Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When I was little my sisters and I loved, loved, loved our Easy Bake Oven. Every girl friend and set of girl cousins we had loved their Easy Bake Oven. We learned to create our own mixes and our mothers found extra tiny pans,strangely enough often at the hardware store, that fit inside the oven. So, of course, when my own little girl asked for an Easy Bake Oven. I wanted to rush out and buy her one. Unfortunately, the cheap bastards at Hasbro had down sized the product until it was The Easy Finger Cremation Device. Not wanting my daughter to lose a finger to an inferior version of the toy I had so loved; I delayed buying an Easy Bake Oven. Christmas 2011, I was thrilled when Hasbro put a new Easy Bake Oven on the market. This Easy Bake Oven was big; maybe bigger than the one my sisters and I used to own. It has an incredibly cool domed shape and it comes in my daughters' favorite color, purple. And look carefully at the oven door in the picture. Doesn't it look roomy? Given even the most basic safety tips, it would be almost impossible for a girl to burn herself with this oven, right? Well, while it is not impossible for a girl to burn herself on this so called sham of an Easy Bake Oven, the door is NOT real There is no door. This is a shrinky-dink machine for "cupcakes". The pan sizes are much smaller than what I remembered as a kid. You can not supplement with pans of your own. Only the tiny, tray shaped "pans" will fit through the slot that constitutes the working portions of this "oven". The best part (note sarcasm alert) is that the trays get stuck in the slot and the little girl is expected to wiggle it loose and shove it through with a "pan tool". The "pan tool" is a poor substitute for the ability to open an oven door and have the space to remove a pan with a hot mitt. My daughter, my husband, and I were all burned on Christmas morning removing stuck pans from this atrocity of a toy. I decided not to write my review too soon. I wanted to see if the toy would reveal some redeeming value. Maybe my daughter would love it anyway. Well, it's July and she recently declared that she hates the Easy Bake Oven; that it is not an oven at all and nothing like the Easy Bake Oven she's heard her Aunts and I describe. She hasn't even finished using the mixes that I bought for her for Christmas. She decided to clean and reorganize her room recently. She handed me the Easy Bake Oven and said "I don't want it in my room anymore." Someone at Hasbro is wondering why sales aren't what they used to be. Hasbro had a working, popular product. First, they let some bean counters ruin it. Then, they sucked all the play value out of the toy. The lack of logic and business acumen is astounding. I find it miraculous that corporations like Hasbro even manage to stay in business. My recommendation: save yourself some cash and disappointment; do NOT buy.