Video of kid climbing inside claw game

I enjoyed this video of a youngster climbing through the prize-dispenser chute of one of those ripoff claw games. (via haha.nu)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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nanoquimico

More common than you think.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/claw-machines/hey-look-theres-a-kid-in-this-claw-machine-163638.php

http://www.nbc10.com/news/4513119/detail.html
Cowicide

That was the funniest/cutest video I’ve seen in a long time!! XD
Torley

I remember first seeing this via Today’s Big Thing, which has a funny video every day, including some cute feline ones in recent memory:

Â» http://www.todaysbigthing.com
johnnyuber

my new hero!
Dean

Look, if you’re BA enough to crawl inside of a claw machine, you should at least get a crappy Malaysian stuffed platypus while you’re in there.
buddy66

JACKASIMOV,

You’re a pretty good wordslinger yourself. I looked up ”perspicacity” (when I was 16) and it’s a real word. What I couldn;t find was ”f*ck.” Found a couple words like it, but no ”f*ck.* The problem I think, maybe, is that I don’t know how to pronounce ”*”. Can’t recall anyone ever saying ”*” in a conversation. I guess some words are just too rare or elusive to ever become common usage. So fuck it.
TheWillow

@ #26 – if those things are timed, there are a lot of stuffed animals in my old room at my parents’ that shouldn’t exist…
bcsizemo

I think the part with the teenager cleaning the glass in the door is the best part. He comes up, and gives them that look of, “Oh hell, I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit… I’m gonna ignore it cause my break is in like 5 mins.”

Priceless.

It would have been epic if another kid came up and asked if they could play the machine. AHAHAHAH
ESQ

Those games are not ripoffs, they are timed to allow the claw to grab a prize securely every X attempts (usually ten).

I briefly worked at a 24hr business (that saw steady traffic) that had a claw game. The resident meth addict just sat there nursing her coffee and watching the game. As soon as the requisite number of losers walked away, she’d stroll up the machine and win on her first quarter. She’d stick to her post for my entire shift at times. I am not exaggerating when I tell you she filled her hatchback with halfway decent stuffed animals for under ten dollars… I assume she was selling them on the underground stuffed animal black market or somesuch, but she was nice enough to kick me a new animal to take to the kid every now and then.
Cragsavage

#26: “Those games are not ripoffs, they are timed”

Say…even if they are timed…um…I kind of define anything that’s designed to purposefully screw me out of my prize nine times out of ten as a ripoff…

Call me old-fashioned…
eustace

What a video. All of life in three minutes.
themindfantastic

I thought this was a young girl who crawled in there, not a young boy. And she seemed to be rather enjoying herself actually… yes eventually she might have got a little scared but she got out unharmed, and now she has a great story to tell for the rest of her life… though the fact she didn’t get any toys from this adventure well… probably proves they aren’t all that worth having if you actually are able to see the thing up close and in person like that as opposed to behind the plexiglass.
Stitch

That kid’s a champ. Did you notice on the way in, there was no wiggling or running motions with the legs?

Intellectually, we all know that running in midair wouldn’t do anything, but there isn’t even the hint of the urge with this. The kid knows that the work is with his/her arms, and at that point his/her legs are just dead weight, and all of the effort is there. Put an adult in the same situation, with a relatively sized claw game, and there’d be flailing.

At that age, nothing is strange or unthinkable, and it’s possible to just focus on the task at hand. I wish I could be in that situation and see what I’d do.
bolamig

My favorite part was the parents running for the exit afterwards so they don’t have to deal with the cops and fire department on their way.

This whole experience reminds me of a dream/nightmare I used to have over and over as a teen. I had to crawl up and down between the first and second floor of my home through a little claustrophobic heating duct in the wall, getting stuck a few times along the way. I hope this video doesn’t call the nightmare come back into my rotation.
Waterlilygirl

I’m surprised that nobody seemed to notice that the parents acted like this happened all the time… and the kid didn’t grab a stuffie to take home to boot… what’s the point of getting in the machine if you can’t heist a free toy?
a_user

How claw machines work and what you need to do to beat them, courtesy of Brianiac

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2731681834963316055
Jeremy Hill

“Did he get to keep the Purple Giraffe?”
“Yeah, they let him keep all the toys. He was in there a long time and little kids have small bladders.”
Anonymous

The claw is set so that it must be perfectly positioned over the toy and not encounter any interference. It is a skill game.

If it was timed it would be an illegal gambling machine.
cycle23

My favorite video of the day
arkizzle

YAY! That’s probably the happiest adventure a kid could have! He looked so pleased when he got out of the chute, and climbed onto the big soft-toy mountain! Woo! :D

On a side note (down here, away from the happiness above) let me say, happily, the machine this child crawled into didn’t do him any harm.. phew!
Chevan

I was starting to panic just watching the kid crawl into the tunnel. There is no way I could do that if I somewhere found an adult-sized claw machine.

