Shadow Magic: Toy Review

I remember as a kid this commercial coming on for one of the coolest out of this world gadgets I had ever seen. Back then it was called something like Shadow Grabber, or Shadow Catcher, and was made by Nickelodeon.
What was so neat about it, was that it seemed ahead of it's time. It was about 1989/1990 that it hit the shelves, and of course it was on my Christmas list. I remember in school everyone talking about this Shadow Catcher as if it were the hottest thing in the world. When I presented my list to my mom to give to Santa, she called it a stupid toy, and a waste of Santa's money. In the past when my mom said it was a stupid toy, and Santa thought it was a waste of money it meant one thing. Santa would not be delivering it to me. Sighs.
On Christmas morning though I was shocked to find it under the tree, and as excited as hell to get to use it.
I went downstairs in the basement, because the catcher required it to be hung in the darkest room. I positioned the white shiny rubber mat on a door. (It came with a built in door hanger).
The wand was meant to be held out, as you stood in front of the mat, you were to click the orange button to get it to sort of 'take a picture'. I did this, I stood in front of it, held out the wand, snapped my shadow, and turned around to take a look. I was mesmerized, but within just a few seconds my freeze frame shadow began to fade.
I clicked away some more, and more, and more. I was also able to press another button on the wand to draw on my shadow. While holding the button and scribbling around the shadow, a green bright glow in the dark light would fill the black shadow area. It was neat, but the scribbles faded nearly as fast as I drew them.
Within a few minutes of clicking and catching my shadow, the toy grew boring. It was not as cool as I thought it would be. Not by a long shot. Yes I was impressed the first few times around, but after that there was not much else to do...and not only that, seeing how I was the only one in the basement, I got sort of scared. The lights had to be out, it had to be pitch black. I was a kid...I got scared.
I left the shadow catcher on the door, and it was used a few more times when friends and relatives came over. I wanted to show them, but once they grew bored with it (which was pretty fast), so did I.
This stupid toy hadn't crossed my mind for years, up until today when I found the exact same Shadow Catcher being sold for $24.99 on www.perpetualkid.com. I could not believe that this toy was still being sold. Now it is being called Shadow Magic; however everything about it is the same. It is the same old hunk oh junk it was when I was a kid.
Some of you may have seen or used something similar to this in Disney. They have a shadow grabber in one of their science buildings. Our last trip to Disney, and I was surprised to see this old school concept being used at Disney. I guess even still this lame little invention attracts folks to it.
Overall:
Shadow Magic is cool, I won't lie about that; however it is only cool for about 5 minutes. Even kids grow bored with it rather fast, and for it's price it's very wasteful.
Recommendation:
Not really. The fun fades just as fast as the shadow fades.