Crocodile Dentist
Made by yet again the same guy who made Gator Golf, who I'm thoroughly convinced is an actual crocodile wearing human clothes and somehow passing himself off as a person in society so as to prepare us for the eventual takeover by his species (of which I wholly support, for the record), Crocodile Dentist is, surprisingly enough, NOT a Wesley Willis song. This is another game I had growing up, and I'm beginning to wonder what it was about me that gave off enough of a vibe of liking giant scaly lizards that made people buy me not one, but two, different gator games. Was I seriously that giant of a dweeb that I just had to have both? Either way, I loved both, so who cares. Crocodile Dentist is a hell of a lot simpler in concept and execution. Where as Gator Golf came with a whole apparatus and whatnot, Crocodile Dentist comes with just the Croc (and it seems in some versions a pair of what appear to be pliers, which, and I cannot stress this enough, ARE NOT FOR PULLING TEETH) that you're trying to perform dentistry on.
Sadly, this is not a game that has to do with a dentist who just happens to be a crocodile. As amazing as that would be, we just weren't that creative yet, and instead it's the kids who have to perform dentistry on the crocodile. A crocodile who, quite frankly, has a much calmer look on his face than most animals or people about to subjected to the horrors of oral surgery. Trust me, nobody is ever that relaxed when in a dentists chair. I don't know if this croc just smoked pot or something before their visit, but jeez.
This toy had a similar mechanism to Gator Golf, in the sense that this toy had the jaw snap down if you pulled the wrong tooth. Actually, it's the sore tooth that gets you the ol' snappy snap, and the jaw clamps down on your poor fragile little child hand, forever rendering you down an appendage. This doesn't make sense though, because shouldn't the goal be to remove the bad tooth? What kind of sick son of a bitch just pulls teeth out willy nilly and is like "Aw, looks like this one wasn't the problem either! Better just keep yankin'!" That's horrible. According to my research, the original toy did in fact come with pliers, to ensure children wouldn't hurt their fingers, but I don't ever recall using them because I don't play by the rules. I'm a loose canon dentist on the edge.
Much like Gator Golf, which actually is a later game, Crocodile Dentist also became one of the best selling toys of the 91 Christmas season and remained a high seller afterwards. However, apparently I'm not the only one confused by its existence, because even back then, several commentators stated it was one of the strangest new toys available, with one, the York Daily Record's own Mike Argento, legitimately asking, "what kind of mind came up with this game?". However, 12 years later, even Argento admitted that the toy had passed into "classic" status, admittedly. This was actually the first of Robert Fuhrer's games featuring the animal, and its success then lead him to continue onwards and create SEVERAL OTHER CROCODILE THEMED GAMES. This man clearly has a problem.
Fuhrer, who ironically is a Jewish man and says he hasn't been asked as much as he thought he would be during interviews about having such a notorious last name, is actually apparently an enormous name in the toy industry. He founded the company Nextoy in 81 and in fact the winner of a prestigious award in the toy industry called the I.D.I.O.T. (International Designer and Inventor of Toys), so he's pretty much secured his place in history, safe to say. Still, I find his gator obsession endlessly fascinating, and, I sort of get it. They're really cool animals, but just...several other games themed around them? Are they THAT interesting? I don't know, man.
Either way, Crocodile Dentist and Gator Golf are two of the best, and most fondly remembered, games of my youth, personally, and that's why I wanted to cover them here as a sort of double header. I think they deserve to be talked about more, and, much fun as I may make of them and the man himself, I really do genuinely love them and am happy he created them. And I'm pleased to hear that he's still around and making toys for kids to this day! That's a man really dedicated to his craft. Here's to you, Fuhrer.
I can say that, we're both Jewish and it's his last name. Calm down.
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