photos courtesy SpinMaster

It’s Saturday and I’m sitting around watching Disney’s One Saturday Morning (or at least that’s what it was called when I was young. Back then it featured "Recess" and "Doug" and now it’s "Hannah Montana" and other peoople-shows). One of the best things about a nationally syndicated morning of kid-targeted television is the commercials. Children’s commercials are majestic; they’re full of fake gardens and flying toys and really fast He-Man voices saying, "Batteries not included!" But in beteween commercials for sweet products like cupcake decorating machines and wilderness Barbie playsets, I saw an ad for something called a "Tini Puppini" and I couldn’t look away.

To a crazy ’80’s-tastic-cum-neon-L.A.-airhead song were a bunch of ugly, mean-looking dog stuffed animals with spindly legs and vacant eyes. They had hair extensions, glitter, flower-embroidered jeans and all kinds of other things that remove the dog from its once-timeless role as man’s drooly and cute best friend into this odd pseudo-posh role created by girls like Paris Hilton who want babies but are smart enough to know that they do too many drugs to have babies. Erego, the dress-up dog.

I went to the Tini Puppini website and was horrified to see that it gets even more elaborate. The dogs, named Tisha, Toffee and Tutu all have profiles that are framed inside of compact cases, and say things like, "When she’s not lounging by the pool or lunching at her favorite hot spot with her pals, you’ll find her shopping on Rodeo drive." There’s also a feature where you can put makeup on the dogs. Turns out it’s really hard to make a dog not look slutty. Here’s mine:

Scary huh? But it’s still cuter than the toy. If you’re really bored, check out their website at www.tinipuppini.com and be glad that we grew up in the era of waterbabies and Pokemon.