Despite being one of the many poop-themed, gross-out toy reveals at last year’s New York Toy Fair, Jakks Pacific’s toilet-paper shooting Skid Shot turned out to be a fun alternative to traditional toy blasters that just shoot foam ammo.
For 2019, Jakks is releasing an improved version called the Sheet Storm that fixes my biggest complaint with the original.
The Skid Shot was no replacement for a tried-and-true Nerf blaster, but peppering someone with soggy spitballs is arguably a much better way to get revenge on an annoying co-worker, and cleaning tiny wads of toilet paper stuck to a wall is much easier than hunting down hundreds of foam darts that have bounced all over a room.
What wasn’t so great about the Skid Shot, however, was its use of two separate levers that both had to be primed to prep your next shot. They were finicky and time-consuming, giving your opponent plenty of opportunity to ready counter-measures, or just dive under a desk before the next spitball hit its target.
Available sometime in the U.S. this Spring, the new Sheet Storm should cost about twice as much as the Skid Shot, but Jakks Pacific has done away with the awkward dual levers of the original. In their place is a sliding, pump-action reload mechanism that primes the blaster in one-quick motion.
As quickly as you can pump the lever and pull the trigger, the Sheet Storm will unleash a soggy barrage on your target. A single roll of toilet paper will provide well over 350 shots before its empty, and while it boasts a range of about 15.24m, that will vary from shot to shot given no two spitballs are the same shape. It’s now a game of quantity over accuracy.