Last post I talked about my ten FAVORITE toys and games so I decided to take another stroll down Memory Lane: this time I’m going to talk about toys everyone HAD to have--only to find out that they sucked completely and utterly. I picked Spinz 10 as today’s fractal because these lemons all laid an egg--for me at least. Enjoy--unless you’ve made other plans.-
1) HULA HOOP: such a simple thing but oh so impossible to make work for oh so many! Many kids could make this simple plastic ring go around and around and around for ages on end: some could do it with multiple Hula Hoops. With me, the thing always fell right to the ground every time I tried it. I think that Hula Hoops frustrated me worse than anything else in my life. They were already losing popularity when I was a kid and have never made much of a comeback and I couldn’t be happier!
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2) TEDDY RUXPIN: I was too old for this toy but I was really hoping it would go huge. I love teddy bears and I love stories so the idea of combining the two into a story-telling Teddy Bear seemed perfect! Too bad the fur didn’t feel good and this Teddy wasn’t the least bit huggable. The movements were jerky and the “voice” of Teddy Ruxpin was so icky-sicky sweet that even kids wanted to run screaming while ripping their own ers off. The toy might have survived one or two of these flaws but put them all together and it spelled doom for Teddy Ruxpin. The manufacturers tried bringing “him” back a few years ago (no doubt hoping to cash in on parental nostalgia) but sales went nowhere and Teddy Ruxpin went away again (hopefully forever this time).
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3) CABBAGE PATCH KIDS: this was the “must have” toy for Christmas 1983. I remember going to the Target store in Long Beach CA to pick up a few necessities the day a shipment arrived and seeing a line of would-be buyers snaking clear around the building. I got to breeze right through the doors (since I was the only person NOT there for a Cabbage Patch Kid) which nearly caused a riot. (That was loads of fun--no really, it was!) That little bon mot aside--I never got the whole fascination with these dolls. Cabbage Patch Kids were kind of cute (in an ugly sort of way) when each one was manufactured individually and supposedly no two “Kids” were exactly alike, making each doll unique. Still, when Coleco ™ started making them by the millions I knew there would soon be a big bust. It took a while but over-saturation of the market took it’s toll and you couldn’t give these dolls away--leaving a lot of collectors who paid big bucks for the early mass-produced dolls high and dry--not to mention those poor souls who had the original dolls. I wonder if my sister Jane still has little “Ramsey Casey” in the top of her closet…?
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4) SIMON: the cool-for-a-minute toy of 1976. Players were supposed to follow a pattern of lights (within a set period of time) or they got a loud mechanical raspberry. Following the pattern was addictive for a while (and EVERYBODY had to take a turn). Still, after a month or two the thing never got played with again. (I could follow the “4” and “8” patterns almost constantly and was able to do “14” about 75% of the time but looking back I wonder why I wasted so much time on this.
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5) PETSTER: The cool-for-a-minute toy of 1985 was one of the first “status” toys of the “Me Generation.” It was a "first-generation" wireless remote-controlled toy--a legless, vaguely cat-looking thing that zipped around on the floor. It was HUGELY expensive for the time and went through batteries like you wouldn’t believe. Add to it the fact that, like most robotic toys, the thing had a bad habit of breaking that did make it worth the price. (Even the marketing campaign sucked--but still kids HAD to have it--for a while at least…) If the marketing campaign had been just a *little* better and the thing had cost a bit less we might have had Petster around for more than one season. Weirdly enough, if, Petster 2.0 were released today it would cost less money, do more things, probably be more reliable and a LOT smaller--not to mention costing less!
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6) BETSY WETSY: oh wow! You feed her a bottle and she wets her diaper! How exciting is that? Maybe that was big in the 1950s but I just don’t get it. At least Drink & Wet Baby that came out a few years later appeared to suck the bottle when you put it in her mouth but still.. Did little girls really enjoy pretending to changes baby’s didee? Not now, nor never having been a little girl I couldn’t say with certainty but I’m guessing mot so much…
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7) HE MAN: the second “gayest” toy ever manufactured featured “Prince Adam” a steroid-stallion pretty boy (with a blond pageboy) who morphed into jockstrap-wearing Leatherman “He Man” every time he shouted “by the power of Grayskull!” Many of his muscle-bound friends had truly horrific (often punny) names. (My favorites were Evillynn and Castaspella but Stinkor is right up there. So is Man E Faces and Ram Man). Notice I said nothing about Fisto and Extendor: some things are even too obvious for me to poke fun at It‘s more fun pointing out the latent homoerotic elements of this toys to inspecting kids who played with them…
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8) GROWING UP SKIPPER: twist this girl dolly’s arm the right away and she got taller and grew boobs! I wonder how many young girls dislocated their shoulders trying to duplicate this feat? OK, that was a cheap shot and hardly original but I was running out of things to diss.
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9) STRETCH ARMSTRONG: OK--you can stretch him--whoopee! How exciting his that!?! The thing that interested kids most was what was INSIDE the doll (some red goo that permanently stained any fabric it got on. How fun is that for Mom?
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10) NEOPETS: the “cool for a minute” toy at the turn of the second millennium. “Walk”, “feed” “train” and “play with” your virtual pet or he’d get destructive and eventually die. Yes, it mirrored the circle of life but--what’s the point here people?
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These toys made A LOT of money for their creators (or at least manufacturers) so I guess they weren’t that big of a dud. Still, I think it’s a damn fine Toy Hall of Shame..
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