Mattel’s Bug Racer is a Toy Car Driven By a Cricket, Also Insane

Daniel Howley
·Technology Editor
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There are some questions that simply can’t be answered. Why do we exist? How did we get here? Is there life on other planets? Why the hell did Mattel make a toy car driven by an actual cricket?

Yes, Mattel, the company behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, has built a toy car that’s controlled by frog food. The Bug Racer is a cricket-shaped car that is an actual product you can really buy. Seriously. It’s on sale at Toys R Us for $40.

Gizmodo’s Toyland first spotted the car, which features a clear plastic habitat where the cricket can live, eat, and pray for the sweet release of death as it realizes that its fate rests in the cruel, unforgiving hands of a human child.

The cricket steers this horror machine via motion-sensitive panels in the Bug Racer’s cockpit. Which means if the cricket hops to the right, the car turns right and vice versa.

If your cricket friend isn’t in the mood to play designated driver, the Bug Racer can be set to Autodrive mode and act as a chauffeur for your insect friend.

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As if the idea of a toy car driven by a bug wasn’t insane enough, Mattel also released some kind of LSD-induced nightmare of an ad for the Bug Racer complete with the company’s fictional pitchman having a nervous breakdown while being driven by a cricket.

Naturally, the Bug Car doesn’t come with a cricket, so you’ll have to buy your own from a pet store, or just go to a Jeff Dunham comedy show. Ba, dum, dum.

via: Gizmodo

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Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.