There is a glorious subgenre of YouTube videos that consists entirely of industrial machinery being used to destroy things. Preferably, these are Furbies. We have seen them sliced open with water jets and slowly incinerated using a red-hot ball of nickel. The Hydraulic Press Channel specializes in, yes, crushing shit with a hydraulic press. They’re open to ideas: They’ll crush power tools, bowling balls, Swedish Fish, and so on. You name it, they’ll fuck it up.
Here they are crushing a Stretch Armstrong, the toy strongman originally introduced in the ’70s that allowed you to stretch out his limbs. They’d stay that way, which was fun for children. The toy was reintroduced in its original form last year, and now it has been murdered for your sick enjoyment:
As is always the case with such videos, there is a dark thrill in watching a beloved figure from childhood eviscerated to the sound of bemused laughter, followed by a deep and abiding sense of shame as the mutilated corpse is splayed out for your viewing pleasure. “I think he is not okay,” the wonderful and horrible man controlling the hydraulic press laughs, “like he stepped on a landmine or something.” His plastic face and torso remain flawless, with everything else a spattering of viscous, stretchy goo.