Roadkill is a novel designer toy company. We create collectible toys with a macabre twist. Toys that will make your granny spit out her falsies. They’re not your usual toys, they’re anti-toys. If you’re into roadkill, then you’ll be into our products. Because our products have all been run over. First there was Twitch the Raccoon, then there was Grind the Rabbit, then Splodge the Hedgehog, then Pop the Weasel, then Smudge the Squirrel. Now it’s Grill the Armadillo’s turn to take his place in the headlights.

Grill the Armadillo is a unique type of toy. A cutting edge designer toy. It’s called Squash-plush. Squash-plush is similar to standard plush. But it varies in one obvious way. It’s plush toys and teddies that have been squashed flat. Flat as a pancake in a g-force machine. 

Grill is made of cute teddy materials like fur and stuffing. But that’s where the cuteness ends. He lies splayed in a pool of his own eviscera. Organs, cracked ribs, intestines, blood- all of them are stuffed. And we’ve used a new type of stuffing that squidges out when you squeeze it. For the discerning anatomists amongst you, we think it gives a more realistic effect. On his underbelly there is an embroidered blood splat, and streaked across his cuddly back there’s a tyre print.

And Grill doesn’t just lie there passively like your average roadkill. He’s an interactive toy. You can take the blood and guts in and out. They’re sealed into the carcass by zips on either side. Just unzip and let the blood and gore ooze out.

We think he’s funny, not freaky. He’s more like a cartoon. His tongue is jutting out, his eyes are bulging and bloodshot, his nose vainly sniffs the air for impending danger, his little claws are clasping at thin air. He’s been captured in the moment of death. The poor little blighter.

Grill comes in a made-to-measure body bag. This keeps him fresh and maggot-free. It’s made from an opaque plastic, so you can make out the macabre details inside. And attached to his twitching paw is an identity tag, telling you all you need to know about the story of Grill’s sticky end. 

Grill the Armadillo is a member of the Dasypodidae family. Through millions of years of evolutionary refinement and modification, his armour has become perfectly adapted to defending against coyotes and cougars. However it is pretty much useless against juggernauts and motor homes. It is an unfortunate fact that, when surprised, the North American Armadillo will tend to jump straight in the air - at just the right height for the fenders and bull bars of approaching SUVs. The animal that was the toast of Darwinian biologists is now more commonly tarmac toast.

Grill the Armadillo was born to blue collar american armadillos. Billy Bob and Mary Sue. (Ironically his birth place was the forecourt of the Roadkill Café, in Seligman Arizona). Although he had no formal training and came from humble beginnings, Grill became an amateur astronomer of note. He helped researchers in The Lowell Observatory Flagstaff map 5 planets in the Andromeda system and found the 359th decimal place of π. He was also looking forwards to starting a postgraduate course in astrophysics at Stamford University, when the unfortunate incident occurred with the Ford Hurricane Luxury Motor Home. The Nobel Astrophysicist Arno Penzias said of Grill: “I have never seen an Armadillo with such an aptitude for advanced combinatorics, and for trampolining,” Grill will also be sorely missed by his next of kin, Smudge the Squirrel.

We’re launching Grill the Armadillo with 200 limited edition characters. Each one will have a special toe tag handwritten by the designer. Each one will have a limited edition number on the tag. Each one will be different. Some are flattened on Route 66, some on Denny’s parking lots. Some are squished by Hells Angel gangs, and some by stolen cop cars. Only the first 200 have these, so don’t hang around sitting on your fanny packs.

They also come with blood-soaked Death Certificates and Bumper Stickers proclaiming ‘I love Roadkill’. Stick it on the fender of your mobile home. You love roadkill, and you’re proud of it.

Grill, and his putrescent pals Twitch, Grind, Splodge, Pop, and Smudge are merely the tip of a bloodied iceberg. The pioneers in a macabre collection of plush toys. We will be introducing more of Grill’s unfortunate friends later on. Each one will come with a body bag, death certificate, bumper sticker and toe tag. We’ll soon be scraping off the tarmac Fender the Fox, Skid the Badger, Puddle the Vole - a charming car keyring with squidgy guts, and Splodge the Hedgehog- this time reincarnated as a mousemat (we’re calling it Mousesplat. You run the mouse over the flattened, bloody mess of his middle).

So have a look around our designer toy boutique. But leave your qualms, quibbles and quietudes outside.