Discovery Kids Smart Animals™ Giant Squid and Great White
Smart Animals™ is a toy line from Discovery Channel’s Discovery Kids™ imprint that puts a new spin on the classic concept of plastic animal figures. Each figure has a small chip that, when scanned with the Scanopedia™ device (sold separately, of course), plays sound effects and quizzes you on trivia about the animal. The line includes a large assortment wildlife, including dinosaurs, African and North American animals, and marine life.
The squid figure is really cool, but it looks more like a Humboldt than an Architeuthis—its fins are too large and its tentacles are too short. (Incidentally, the squid figured on the back of the package appears to be a slightly different sculpt, one which actually matches the silhouette sticker on the front of the package.) The Great White’s gaping mouth seems almost comically large, but, hey, sharks have big mouths! It’s kind of their thing. Both figures are approximately 4 inches long, and each has it’s own display stand. I don’t have the Scanopedia “electronic talking animal encyclopedia”, but I am really curious to know what sounds they think a Giant Squid makes!
I picked this up the other day at my local Target, but it doesn’t look like it’s made it onto Target.com, Amazon, or even the Discovery Channel online store yet.
Tags: Discovery Kids, giant squid, great white shark, Smart Animals
I was wondering if this item was for sale anywhere. my son got the scanopedia for christmas and we are have a hard time finding the rest of the animals. we have all of the ones that we keep finding online and off of amazon, but we want the deep sea ones and more of the dinosaur ones, and everything else as well. thanks for your time and any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your comment! Sorry it took me a little while to respond.
I got this at Target, but I haven’t seen any Scanopedia stuff there lately. If you can’t find it for sale online, maybe try someplace like Tuesday Morning (I recently picked up the elephant/baboon pack at our local Tuesday Morning.) or Big Lots…or the clearance section of Toys R Us or Target? You could also try Ebay…you might be able to get some good deals if they aren’t in high demand. I’m sorry to hear the dinosaur ones are getting hard to find. I had planned on getting some myself! Good luck with your search!
I have been looking for the sea creatures since you published this. I don’t think they ever fully made it to the market before the smart animals were discontinued. I am very bummed. We have all of the series 1 animals and 4 of the dinosaurs. I am disappointed though because some of the animals have totally stopped scanning.
Yeah, they seemed to come and go pretty quickly. I thought this toy line was a great idea, and I was looking forward to getting more of them, particularly now that my son is getting into toy animals. It’s also shame to hear that the chips are wearing out so fast!