Paperoni Magic Movin Pets

Paperoni is fun but quite hard. When you finish that it looks like the thing on the box. It does have everything equipped.

The set contains all you will need to make three pets and their habitats. There's a rabbit, a dog and a hamster. All three pets have some element of clockwork in them and once made they can be wound up and played with. Each pet comes in a separate package in the box and there are full, easy to follow and well illustrated instructions. Basically paperoni are small paper straws - they are solid as opposed to hollow, that can be stuck on 3-D or 2-D sticky surfaces. The set contains a mix of both. The 3-D items (the animals) come with a stand to put the bodies on whilst you are working, and add on ears, tails and sticky eyes. There is a pair of tweezers and also the aforementioned habitats - the rabbit has a 2-D garden and carrots and the hamster has a working wheel, whilst the dog has a kennel; you are supposed to be able to push the bone so that the dog scurries out. All of the elements to this toy work to a greater or lesser degree.

Is it any good?

The first negative about this set is that there is a lot of waste and very little creativity. Before you even start you have discard a plastic cover for the 3 bodies (one per pet) and there a 1500 paper straws included which is more than you are ever going to need - we have a whole cereal bowl full left over. Apart from the packaging you also have to throw away the 3 plastic stands, which didn't seem to be recyclable. The toys once made aren't either a particularly durable or long lived affair, as I shall explain.

That said the actual making of this set was something that my daughter really enjoyed. Basically you have to stick straws all over the bodies, and you can choose whatever colour you would like. There was some confusion that the bunny's nose wasn't purple as per the box but a bog-standard pink, but bar this my child found the set easy to use and she enjoyed doing it. I'm not sure there was quite the "hours of fun" that the manufacturer promised, but it certainly kept her quiet and gainfully employed for an hour or two. Probably the least satisfying part was making the 2-D roof tiles but bar this she enjoyed making the animals and selecting her own colours, though she did need some assistance adding ears and the like which even I found tricky as they had to be slotted in quite firmly.

Once made the toys are designed to be played with, this aspect of the toy is where results are varied. The hamster has a tail which you pull and then he can scurry across the floor or be put in the wheel. The hamster wheel is on castors, it does turn round quite well and the hamster is fairly durable though, inevitably as with all the animals the actual paperoni do fall off with play - they are attached with sticky glue which doesn't seem to dry firm. The rabbit hops, sometimes, but the turner is quite hard for a child to turn and the clockwork is a bit erratic. The dog runs around quite well, but the bone you are supposed to press to release him from his kennel doesn't work at all.

Overall?

All in all then it's a good toy on the basis that my child instantly loved it and enjoyed making her pets and likes playing with them. She has played with her pets far more than I would have thought possible, however I don't think it worth anything more than about £10 for the set. Though this set has given new life to the Paperoni concept which I have previously been deeply unimpressed by I wish it didn't involve quite so much waste, we have lots of left over straws that we could, in theory, use for other craft, but I suspect are going to throw away - that will make it probably near on half of the set being waste, which I find hard to forgive.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that my child loves this toy, and her sister would have liked to get her hands on it too - I think for a child over 5 this set is likely to be a winner - so despite its negative I am being quite generous on how many stars I give it. Child recommended but rather expensive and ultimately wasteful and not very well made.