Where Will the Merchandising Stop?

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail today titled "Merchandising Gone Arwy." After going to the link provided and reading the write-up, I saw how right he was. Here's exhibit A, the Merchandising item in question...

It appears to just be a cute little kids' thermometer featuring Spongebob Squarepants. Yes maybe a little dopey, but no more outlandish a merchandising scheme than say a Winnie the Pooh toothbrush or a bottle of bath soap with Elmo on it. There's one little catch though. According to the e-mail forward, clearly printed on the packaging are the words "RECTAL THERMOMETER".

.....Long dumbfounded silence......

Oh wait, it gets worse. Apparently also clearly printed on the packaging is the word "MUSICAL"! Yes, you heard that right! This little number plays the Spongebob theme song as you put it in your screaming child's corn hole. I was completely astounded by this forward and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I just had to do some digging and see if this was as messed up as it appeared.

I found the website of the company that makes this little beauty. There was a picture of the packaging, but it was too small to read all the fine print...

I read the product details on the website and discovered it was designed for "oral, underarm, or rectal use". Ok, I feel a little better now. At least they weren't using Spongebob as a pitchman for getting kids to enjoy having their temp taken that way. Reading further on the website, "Plays Spongebob Squarepants theme at end of temperature taking", and "fast, 9 second temperature read-out". It's probably best that the song plays after you're done because after a couple uses the kids would probably run away screaming when they heard it playing. I still can't imagine that this will be good for Bob's TV ratings. I mean, if kids associate Spongebob with cold probes in the nether regions I think they might start to lose interest in the show. And what's with the "fast, 9 second temperature taking"? That might be fast for oral use, but that's an eternity on the other end of the digestive system.

So what's my point with all of this? Do I think this is wrong or something? No, I'm a capitalist and if you can make money selling this sort of thing, I say go ahead. Just know that I will mock you and call you stupid while you do it. Come on people! I don't care if Spongebob magically comes to life and dances a jig with his little undersea buddies after each use. I don't see this making temperature taking any more fun for my kid. There's just some places that merchandising shouldn't go. My kid's pooper is one of them.