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.
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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..
I wish I could give a medal to the really cool toys of my childhood but since I can’t they’ll have to settle for the fractal Medal that goes with this post. That being said, it’s time for yet another pointless meander down Memory Lane..
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I recently watched a holiday special on HGTV called The Toys We Grew Up With. Seeing a lot of the toys I DID grow up with, (the ones I had a few of the ones I wanted and some I never could fathom their popularity so I decided to comment. Here’s a list of my top ten favorites. Future posts will give the BOTTOM ten and the ten WTF? toys.
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THE GOOD
1) LEGO. My all-time favorite toy. I don’t remember who gave me my first Lego Play Set (it was a build-your-own city) but I think it was my sister Andrea and I got it for my tenth birthday. From the moment I got it out of the package I was hooked. I played with those interlocking plastic blocks from Denmark for YEARS even doing two school projects with Legos (a Roman house and a Souther-style Plantation home). I remember borrowing my nephew Ricky’s Lego bricks for one of them yet somehow they never quite made it back to his house. I was less impressed later Lego sets that limited your building options but I’d still play with Lego today if I had the chance…
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2) ETCH-A-SKETCH: I think I went through four Etch-A-Sketches (at least) as a kid because I played with them so much (and they really WERE kind of delicate). I was never good enough to draw faces but I did a LOT of homes and fanciful cities. My cursive writing on the Etch-A-Sketch was also about as good as what I could do on paper (but that says more about my bad penmanship than anything else.) I was the best Etch-A-Sketcher in my neighborhood.
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3) TONKA TOYS: in the halcyon days of my youth Tonka Trucks were BIG metal constructions and I had quite a few--the dump truck, the fire truck, hook and ladder and some others. My sisters Syn Dee. Jane and Andrea did most of the purchasing of these. I played with them a lot but they stayed in pretty good condition in spite of that (which was a real testament to how well they were constructed). I went on a long vacation with my folks and came home to find all the toys (that I had thoughtlessly left outside for the other kids to play with) had all be destroyed. It still amazes me to think how much effort it would have taken to trash those trucks.
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4) SPIROGRAPH: this is a relatively simple toy--just a pen and compass that let you draw these awesome (mostly) circular designs (sort of the forerunner to fractals) but I played with it for a long, long time. Honestly, I don’t know why I eventually quit--maybe I exhausted the possibilities.
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5) MATCHBOX CARS: I think I had at least a hundred of these tiny metal cars. I remember fondly my sister Jane bringing me some “European-only” editions from a vacation she took to Germany with her husband. (I recently saw some of these on line and almost wept to see how much they were going for.) Some of my sisters even gave me some of the larger-scale Antique Car collectables and I enjoyed those too. (I think my sister Tanya has the remnants of the collection in her house.)
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6) LITE BRITE: I was never much for copying the “punch by numbers” pictures that came with the toy. I started making designs early on. (Maybe it was another precursor to my passion for creating fractals.) Dunno why I quit playing with it after a while: maybe it was just too limiting.
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7) CLUE: I don’t remember if I got this game as a gift or if I simply played it a lot from our “family” games but I liked it so much I bought the “Master Detective” version (a bigger game with more rooms, suspects and weapons), I still enjoy a good game of Clue today although I think it has more to do with the fact that I always play “in character” (which either amuses or annoys the folks we play with.)
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8) CRAYOLA CRAYONS: a whole realm of possibilities when my parents gave me the box of crayons with 64 colors and a built-in sharpener! I discovered colors like Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Cornflower Blue, Red Orange and Orange Red (yes they are different colors!) Back then the box also had colors like Light Flesh and Dark Flesh which made me incredibly happy because I could finally color people and make them look more or less real! Sadly, the biggest downside was that my favorite crayons got used up a lot faster then some of than some of the others and you couldn’t replace them without buying a whole new box (which never happened.) Still, I think Crayola Crayons are responsible for my love of color to this day.
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9) LINCOLN LOGS: I got these in early childhood and played with them for a good long time. These were my first foray into building actual buildings. I didn’t play with them any longer because what I could construct was actually rather limited (at least with the relatively small set I had). I longed to build multi-story log cabin mansions and sprawling forts with towers but I just didn’t have enough to build with.
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10) SCRABBLE: I never really appreciated this game until adulthood when I realized my passion for words had another outlet besides writing. I’m an OK Scrabble player but nowhere as good as those people who go so far as to memorize EVERY two-letter, three-letter and four-letter word in the Scrabble Dictionary so they can make more points.
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Looking back on this list it seems that most of my favorite toys involved some sort of creativity or using my brain--it foreshadowed the person I would become. (Of course that‘s probably the case with all of us.) No matter what toys are your favorite I’ll bet they have a way of inspiring a nostalgic longing in your heart for younger days. It certainly does me…
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Think about it.
I picked Squared Arabic 48 as the fractal for today’s post for one reason and one reason only. Like Marley And Me, it’s pretty and mostly golden. Enjoy the review unless you’ve made other plans.
