Easy-Bake Oven Is About to Become Hard to Use - DailyFinance

With the retirement of the incandescent bulb in 2012, all existing Easy-Bake Ovens will be useless, once the light bulbs inside them have finally baked their last cupcakes. Somewhere between 16 and 25 million Easy-Bake Ovens have been sold since 1963, and it's not a stretch to expect that at least 4 or 5 million of them are still in operation. All but a few collectors' pieces will be destined for the landfill once their heating elements are no longer available in your neighborhood grocery store.

The general adoption of the CFL seemed nothing but sensible when Al Gore first began encouraging us all to save energy and money by replacing our bulbs. The reality of the new world lighting order seems far more complex, fraught with everything from mercury-tainted landfills and disappointing efficiency/expense results to the obsolescence of some of our most beloved toys.

Perhaps America's new light bulb should have spent a little more time in recipe development.