A woman from Brampton, Ontario named Ania Tanner recently bought her 15-month-old grandchild a dancing cactus toy from Walmart Canada that was advertised as providing educational value by singing songs in English, Spanish, and Polish to kids. Tanner, though, understands Polish and was surprised to hear that her language was represented by the toy through a song about being depressed, enduring cocaine withdrawals, and considering suicide.
CTV News ran a TV segment and an article about the toy. Tanner, who ordered the cactus from Walmart’s online store, said “when I started to listen to the songs and I heard the words ... I was in shock.” Presumably uninterested in teaching a 15-month-old child about some of the darker aspects of life just yet, Tanner told CTV that the swearing, bummed out, cokehead cactus was “not what I ordered for my granddaughter.”
The music the cactus uses, it turns out, is from a 2015 song called “Gdzie Jest Biały Węgorz (Zejście)“ by Polish rapper Cypis. The track, whose name translates to “Where’s The White Eel (The Descent),” is about being depressed and in the throes of a withdrawal so severe that the narrator’s sold everything he owns, dreams constantly of coke and heroin, and feels, per one translated version of the lyrics, “as if the locusts [are biting] off [his] cock.” The chorus repeats:
“The only thing in my head is five grams of cocaine
Fly away alone to the edge of oblivion.
I have thoughts in my head, when will all this end, whenever I’m not alone
Because a white eel will fly in.”
Cypis “is reportedly unaware his song was used by the Chinese manufacturer of the children’s toy” and is planning “to take legal action ... for using his song without permission.”
Interestingly, the toy has surfaced in the news before when, earlier this year, a Polish woman living in Taiwan discovered the sad cactus on store shelves and was understandably surprised by its approach to teaching the language to children.
Walmart Canada says the dancing cactus was sold by a third-party and that it’s been removed from the online store. Considering that this is the same retailer that previously brought us a sweater with a bug-eyed Santa Claus ripping lines on it, we imagine it’s only a matter of time before Walmart Canada delivers us another delightful cocaine-related scandal.
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