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ESC!Webs Featured Site Week of December 10, 2000 Apple Corps Web Site: http://apple-corps.westnet.com/apple_corps.html Parent Site: http://www.westnet.com/~crywalt/ Week two of "Toys on the web" brings us to the Apple Corps site. When I was a kid I had a Mr. Potato Head. I also had a Mr. Orange Head and a Mr. Cucumber Head as well as a few other assorted plastic vegetables. Our plastic veggies had poorly punched holes for the parts to stick into, felt mustaches and eyebrows, bodies(!), smoking pipes (*gasp*) and all kinds of little parts that could choke a child to death who just so much as looked at them funny. Yes, those were the good ol' days! Now Mr. Potato Head has been sanitized. He doesn't smoke anymore (which really is a good thing I suppose) and his parts are so big that not only can a child NOT choke on them but you can see his eyes coming a mile away - they're HUGE! He also has lost his body somewhere in the process. No longer do you stick little "flesh colored" hands into the yellow "male" or blue "female" body, but the arms now stick right into his/her/its sides. The potato has become the body rather than just the head! To top it all off he now works for Disney in the popular "Toy Story" movies. In fact, when building this page I couldn't find a non-Toy Story version of Mr. Potato Head on Amazon's web site. He's sold out... The Concept Apple Corps is a mixture of the old and new Mr. Potato Head. When you go to the site you are presented with a blank apple as your slate. You select pieces from the pile on the right and then click on the apple where you want it to be placed. Here's my creation:
You can see from the diagram that you have some pretty standard pieces to make either a male or female apple. Unfortunately, unless you are running at a fairly high resolution (1024x768 or greater) you won't be able to see all of your choices without scrolling. I almost missed the fact that you can actually change your veggie to something else! Ironically the only vegetable you can't change it to is a potato. I found the interface a little awkward. Each piece placement requires a screen refresh and there isn't any way to drag the pieces around once they've been placed so make sure you are precise in your clicking. Other than those minor quirks, I found this to be the best Mr. Potato Head simulator on the net. Which Is Better? Actually I'm torn on this one. On the one hand you have the infinite possibilities of the web version. Basically your apple is a free form canvas upon which you can place the pieces. With the actual toy, however, you are limited to the pre-defined holes. In the end though I think I'm leaning towards the toy. After all, when the urge to build a potato head strikes do you really want to wait for your computer to boot and connect to your ISP before construction begins? Nah. I'd like to qualify my answer though and state my preference for the Mr. Potato Head of the 60's and 70's before we realized just how deadly he could be with out humongous eyeballs. If you're at work though the net version is the only way to fly.
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