MOTA Holiday Train Set
Our Take
- You can put this train to run around anything, but most people use it around their Holiday Tree- JK we mean Christmas Tree but wanted to see how many people we could upset- Its a good way to test whether you kid would enjoy a train set without buying a big expensive one- The train itself is bigger than you might imagine, if youre imagining a small train- Model: CLASSICTRAIN (Whether this string of characters meets our Minimum Model Number Qualification Criteria sparked a great deal of debate in our model number review writers’ room. Like a split editorial board, we have decided to officially support neither side)
Fail Fast
Our own overlord @dave bought this selfsame train on Amazon back in 2014 and says, Its pretty much a train that goes around your Christmas tree. Sage words, @dave.Some Amazon reviewers claim that this train will occasionally fall off the tracks, and @dave agrees hes seen it happen before. But he disagrees with these reviewers who see this as a negative. To him, half the fun of any toy, especially a model train, is making it malfunction.Its true who wants a train that never falls off its tracks? Thats like wanting to watch a soap opera where the couples seek counseling and work through their problems in a calm, productive manner. To wit, boring.Were not saying toy trains should immediately malfunction (this one doesn’t). But they should be capable of malfunction in a way that satisfies our inner anarchistic Buster Keatons.https://media.giphy.com/media/12WhHD0pYZ1Ob6/giphy.gifWith the Yin of a toys proper function must come the Yang of destruction and malfunction. We all want our Flutterbye Fairy to live long, happy lives. But we also enjoy a deeply rooted pleasure when she is cast into the proverbial barbie:https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/video/upload/v1737929088/60f559402129db61d7fa6535bad14430.mp4And however satisfying it is to watch an expertly executed domino demonstration, we enjoy domino fail videos with equal (or greater) relish.https://d2b8wt72ktn9a2.cloudfront.net/mediocre/video/upload/v1737929111/093f562e3f0906aa33ef33e96f183d45.mp4Indeed, theres a reason that fail videos are an enormously popular YouTube genre unto themselves, while succeed video are, to our knowledge, not.This reason lies somewhere deep in the human psyche. A place that watches figure skating and roots for them to fall. A place that finds itself navigating to /r/holdmybeer in the wee hours. A place that sets up a train track around the Christmas tree and immediately imagines ways to derail it.Yes, this train my not run with shinkansen-like precision. But, to paraphrase @dave, we wouldnt want it if it did.
