Toy glory

It’s truly a tall order: a 12-foot dinosaur that spits candy tacos. But by the end of the first episode of Netflix’s Making Fun, that’s exactly what Jimmy DiResta and his four bushy-bearded builder buddies have assembled at their upstate New York workshop—to the delight of the two children who dreamed up the taco T. rex. Few, if any, other reality shows produce as many laugh-out-loud moments as Making Fun. The PG-rated show’s downsides are some misuses of God’s name and double entendres.

Each episode begins with youngsters pitching projects to DiResta’s team. With playful curtness, DiResta, a former toy designer, dismisses several outlandish ideas before settling on one. The workshop brims with expensive machinery and exotic materials, and the builders put their impressive engineering skills to work: A unicorn powered by a tandem bicycle flatulates a glitter cloud from its haunches, a giant soccer cleat built around a golf cart kicks a ball, and other kiddie brainstorms.

More fun comes in the fivesome’s verbal sparring. At the end of Episode 3, after revealing the soccer-shoe car to 7-year-old Jemmie, the crew spoofs a scene from Back to the Future: The shoe car reaches 8 (not 88) mph and disappears into flaming tire tracks. If only making blasphemies disappear wasn’t such a tall order nowadays.