Treebok’s No Carbon Footprint Mud Shoe

Treebok thought it had reached the final frontier in eco-friendly footwear with the Mud Shoe Kit: a bag of dirt, a bottle of water, and a shoe mold. But faced with problems ranging from lack of arch support to hideous toe jam, the company recalled the product just 45 minutes after it was first offered in stores.

Horizon Wireless’ T-Pain-inspired Auto-Tune Cell Phone Voice Enhancers

Thirty years after the infamous Peter Frampton Talk Box Answering Machines debacle, Horizon introduced these products, which made callers’ voices sound as if they were running through an Auto-Tune. This turned out not only to severely hamper the communication part of cell phone use, but to render all conversations utterly disposable.

Def Leopard Clothing’s Allover Print Bedazzler

Everything looks better in allover, right? Maybe so, but in the case of the Allover Print Bedazzler—an oversized waffle iron that affixed allover print to anything, and, tragically, anybody—form followed (mal)function, prompting the first ever hipster class-action suit.

Gateways’ Enhanced Blunt Wraps

Why sprinkle actual coke in your woos when you can use a blunt wrap already laced with the white stuff? Gateways tobacconists thought they had the answer when they introduced a line of drug-laced blunt papers. Unfortunately, fans of the crystal-meth-laced variety got, uh, overly aggressive when their local 7-Eleven ran out of their favorite papers.

Sunny Electronics ’80s Babies 8-Bit Downconverters

In a misguided attempt to piggyback on the retro gaming market, Sunny introduced an HDTV attachment that rendered hi-def images into 8-bit Atari-style visuals. Finally, NFL games can look like Space Invaders!

WINNER!: PRETENDO’S WHEE! GAMES

Looking to get in on the Wii craze, Pretendo introduced Whee! Rollercoaster and Whee! Plane Crash. Unfortunately, shoppers were soon lining up in ER waiting rooms with myriad injuries suffered playing Rollercoaster (a bench with a bar that shook until the player vomited) and Plane Crash (in which the console burst into flames and struck the gamer in the face). Mercifully, plans for Whee! Childbirth and Whee! Colonoscopy were soon scrapped. Home // STYLE // STYLE FEATURES // The Third Annual Complex Style & Design A to Z List // Complex Worst Design Awards