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Mr. Potato Head Opti-Mash Prime review

Opti-Mash primeOpti-Mash Prime is not a new Mr. Potato Head, nor is it even new to me as it was given to me as a gift at least seven years ago after someone decided I would like it. I can’t remember if it showed up before or after Darth Tater at my house, but it did.

Opti-Mash Prime sat above my TV since probably 2008 in a box unopened but greeting people who entered my house with that quirky “I’m an unopened Mr Potato Head in the house of a childless adult!” <sarcasm>This wasn’t creepy at all </sarcasm>. Then we had a child and then it became “I’m a toy you keep out of reach of someone who’s almost age appropriate.”

We broke out Opti-Mash Prime, leaving Darth Tater alone as he’s got parts not suited for the less than three crowd.

Opti-Mash Prime has been a success, however it’s freakin’ difficult as all get-out to pull parts out and put them back in. It takes an adult to remove and properly place the parts in, although Maggie can sort of wedge them in there.

So far Maggie’s had a boatload of fun playing with Opti-Mash. I’ll admit so have I, although I completely lost the ability to make the “chk chk chk” noises one needs to make constantly while transforming a potato into a moustached robot.

I’ll say one thing I do feel a bit saddened by is that this could transform completely into a mr potato head if they had included a couple of normal arms. They’ve got a moustache and teeth, but then it looks like Mr Robot Arms Bouncer Head more than Mr. Potato Head.

All in all though it’s a good tater, I’m hoping the pieces will get looser with more use, but I’m also preparing to sand the things down slightly to make it so it doesn’t require near-adult strength to handle the thing.

I really didn’t get a chance to look at the box, even though it did sit in my house unused for nearly 8 years, but I do hope it said he’s a member of the Auto-Tots.

Opti-Mash Prime used to be about $25 in stores as far as I can tell, you can find it on Ebay for about that or on Amazon for about $30 as of this writing. Might even be able to find it in-store, but I haven’t seen it anywhere.

3.5 / 5 stars     

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.