It’s funny! It’s realistic! It’s poisonous!

The latest lead-tainted toy from the Far East is OKK Trading’s Mini-Televisor toy TV. Sold on OKK Trading’s website for about a buck, the toy is being recalled because it contains excessive amount of lead paint, and violates federal standards. Consumers are being advised to immediately remove the toy from their childrens’ grubby little grasp and contact OKK Trading for a refund or exchange.

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We’re starting to think that maybe you should stay away from dollar store toys all together. The latest lead-laden plaything is a toy xylophone from King Import Warehouse. The xylophones are being recalled because they are in violation of the lead paint standard. We know what you’re saying — “How can a cheaply produced toy made in China contain lead?” Shocking, isn’t it.

The toy was sold at various dollar stores in Texas between December 2007 through February 2008. The price of the toy? Take a wild guess. You should take this toy away from your kids immediately and either discard or bring back to place of purchase for an exchange (yeah, that sounds like a good idea). Any questions, consumers can call King Import Warehouse collect at 972-241-5464.

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The Master Toys and Novelties company have mastered putting lead paint on their Little Rider toys. Paint on certain parts of the toy exceed recommended lead levels, which as we all know by now can be hazardous to children if the paint flakes and is ingested even in small quantities.

About 6,000 of these toys were sold between April 2007 and January 2008 nationwide in dollar stores for $5-$7 (wait a minute…). Parents are being advised to rip those suckers right out of their kid’s hands and return it to where they bought it for a refund. More information about this recall can be found on the Master Toys website.

You’ll never guess where they were made.

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We’ll admit that sometimes when certain items are recalled for lead paint, we question anyone chewing on said item in the first place. But then there are slam dunks like these “Hillbilly Teeth” from Funtastic that, you know, go directly in your kid’s mouth, so it might be a good idea to make them lead free!

We always thought these were incredibly gross and unsanitary to begin with, so we’re glad for a good reason to get rid of them. About 26,000 of these Appalachian-resident-insulting gems were sold between March 2005 and March 2008 at grocery stores, drug stores, convenience stores, etc., etc., nationwide. The manufacturer advises taking the fake teeth away from children immediately and contacting Funtastic for information about a refund. But you may want to spare some poor underpaid schmuck at their factory from having to handle the spit laden returns and just toss them instead.

And hey, guess were these things were made? Since everyone seems to be in a boycott China kind of mood, maybe we should start with their toys.

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Out of all the ways warrior robots have to kill, poisoning you slowly with lead paint while you play with it doesn’t seem the most efficient. New from OKK Trading, it’s Passive Aggressive Robot!

These lead paint laden playthings were sold between October and November, 2007 under the “Interchange Robots” label at dollar stores nationwide for, yep, one dollar. Side note: next time you’re in a dollar store, constantly hold things up and ask the clerk how much it costs. They LOVE that gag!

And no big surprise, they were made in China. The robots can be returned to place of purchase for a full refund, or have them conquer the inside of your garbage can. You can visit the OKK Trading website for more information.

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Great, now our 4-year-old has nothing to wear when he goes deer hunting. A hooded sweatshirt by Brents-Riordan, Inc. is being recalled because the drawstring in the hood poses a strangulation hazard. As you can imagine, young kids could get entangled in the string, something the CPSC has pointed out since *1996*. Apparently China didn’t get the memo.

About 7,200 of these sweatshirts were sold at stores nationwide for $20 - $30, between July and December 2007. Besides the lovely print on the sweatshirt, you can look for an item number underneath the care label. The item numbers affected by the recall are 11037Y-39 and 1113Y-39. Parents should immediately remove the drawstring, or return the sweatshirt to place of purchase for a full refund. More information is available on the Brents-Riordan website.

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Is it bad that when I first read about these recalls I thought, “JCPenney is still open?” And then what made it worse is that my wife reminded me there was one at the mall down the street. Hey, I’m not trying to be elitist, it’s just nowadays when I think cheap pants, I think Target. And I guess now when I think Penney’s I’ll think “lead paint”.

JCPenney today announced a trifecta of recalls due to high levels of lead paint, including:

2,400 Breyer Stirrup Ornaments — sorry, but they’re doing you a favor keeping this tacky thing off your xmas tree.

19,000 Deluxe Art Sets — surprisingly enough there’s not lead in the paint included with the art set, but rather in the surface paint on the outside of the box.

49,000 Winnie-the-Pooh Play Sets — OK, nothing to really say about this one so I’ll go off on a tangent. How do you answer your kids with the inevitable question, “Why is his name ‘pooh’?”

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Does this seem fair to you? Toy manufactures skate by for years using cheap foreign labor that we now know do not implement the most rigorous of safety testing, and instead of maybe taking a tiny bit less profit on the ol’ P&L, they have instead decided to punish the consumer by raising prices:

NEW YORK (AP) — American consumers will be bearing the cost of safer toys, but not until after this year’s Christmas season. Shoppers can expect price increases up to 10 percent next year to pay for increased vigilance by toy makers and stores after more than 3 million lead-tainted toys from China were recalled worldwide since June. That means a $6.99 Barbie doll could go up to about $7.70, or a $70 child friendly digital camera could retail next year for almost $80

A 10 percent average increase would be the biggest one-time price hike in toys in several years, analysts say. And it’s more than twice the government’s measure of consumer inflation of 4.7 percent during the first seven months of this year.

Can you say hubris?

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See, now this is what I’m talking about — Disney has decided not to rely solely on their Chinese manufacturers, and are testing themselves that the toys they sell are safe:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Walt Disney Co. will begin testing toys featuring its characters in an effort to ensure product safety ahead of the busy holiday shopping season, according to a pair of reports published Monday.

