Melissa & Doug Are All Up in My Grill

Every time I turn around, fucking Melissa & Doug are there. I want a snack and go to cut a slice of wooden pizza or make myself a felt pita bread sandwich? BAM! Melissa & Doug. I try to work on my manual dexterity with a puzzle made of six different kinds of locks? BOOM! There's Melissa & Doug. I'm feeling creative and want to paint? Melissa & Doug have the easel. I wanna make something out of four colors of shitty Play Dough? Nope! Soweeee. Can't do it without Melissa & Doug!

Melissa & Doug are so ubiquitous, I'm surprised I don't roll over and find them next to me in bed every morning. These two have a highly enviable racket going: Somehow, they attained hippie/yuppie cred before moving all their toy-making ops to China like everyone else. So now, they get the benefit of retaining a market whose consumer protection standards they long ago abandoned, while still churning out wooden (rather than plastic) crap with the same lead paint in fewer colors for twice the price.

I'm willing to bet a gross of Melissa & Doug stacking toys that no one reading this with a child under 10 doesn't have Melissa & Doug all up in their grill. The only thing Melissa & Doug don't make (yet) is wooden bling for people's actual grills. But just wait. I'm sure that's coming too.