Also, why couldn’t they just get a maintenance man to open the back of the machine?
buddy66

Artful little dodger! He’s got a future.
BummerOfCode

They could get him out with the claw, maybe?
eustace

It would be a fun video to add your own soundtrack to:
“Dan! Get back in here! We gotta do something or someone might put coins in and WIN MY BABY!”
Smurf

The fun’s in the adventure.

Grabbing a toy on the way out (much less throwing the loot down the chute) is called “stealing”.

Why run for maintenance? She got in, she can get out again the same way (and obviously did). It’s not as if she was stuck or whatever.

IMHO the most fun part (from the FAIL point of view) was the parent grabbing at the chute when she was too far inside for that to be of any use whatsoever.
sorted

I can’t stop laughing at this. Looks like a little ‘her’ vs. ‘he’, I can see my 3 year old doing this easily.

Thanks for the post.
mongo

Didja notice the store employee respond so well and appropriately during the crisis to clean the glass on the door next to the machine?
Church

Not buying this for a minute. Cute vid, but obviously staged (albeit well staged.)
gnosis

LOL!!! My bew hero(ine)!
Cragsavage

Future?

The fool child didn’t bring any trophies back from his expedition!

A wasted opportunity…
spithole

Dear commenter #7 (Church): Respectfully, let me say that not everything is a ploy, okay…somethings in our vulgar world are real, old-fashioned children’s world.
Takuan

my bank has a night deposit slot….
beatboxrevival

http://www.thealamobasement.com/2008/02/13/try-again/

Here is an illustration of a kid climbing in a claw machine.
Cragsavage

#7: Silly us. We all forgot that everything on the internet is faked by people with nothing better to do with their time…

We bow to your perspicacity…
dainel

The reason the parents did not panic was because they must be thinking … “How did all that stuffed toys get in there? The employees didn’t push them in one by one through the little chute. There must be a door somewhere. Just let her play in there for a few minutes.”
alisong76

I’m surprised nobody put a quarter in and tried getting him (her?) out that way. Mind you, those things are pretty useless.
buddy66

There’s something else going on here…

The kid that crawled out isn’t the same one that crawled in.
billydeville

I don’t know about the “timing” of the machine, but I can tell you first hand that they are rigged.

Last year my company did some work for the Pizza Machine in Omaha. They had a couple of free nights for all the contractors that had helped in building the place, and it was the first time it was open.

At first everyone was winning everything out of the crane machines, to the point where they were having to refill them as we were there. Then I watched an employee adjust the clamping strength of the claws using a little manual. Once that was done, no one won anymore.
Eduardo Padoan

@#14: Yes, there is a whole gnome society inside this machines. The one who got in was an informant going back to report what is going in the External World (or, as they call it, “The Big-Ones Dull-Dull World”). The one who got out was just another spy.
rollerskater

oh my god, i just started laughing during a deposition when i saw this. i don’t even care if it’s fake, you reality-mongers are missing out.

it looks like mommy was rushing junior out to administer a full can of whoop-a$$ at the end of the clip.
Jackasimov

#12 “perspicacity”? Holy crap, I bow to your use of the English language! (that is English, right? Right? Anyone?) Did you have to use a thesaurus for that one? Is that even in a thesaurus? I’m impressed with your impressivity.

I’d be freaking the f*ck out if my kid climbed in there. Not that I’d be afraid of anything more than claustrophobia setting in and them freaking the f*ck out and me not being able to calm them through the glass. Makes my heart race just to think about. They need to get rid of all the claw machines immediately so this never again happens to the children.

God save the children.
Takuan

I hope your deposit was successful.
Waffles

I’m kind of surprised by how the parents handled it. First, the mom looked like she didn’t believe the older kid, then she just kind of stood in front of the machine while the father stood off to the side, not doing anything. Neither of them seemed to have gone for help, even though both parents were doing absolutely no good by standing in front of the machine.

Parents these days, I tell ya.
Cragsavage

#16: Why, thank you. Perspicacity. Good word isn’t it? I learnt it a few years back actually…from the Simpsons…

‘I’m losing my perspicacity! Aaaaa!’

Amazing what you can get from the TV…
Kyle Armbruster

Meh. Photoshopped.
abushaw

I like how the first parent comes in, then goes back for her drink. At first I thought the worker was wrapping his hand in paper towels to do the old “punch through the crane machine glass to save the toddler” move. Neat.
Ugly Canuck

Animated references:
lobster harmonica!
the claw! the claw!
padster123

Future hacker.

Today it’s a stuffed top claw machine. Tomorrow it’s the Pentagon.

Send her to Guantanamo.