It appears, after my melodic throwback, I need to dwell in my nostalgia even longer; here are 5 toys from the decade I grew up in. Sure, most of them are pointless but exactly how useful is a Snuggie? It serves a purpose in some pretty rare situations. Rarer actually than the situations these toys helped with.
It's no doubt that kids in the 90s were more active than those in the 00s. It's one of the reasons coke machines were still in schools and you didn't haven an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. This toy was the fad for many years. It was in every school yard and in almost every gym of the 1990s. We all had at least one friend who would spend their entire recess doing this. It even helped the the marketing of Tiger Electronics for this toy, was prudish adults who would let down their walls and hang with the kids, skipping the cord around and around. There was even one commercial where a nun stepped into the action.
Another of Tiger Electronics marvellous kids' toys. The number of kids' eyes I saw with tears. . . after watching their pets die. . . The thing needed to be fed thrice daily. It needed to be bathed and played with as well. Failure to do so, resulted in sickness and eventual death, which wasn't a big deal when you considered that the pets only lived for about 7 days. But, imagine playing a computer game for 7 days and then failing at it. Put that into a low-graphic hand-held game, running on a 3-volt watch battery. Your PC game is just as pointless in the end and your kids'll think it's just as stupid.
I can't count the number of times teachers confiscated these things and the kid they'd take them from would have swollen eyes. You'd think Mt. Saint Helen's was about to erupt. Or when kids would leave them home with instructions for their parents on how to feed them. . . I left mine with my grandmother. :). Surprisingly, she wasn't an idiot like the other parents and figured it out quite quickly.
You know what. . . This is all about Tiger. I mean, honestly, they had some cool toys.
My cousin introduced me to this wondrous device. It was my generation's attempt at VR. And with such limited resources, I'd say we did a pretty good job. You have to remember, these were new concepts to us. We were used to playing outside most of our lives. Low graphics were better than no graphics.
The game could use interchangeable game cartridges and had a handheld remote, similar to SEGA. I played Wolverine in an X-Men themed game when she came over.
Looking back at this, I have to wonder if this is the reason for school shooters using video games to practice on. But It was the culture back then that you stood up to your bullies and teachers would often times watch it happen, for fear of making it worse for the person being bullied if they intervened. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you've been reported for bullying, it's probably the person you've been bullying. Which is why parents encouraged their kids to stand up to their bullies back then. It doesn't stop unless the bully is afraid of you. :(
Anyways, my sister and I would play games on this device, relentlessly. I'd sneak up in the morning right after my dad went to work and play this at 5 A.M. I remember one morning, he caught me and I was grounded from it for a week :).
There was a CD expansion for it a bit later. It slid into the side of the device and you could put game CDs in. About the only one I remember is Power Rangers.
Funny story: My brother and sister were "playing" Power Rangers at my aunts house. My sister kicked my brother into a door and my aunt came running and punished them both. My sister's excuse? "I'm the red Power Ranger!"
The first time I remember seeing one of these was in 1995. My girlfriend at the time was walking around our elementary school's playground, taking photos of everyone. The memory wasn't that great and I'm pretty sure that once the battery died, you lost everything but evolution happens with small changes over time. At that time, we were just glad to have a portable camera. Yes, it was the 90s version of a selfie. We've been doing this for years kids. If the adults in your life are telling you it's egotistical, tell them they're morons and that you just want a memory of how you looked at a particular time in your life.
Well, that concludes this post of 5 kid toys from the 90s. Look how far we've come! Stay in school so you can take us even further.
