Interlude--Stuff From YOUR Toybox

At the conclusion of the class that brought this blog into being (though not necessarily the conclusion of this blog itself!), I ask those who have been following along at home: What is your number one favorite toy from your childhood? You know, the one you begged Mom and Dad for, the one you wrote Santa for for Christmas, the one that you played with for hours and hours?

Now is the time for you to sound off about the best toy in YOUR toybox, on your television, on your bookshelf. What made your 90s childhood deliciously 90s? What was the toy that defined your childhood?

'Cause the cat's in the cradle...

Cat’s Cradle sure wasn’t invented in the 90s, but if you didn’t play it at least once in your childhood, you’re a dirty liar.

Cat’s Cradle is only one of many of the given names for this string game. Others include Candles, Jack in the Pulpit, and Scratch Cradle (a name that dates all the way back to the 1850s—just shows again that we children of the 90s sure can’t claim this game as our own, no matter how much time we whiled away playing it!).

Puppy Surgery Surprise

Holy crap, this thing might have been even creepier than Furby (yes, it is possible!), though in a completely different way.

Puppy/Kitty Surprise (the two main pets available, although bunnies, horses, and bears were also available) was an adorable stuffed animal that came with a mama animal and a bunch of babies. Cute!

Except the surprise was HOW MANY BABIES YOU COULD RIP OUT OF THE STUFFED ANIMAL’S INSIDES.

Fun, right?

Spill your GUTS!

Come on, I couldn’t do an entry on ‘Legends’ and not do an entry on its companion show. For whenever one showed, the other was sure to follow.

Do do do you have it? OOH! Do do do you have it? GUTS!

Gameboy Color--Because kids need to be able to carry their video games, damnit!

Gameboy/Gameboy Color

Now that the gaming industry has come so very far, I thought it was only fair to include a salute to the ‘big thing’ of our childhood—Gameboy and its later, more ‘advanced’ counterpart, Gameboy Color.

We were so excited to own these things, because come on, what kid doesn’t love hand-held video games? It was Super Nintendo that we could bring along with us to boring family gatherings, the doctor’s office, the bus stop, or wherever else we were forced to wait for long periods of time (or, of course, since we again loved making our teachers angry—school.)

Troll Dolls (No Zs allowed!)

Troll Dolls were actually introduced and reached their biggest peak of popularity back in the mid-60s, but they were resurrected in the 90s and I would bet that most of us had one or two of those creepy little things stowed away somewhere. The biggest change in the 90s-remixed dolls was that the manufacturers tried to market this toy towards boys.

That’s right, boys and girls—this was My Little Pony for boys.

Some of them had clothes. Some of them had personas (wizard, ninja, etc.). Some had…gems in the middle of their belly. Some were just NEKKID. And all of them had brightly colored hair that stuck straight up and ugly, ugly faces.

The Troll Dolls didn’t actually do anything, despite manufacturers trying to convince us that they were actually totally cool! Needless to say, the attempt to make them popular amongst boys (including endeavors such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Trolls—BLASPHAMY I SAY!) was at best marginally successful.

Polly Pocket--Old Polly vs. New Polly

One of the most popular toys of the 90s has endured a radical transformation since its debut in 1989. 

The premise of Polly Pocket was that it was a little miniature dollhouse that fit in a necklace. Unfortunately, while Polly and her world and accessories were indeed tiny, there is only so tiny you can make an elaborate world, meaning the ‘pocket-sized’ plastic toy was actually fairly large and clunky (considering it was meant to be worn or, I guess, put into a pocket—yeah, perhaps a backpack pocket or something because there was no way that thing was fitting into the pocket of a pair of little girl jeans). 

Behold: Old Polly

But at least the original creators, Bluebird Toys, ATTEMPTED to keep Polly and her accessories tiny and pocket-sized. When Mattel bought out the company in 1998, they ‘supersized’ Polly (supersizing meaning that they doubled or tripled her size—Bluebird’s Pollys were under an inch tall, while Mattel’s ranged from two to three inches, depending on which Polly set you were buying.) In Mattel’s version, only Polly herself was pocket-sized, not her world. Basically, Mattel just tried to shrink down Barbie and call it ‘Polly Pocket.’ (Oh, Mattel, you just keep trying to strike gold again, dontcha?) 

Behold: New Polly and her Friggin' Jet