I’m pretty sure this is a joke, but it’s a pretty elaborate one. I saw the URL on a full sized billboard just outside Albany NY, on a very major thoroughfare. Must cost quite a bit to maintain that.
Taken tongue in cheek, the website is pretty funny. For example, the zapper has separate settings for “tot” and “teenager”. Under “purchase” all you get is an 866 phone number asking you to leave your number to be called back. I didn’t want to take it that far…
The site does not look like a joke. I called the number and got a recording that sounded quite serious. If Dale wasn’t tied up with the massive cock-up with the forum service, I would ask what a Psy professional would have to say about this.
Personally, there is only one use I can think of and that is for the inventor to have one of these devices duct taped to his privates with a rubber band around the button until the batteries run down.
Roger
I really hope this is a joke.
I can’t begin to imagine how this is supposed to be better than spanking?!?!?
Am I the only one who remembers the evil Spock addressing one of the crew underlings, asking for his “agonizer”? 
–James
It’s a joke, people. It’s a parody of the “As Seen on TV” ads for the Bugzapper!
Redwolf
Gee, I wish my parents had had one of those. I’d much rather a brief “bee sting” than dad’s belt! 
Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and some one would bring in the telephone crank generator to ring the operator. We would all stand in a circle and hold hands with each other…
Um, any ways… :roll:
Having something like this around kids would not be a good idea.
I think so too, but with a huge billboard, website, and toll free number, it’s a pretty expensive and elaborate one.
From the folks who brought you Bonzai Kitty and Origami Boulder.
Exactly.
http://www.bonsaikitten.com/ declares that it is a joke on its website, although one would have to be particularly thick not to have picked up on that. The origami boulder site is also loaded with humor (largely of a low and abusive sort (not that that is a bad thing)) that makes it clear what is going on. I am almost certain that Bratzapper is a joke because I cannot believe that anyone would risk the blizzard of lawsuits that this product is begging for. The site itself is perfectly deadpan, which is either a strange form of humor (a la Andy Kaufman) or a total lack thereof.
I have emailed an inquiry to them. If they are in fact on the level, then I will be collecting volunteers for a lynch mob.
Roger
I reckon I’d volunteer for that…we don’t take kindly to folks who hurt kids in this neck of the woods.
–James
To me it has the feel of parody, and not particularly deadpan, with the cartoony graphics, the over-the-top language, and the altered “as seen on TV” logo, etc.
My alltime favorite parody site has to be ManBeef.com (“Your choice for quality human meats, and gourmet human meat products.”), seen in archival form here – http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://web.archive.org/web/20010405034510/www.manbeef.com/home.html
There is an excellent recipe section.
Bon appetit.
Too funny!!
For me, the link didn’t work till I stripped it of the about.com frame: http://web.archive.org/web/20010405034510/www.manbeef.com/home.html
I would have never thought it was serious.
Your reaction reminds me of my famous “save the whale” crusade.
I’ll tell you all about it if you want.
BTW. What if a time honored method of discipline was looking at the sun?
Wouldn’t that be weird?
Weird indeed. And rather cruel, seedy, and evil IMHO.
First of all, I don’t understand why it’s a big deal if Fergie gets “TWO BOOB JOBS” If she did just one, well, that would be a headline.
If you have read the Sun or any of the American equivalents then you would have seen ads for the most outrageous products designed to target the pathetically stupid among us (and it’s a huge market, no mistake). I am sure that there are a lot of people who would think that the BratZapper is a damn fine idea, and about time too.
I don’t see any deliberate humor in the BratZapper site. The bogus “AS SEEN ON TV” appears on all sorts of ads for useless trash - the dealer only has to buy time on some backwater cable channel if he bothers to want it to be true. The cartoon illustrations are amateurish but not humorous beyond that. The kicker in the BratZapper site is the toll free number. Web sites are cheap enough, even free through some internet access services. Toll free numbers cost. Someone went to some expense to put that in the “joke”.
My sense of humor is as twisted as anyone’s (if that sounds like a dare, bring it on!) and I’m not offended at the thought of someone making a joke about zapping brats. Where I work, we regularly send staff to a local grade school to do scientific demonstrations for 4th graders (I do the demo on weight and density - try to keep a room full of nine year olds interested in 30 minutes of THAT!) and we still refer to them as heathens, savages and ankle-biters. I just don’t see anything funny about the BratZapper site.
There is a third possibility - this could be the product of some psych students’ senior research project. The toll free number is answered by an automated request for the caller to leave more infrormation. Maybe there is no BratZapper but the site is a lure to find out how many people will respond to an ad for a device to inflict sudden sharp pain on their children.
Roger
Possible And you called them. Now you’re in trouble.
Who, me? Can’t be - I left your name.
Roger