Hasbro Playskool Busy Ball Popper
by Hasbro
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List Price: Our Price: $21.99 You Save: $7.00 (24%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of Hasbro Playskool Busy Ball Popper
Customer Review: Fun toy but high-maintenance
Summary: 4 Stars
My daughter received this as a gift for her first birthday. She really loved it, and would sit there endlessly watching the balls fly through the popper and listening to the songs play. That part was great.
However, once the interest of watching the balls faded, she decided to try dropping other items into the ball popper. Almost anything else besides the balls they give you with the toy is too heavy for the suction to handle, so you have to take the popper apart and remove the toy, then put it back together. It's pretty easy to disassemble/reassemble, but it does get old after the 15th or so time it happens. Also, if the kids keep hitting the start button when there's a heavy object inside, it can eventually burn out the motor, as we discovered. I would also point out that the set of Fisher Price balls that go with the Ball Blast and several of their other toys, LOOK very similar to the ball popper balls, but are actually slightly bigger and will get stuck inside the Ball Popper. So if you have any of those other toys, make sure to keep the balls separate.
Anyway, all that having been said, this is a good toy, and my daughter did very much enjoy it, it's just that some of the parental maintenance work involved got to be a bit much.
Customer Review: Fun, but potentially dangerous
Summary: 2 Stars
My daughter received this toy as a Christmas gift last year just after she turned 1. She loved it, and it became even more fun for her after she started walking and could chase the balls, which, as other reviewers have stated, tend to pop out all over the place. As the batteries lose power, the toy doesn't shoot the balls so high, so we would put half-dead batteries from other toys in there so the balls wouldn't shoot out so violently.
The main problem with this toy came last night when my now 19-month-old daughter reached down the tube to get a ball after the toy shut off. Her arm got stuck. REALLY stuck. She's reached in there before and not gotten stuck, so I don't know what was different last night. My mother, sister and I had to hold her still, hold the toy still, and remove 4 of the world's tiniest screws to get the toy apart. Even then, the top part was still stuck on her arm and we had to coat her in cooking spray to get it off. She was VERY upset and in the chaos, we lost the tiny screws, which is fine because she's not getting this toy back, even though it's one of her favorites.
I'd be careful purchasing this toy. My daughter is bright and curious and was being supervised by THREE adults when this happened.
Customer Review: GREAT fun for all ages!
Summary: 5 Stars
We ordered this toy as a gift from Santa this year for our 8 month old son and he loves it as do we. It was easy to put together & learn how to use. The "plunger" to activate the toy is easy for a baby to use, even if by accident at first ... now our son is learning more "cause-and-effect" and figuring out that when he hits the plunger, the toy turns on.
He laughs and laughs when it is on and I love that it shuts off after 30 seconds autmotically. Even when the balls aren's in it, my son loves to tilt the ball popper towards him and feel the wind blowing in his face and he laughs at that too! My 6 yr old son also loves the toy and interacts so well with the baby when they play this together.
My only "negative" comment is that the balls eventually pop all over the place and don't stay in the popper, so they are gone and I have to find them, pick them up & put them back into the toy in order for my 8 mos old to enjoy it again. This gets "old" and the balls keep rolling underneath the furniture. But, in all fairness, it states right on the box that the balls don't stay in the track of the toy all the time.
HUGE thumbs up from me on this fun and innovative toy.
Customer Review: Kids love it, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
All in all, this is a fun toy for the kids. The plunger is easy to push, and they get a huge kick out of watching the balls fly all around the house. However, like many toys the kids love, the adults in the house find it rather annoying. For one thing, it's LOUD. Why must children's toys be loud enough to damage sensitive hearing? Also, in a home where space is at a premium and nooks and crannies abound, the balls get lost fairly easily. They're somewhat interchangeable with balls from other toys, but since those get lost too... well, you can see the predicament. We actually had two of these, having received a second one as a gift. As it turns out, the second one came in handy when the first one broke due to a burned out motor. Therein lies the last problem with the toy - even more than watching the balls fly, our kids love trying to see what and exactly how much they can shove down into the tubing until the poor toy finally gives up the ghost. So, ultimately I would have to recommend this toy with some reservations, and would suggest it only if you have a nice wide area where it is easy to retrieve the balls, and you can be fairly certain that your kids aren't going to try stuffing an entire box worth of wipes down the tube.Customer Review: Even the adults seem thrilled...
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this toy over a year ago for my own toddler's first birthday and she loved it (as did my 5 and 7 year olds). In fact, they still play with it. So when it came time to find a gift for my neice who just turned one, I immediately thought of this.
The nice thing about the toy is how engaging it is. It plays music while it "pops" the balls out with forced air. Part of the fun is trying to keep the balls from scattering as well as seeing what happens if you push the balls back down where they're supposed to come out. No matter how many times you do this, it's still fun to see how high you can pop the ball out when you do let go.
My sister just called to tell me not only does my niece love the toy, but when she came home she found her husband, her brother-in-law, and their father completely transfixed with it. So it doubles as an entertainment piece, as well as a cat toy since cats seem to enjoy rolling the balls off into odd places in the middle of the night.
For the down-side: the balls can become easily lost. When we left for a couple's only vacation, all 5 balls were in the toy. When we came back, there were only 4. I never did locate that 5th ball, and it ha