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Robyn and I have a long-standing Christmas tradition: every Christmas Day we head out around noon to check out a holiday movie. (Being “child free” and having the sense NOT to host large family gatherings on this day of dayswe can do that.) We try to pick something “uplifting” (or at least fun). This year we chose Marley And Me. (Sort of inevitable since we both like animal stories and they don‘t make many movies about cats.) With this movie we pretty much got what we expected.
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Most adults (at least those with half a brain) know what’s going to happen before Marley And Me even begins. Sadly there are those who will be fooled by the marketing campaign into believing this really IS just a movie about a wacky Golden Retriever puppy who grows up to have wacky adventures with his equally wacky owners. And yes, there’s plenty of that in here--but there is some “family drama” and the ending (which you know is inevitable from the opening credits) is a three-hanky weeper. (Yes, even this cynical old Baron got a little misty.) You can describe the whole story in one sentence: “bad” dog teaches his family about life and love.
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I can’t fault this movie for being what it is--but I wouldn’t earn my “Critic’s Chapeau” if I couldn’t find a few minor things to complain about. The biggest one is this: fortyish Owen Wilson and Jennifer Anniston, good as they look, don’t come off like twenty something newlyweds. (They start out looking forty and end that way too.) Even though the movie was supposed to span a decade or more, the two leads never change anything--hair, clothing, looks attitude--and that bothers me at least a little. They play John and Jenny Grogan with an earnestness that’s never quite cloying but they both manage to annoy me a bit: how could two otherwise intelligent people walk into something like dog ownership without doing something in the way of research or making more of an effort to train their unruly dog? I also had HUGE problems with John’s general dissatisfaction with life: when he doesn’t like being a reporter but resents being forced to write a column (and when the column proves hugely successful he wants to go back to being a Reporter--but once he moves across country for the new job he wants to be a Columnist again!) Likewise, driven Jenny decides to quit work and become a stay-at-home Mom but resents her hubby and doesn’t want help: makes no sense to me. Still, Wilson and Anniston manage to make both the funny and sad scenes believable.
-It took 22 dogs to play Marley from puppyhood through his senior years but you'd never know it by looking at the movie. There's never a hint of difference from dog to dog. Alan Arkin does fine as John's curmudgeonly yet loveable editor in Miamia and Eric Dane isn't called on to do much of anything but look hunky. This movie rises and falls on the strength of the dog(s) and lead actors' performances.-
Marley And Me is NOT a movie for young children. Yes, there are a lot of funny bits but there are some serious moments that would lead to “awkward” discussion with your child so keep kids under age eight away from this movie (unless your child is exceptionally mature or you enjoy having difficult talks.) For a more mature crowd Marley And Me is a fine movie.
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FINAL GRADE: A-
Let’s begin today’s post with a Christmas Wreath as my gift to you for reading through my blog. Hope this one makes you smile at least a little.
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As you all no doubt know I am an inveterate collector (scroll down and read Confessions Of A Fiftyish Fanoy if you’ve forgotten and need a refresher). Luckily for Robyn a lot of my collections are intangible: (again, check out the post on “real” unfortunate names for one example). Mondagreens are one of my favorite holiday collections.
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No doubt a few of you out there are wondering “what the hell is a “Mondagreen” anyway? Very simply--a “mondagreen” is a misheard song lyric. (And you didn’t even KNOW there was a word for this!) Some are pretty pervasive (like there’s the bathroom on the right instead of there’s a bad moon on the rise) and some exist only in my tortured mind. So, in the spirit of the season, here are some of my favorite “Christmas” Mondagreens.
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Here’s one from Silent Night that comes from my own childhood… “Round John Virgin, mother and child…” For years I wondered who “John Virgin” was. I went to Sunday School but he never got mentioned there if he was featured so prominently in the song.
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Here’s another Christmas “classic”… “While Shepherds Washed Their Socks By Night”. (The real lyric is “While Shepherds WATCHED their FLOCKS by night.”) Some foks think said shepherds "WALKED THEIR FOX by night..."- From that touching American-made Christmas folk song I Wonder As I Wander we get this delightful little bit: "For FOUR HORNEY people like you and like I..." Me, I want to know who the other two folks are! (The real lyrics are for POOR HORNRY people...)-
This is a childhood favorite of mine from Winter Wonderland. “In the meadow we can build a snowman--and pretend that he is sparse and brown…” (Of course the real lyric is “we‘ll pretend that he is PARSON Brown“) Hey--I grew up in Imperial County! We actually HAD “snowmen” made of tumbleweeds (which really WERE sparse and brown!) so it made sense to me…) But “later on we’ll PERSPIRE (or maybe EXPIRE) as we DRINK by the fire--to face I’M AFRAID, the plans that we made…
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Why they called him “good” I’ll never know when “Good King Wencelas just backed out--on the feet of Stephen!” (It‘s “Good King WENCESLAS LOOKED out on the FEAST of Stephen! although a few folks have heard him "BACK out on HIS FEET UNEVEN".)
