An American Lion

Stealth Rides

Now, this is something that should win a prize for innovation:

It’s the size of a credit card and about as slim as a cell phone. But the coolest feature of Mattel’s new Hot Wheels ride is its 3D action: Push a button and the “flat” car pops up into a remote-control vehicle.

Called “Stealth Rides,” these toy cars are Mattel’s first-ever folding Hot Wheels. It’s the latest innovation for a brand that’s been selling in toy stores for more than 40 years.

“This is definitely one the coolest new toys in 2010,” said Jim Silver, a toy industry analyst and editor in chief of TimetoPlayMag.com.

Mattel (MAT, Fortune 500) has created five different models of Stealth Riders, including two cars, two tanks and a “Batmobile Tumbler” that the toymaker will debut next month during the Toy Fair in New York.

I think that this is a very impressive looking device. Why only five of them, though? Why not a dozen? Are they keeping their powder dry to ensure that kids will buy these things?

My hope is that we have not become too much like the Japanese, and, by that I mean, paralyzed by our love of gadgets and relegated to having sex with robots while collecting kitschy things that have no collectible value. Is that awful of me? Probably. How do you think it makes me feel to have to think such awful things? How do you think it is for me to carry the burden of knowing what’s wrong and then not have the ability to express it properly?

Back when baseball cards were popular, I shunned them and invested in Star Wars memorabilia and in Hot Wheels. I have several thousand pieces of both product lines in a warehouse somewhere, possibly in northern New Jersey. When you’re wealthy, this is how life is for you. Every twelve months or so, I will receive a call out of the blue and then someone says, “yo, we is gonna toss your baubles and such into the dumpster if ya don’t pay us rent on your storage space, you.”

And so I pay. I don’t know what I’m paying for, but I pay for it anyway. That stuff that I don’t remember, need or have space for in one of my homes might be valuable.