Saturday, January 27, 2007

The crown fish

I went down to Chicago's old Chinatown neighborhood two weeks ago (not the one near me along Argyle St.) for some dim sum with The Girlfriend and another couple and their infant son. After eating, we went to some of the little shops where they sell inexpensive tchotchkes. Often the items are irregular in some way -- such as a misprint in the logo. For a couple bucks, I couldn't resist a flashing-LED Nemo (from Finding Nemo) necklace:

crownfish1

The packaging is attractive enough, except that Nemo isn't a crown fish -- he's a clownfish. It might not be the most hilarious example of Engrish, but I was amused. I also thought it was interesting that even though this was clearly a depiction of Pixar's Nemo character, nowhere on the packaging does it explicitly identify it as Nemo, and it doesn't appear to be licensed by Pixar. Hmmm...

And then there's the fact that my scanner was unable to detect Nemo's bright orange color. To my scanner, he looks a drab gray. Should I be concerned about this? What about the warnings printed on the back of the packaging?

warning

Thank goodness, it has the CE mark (printed incorrectly). There is a symbol indicating the product is not for children 6 and under, but then Warning #1 says it is for ages 5 and up.

Surrounding Nemo's flashing LED core is the same kind of elastomeric material from which super balls are made. I can't imagine anyone deliberately trying to swallow it, but you are warned against it just in case. And then there is Warning #3. Nemo may stick to or stain various kinds of surfaces. So don't let him come in contact with anything. After reading that, I put Nemo back in his packaging, where he will stay for a good long time.

3 Comments:

Blogger Sickboy said...

This is funny Mark, thanks for sharing. Also I wanted to comment on your pics in your Flickr folder, some of those are pretty dang cool!

1/28/2007 01:46:00 PM  
Blogger Mark M said...

Thanks, Eric. Glad you liked them.

1/28/2007 03:06:00 PM  
Blogger The Girlfriend said...

Very informative posting. I'd never heard the term "Engrish" before and had no idea what the "CE" mark signified. Who knew I could learn so much from a cheap, copyright-violating, lead-encrusted (that's my guess) toy?

1/29/2007 12:32:00 PM  

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