Disney (Charts, Fortune 500), which typically licenses the use of its characters to toymakers, said it will test more than 65,000 children’s products, including items that are already on store shelves, both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported.

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Apparently the United States has struck a deal with the Chinese product safety agency, in which China assures that they will stop the use of lead paint in toys:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a cooperative effort to ensure the safety of children�s toys, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced an agreement with its product safety counterparts in the Chinese government aimed at stopping the use of lead paint in the manufacture of toys and addressing other product safety issues. At a “Consumer Product Safety Summit” held today in Washington, D.C., CPSC made known that China�s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has agreed to take immediately action to eliminate the use of lead paint on Chinese manufactured toys exported to the United States. Lead paint on toys sold in the U.S. has been banned since 1978.

In addition to the lead paint agreement, the two agencies announced work plans for cooperation in four product categories: Toys, Fireworks, Cigarette Lighters, and Electrical Products. The Work Plans provide a roadmap for bilateral efforts to improve the safety of these products, which represent some of the most frequent hazards under CPSC’s regulatory jurisdiction.

CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord stated that the Work Plans show �significant forward progress� in the agency�s efforts to bring Chinese-made consumer products into line with U.S. safety rules.

Color me unimpressed. Maybe I can be accused of being too cynical, but I’m not about to feel safe buying Chinese products just because a communist country that has shown previous complete disregard for safety standards says it’s all better now. While things certainly do need to improve on their end, I think it would be much more prudent to step up vigilance and safety testing on ours by the importers that choose to do business with China. But that’s just me.

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Those of you who short sold Mattel stock are probably celebrating this morning — toy maker Mattel has announced yet another recall of toys due to the threat of lead paint making it the third such recall by the company in just a few weeks.

This recall involves 675,000 Barbie accessories (not the dolls) sold between October 2006 to August 2007. The others include 90,000 units of Fisher-Price GeoTrax trains and 8,900 Big Big World Bongo Band toys. Full details are on the Mattel website.

Guess whose kids are getting hand made wooden toys for Christmas this year?

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As I was resizing the image for this post my 4-year-old, who has a, shall we say, unique obsession with letters and numbers looked over my shoulder at this magnetic train and immediately inquired as to if that was going to be delivered, and if not, he thinks they have it at the “play store” and we should go get it right now, come on! How do you tell your little angel no BECAUSE THE TRAIN WILL KILL YOU.

Not to be left off the lead paint bandwagon (er, train), Hampton Direct is recalling over 27,000 of their Magnetic Alphabet and Number train sets because, as well all know the drill by now, they were manufactured in China and they have an excessive amount of lead paint on them. Thanks again, China!

Sold between December 2005(!) and July 2007 nationwide for about 30 bucks, Hampton is advising parents dispose of the trains immediately. They are offering to send out a replacement train set that they said has now been thoroughly tested — yeah, uh, think I’ll pass on that one. More information is available on the Hampton Direct website.

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The latest lead from China report seems to be hitting baby bibs at Toys ‘R Us:

Tests conducted this summer by a non-profit health agency show that some vinyl baby bibs sold at Toys “R” Us stores are contaminated with lead, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The inexpensive bibs, made in China and imported for Toys “R” Us by Hamco Baby Products, contained lead levels three times as high as the level allowed in paint, the Times reported.

The tests, funded by the Center for Environmental Health of Oakland, Calif., were conducted on bibs purchased from Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores in California. An independent test conducted by a laboratory hired by the New York Times of the same bibs purchased in Maryland found similar levels of lead, the Times reported.

However Toys ‘R Us is countering that they test their bibs continuously, with the latest being in May 2007. A representative from the Consumer Product Safety Commission said to the NY Times that CPSC tests of bibs did show lead levels on occasion, but they were so low that they were not harmful especially if they were not torn or cracked.

I don’t know about you, but since these bibs were less than five bucks, I might play it better safe than sorry and ditch these things — I’ve always been preferred the cloth ones, anyway…

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In what’s sure to be a massive blow to their bottom line, Mattel has expanded their previous Fisher-Price recall to include more than 9 million Mattel toys because they may contain high levels of lead paint or small, strong magnets that can cause severe intestinal problems if swallowed.

Some of the toys involved are die-cast cars from the Pixar movie Cars, Polly Pocket, Barbie, and Batman play sets, and many others. Mattel is on massive spin control this morning, taking out a full page ad in the New York Times that stated, in part, that Mattel “was “one of the most trusted names with parents” and was “working extremely hard to address your concerns and continue creating safe, entertaining toys for you and your children.”” A bit hard to believe in light of this recent news…

Visit the Mattel website for more information and a complete list of the toys involved.

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Toymaker Schylling Associates has announced that they are recalling approximately 24,000 Thomas & Friends spinning tops manufactured between June 2001 and July 2002 because the Chinese-made (shocking!) toys had wooden handles covered with lead paint. But here’s the interesting rub — it seems Schylling may have known about the lead paint for five years but failed to issue a recall:

In researching its records after inquiries from the Tribune, Jim Leonard, the company’s chief operating officer, said Schylling found a June 2002 test report showing that the Thomas & Friends top contained lead paint on its wooden knob. That led the company a month later to make the switch to plastic.

Asked why the company did not recall the toy at that time, Leonard said, “I can’t answer that. … I had just started here.”

Leonard wins the worst spin by a COO award! Somehow I don’t think his “golly, gee willakers, I don’t know!” excuse is going to fly with parents (or their attorneys).

As an extra precaution, Schylling is also recalling similar Curious George and Circus Top tops that were sold around the same time. If you think you have one of these toys, contact the company at 800-767-8697 or info@schylling.com.

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