less fun than the packaging

Two possible interpretations of this phrase:

"Not as fun as the packaging implies": Sea monkeys and lots of other children's toys are advertised as doing a lot more interesting things than they actually do. (See The Simpsons episode where Bart buys toys with the slogan "Dampen Me For Dinosaur Terror" and finds, when attempting to scare his sister, that dampening them gets you only sponges shaped like dinosaurs.)
"The packaging is more fun than the item in it": Kids love to play with boxes, especially if they're large enough to crawl into. Smaller packaging containers can be used to trap pets in (cats seem to like exploring paper bags). I used to take Christmas wrapping paper, wrap it around an empty wrapping paper or paper towel tube, and call it a sword or a magic wand.

Buying things just because they have cool packaging	packaging	Typesetting	Why I was Not Popular as a teenager
false advertising	toy	box	George Washington's 1796 State of the Union Address
Linux is too hard to install	cp /dev/zero /dev/null	P