BeBop Bunny, Perky Puppy, etc. They went off the rails a bit with "Playful Blue Puppy." I think they may have been running out of steam at that point.

Then there's this one:

The Unusual Unicorn? What makes him unusual? The fact that his horn looks like soft-serve ice-cream? Because that's pretty unusual. Or maybe not. I don't have any unicorns so I'm probably not the best judge of horn quality. Maybe it's just the first word they stumbled upon that met their very low alliteration standards. On the flip side, I'm now going to assume that the 'usual' unicorns are the ones I see all the time. I probably won't even brake for them when they're crossing the street anymore. BAM! Who gives a crap. Those stupid things are all over the place.

And this:

Yes, it's the One-Eyed Monster, which is not at all a euphemism that's been around since the dawn of time. They had to go and muddy the waters, didn't they? Now when someone asks me if I'd like to see their One-Eyed Monster, I'm going to need to clarify a few things first. Are they a pair? Are they fuzzy? Wait, this isn't really helping. Not only is the name highly suspect, but apparently it's been knighted like Paul McCartney, because it's using the honorific "Sir." Like that lends them some credibility or something. I can see the marketing execs sitting in the conference room brainstorming about the name. "There's just something missing. We need to pump these up. Add something to make that One-Eyed Monster stand up and be noticed. Hey! I know! Let's just add a 'Sir' on the front. Hell, it worked for Alec Guinness, and he was a nobody."

Initially, what I found confusing was the question of whether or not they are two separate monsters. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I determined that they would have to be, otherwise they'd just be a regular two-eyed monster that had been even more inappropriately named.

I don't know. It's probably just me, but there's something in my brain that refuses to accept "stomping" as a valid activity if One-Eyed Monsters are involved.

I'll probably have to go for the BeBop Bunny.