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My e-friend Carrie Brown provided this one from “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” “Glory to the NEW YORK King!” Hmm--I always knew “New York” was different. I know a couple of QUEENS from there but still... Some folks even add these delightful little bits to the song: “Joyful OILY nations rise DRIVE A TRIUMPH IN DISGUISE…” (OK, if I HAD to drive a Triumph I’d want a disguise myself..)
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Here’s a little gem from “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” “She thought that I was LOCKED up in my bedroom fast asleep.” Hey, if the brat was spying on me I’d lock him up myself!
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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (which is twisted up enough on it‘s own) gets this treatment. “GET DRESSED ye MARRIED gentlemen. EAT NOTHING ‘TIL THIS MAY” Or maybe: ‘GET HUFFY you JUST MAY.”
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And I guess it was “OLIVE, the other Reindeer” who gave Rudolph so much trouble… I mean, come on! S/he “used to LAP and call HIS DAMES.” (I don’t even want to know what that means!)
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A lot of “mondagreens” seems to revolve around food for some reason or other. Take for example this bit from Santa Claus is Coming to Town. “He’s making a list OF CHICKEN AND RICE..” Ayup! Better check THAT one twice… And once he’s checked that “Chicken and rice” they’re going to build a TOILET town all around the Christmas Tree!” EEW!
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“John Virgin shows up in this food-mangle from Silent Night. “ROUND JOHN virgin MARGERINE child. Holy IMBICILE tender and mild… Things take a bad turn in the next verse… “STABBING FIGHT, HOLD THE KNIFE. SHIP HER CAKE at THIS SITE..” (If the cake’s that good ship some to me too!) In the next verse they want you to “RADIATE MEAT from (your) "holy PLACE…” (and I’m not touching that one. It’s Christmas!)
- This food mangle is from The Christmas Song. "CHIPMUNKS roasting on an open fire. HOT SAUCE DRIPPING OFF THEIR TOES.." (As long as it's "Alvin," "Simon" and "Theodore" I'm all for it!) Some of the "dirty" minded might hear the lyric as "JEFF'S nuts roasting on an open fire . . ." Poor Jeff!-Songs in other languages are ripe for Mondagreen mangles. Take for example Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano. It has come out 'POLICE DOGGIE-DOG or maybe PLEASE DOGGIE-DOG or even FLEASE DOGGIE DOG!"-During the 12 Days Of Christmas some folks insist “my TULIP sent to me.. Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten LAWYERS LEAVING, nine LAZY HANSONS, eight maids a-milking, seven WARTS ON WOMEN, six geese a-laying, five COLD END rings, four calling birds, three French hens two PURPLE doves and a CARTRIDGE in a PAN TREE!”
-Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (unless you've made other plans...)
All these posts come out of my mind (literally) so it seemed inevitable that I would offer a post with an image called Out Of My Mind. Since this post deals with my thoughts it seemed particularly appropriate for today’s offering.
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Yesterday’s post (scroll down and check it out if you don‘t remember what I‘m talking about!) got me thinking about “unfortunate” names. I’ve been something of a fan of these for quite some time because they appeal to my sense of the absurd. Mind you, I’d never saddle one of my own kids with a “unique” name although Robyn and I have joked about naming a daughter Female (pronounced fem-ALEE) Mange and her brother would be Snout. Here are some my other favorites that are actually floating around the real world.
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CRYSTAL SHANDA LEAR: this started the whole obsession. “I went to school with “Chris” Lear and when I found her middle initial was “S” I had to ask.
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IMA and URA HOGG: I learned about this in 8th Grade and found out they were the daughters of Texas Governor “Big Jim” Hogg. (His middle name was "Butcher" so I guess weird names were a tradition in his line.) Ima was a philanthropist and patron of the arts who had one of the finest collections of art in the world. Ima Hogg is proof that anyone can overcome an unfortunate name.
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CHRIS P BACON: need I say more?
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BEN (not “Benjamin” Ben) DOVER: yeah, real cute--NOT!
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SCARLET and VIOLET GREENE: I don’t think their parents intended to be clever or cute. They just wanted to give their girls “colorful” names that went together.
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And my own personal favorite… SEYMOUR BYRDCHETT. (He pronounced it bird shit and even corrected me when I tried to pronounce it bird schette! I’ve heard of being proud of one’s name
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Sometimes foreign names acquire an unfortunate connotation when heard in English. (I’m sure they’re perfectly fine in their native tongue but in our language they are unintentionally funny.) To wit:
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FUNG KEE: owner of a Chinese Laundry in London. (I had several shirts done there when I visited in 1976). All I can say is “get down, get Fung Kee!”
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KAO-DUNG THIEU: (pronounced “cow dung too“)
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Sometimes the names are unfortunate in their own language and non-native speakers don’t recognize it unless they know the language. Here’s my favorite: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. For those of you who don’t know cabeza de vaca means “cow’s head!” Eeew.)
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Hyphenating names can also be a dangerous thing. I remember the story of one Amanda Royell who was set to marry Christopher Payne. Her friends had to talk her out of hyphenating the name lest she become A. Royell-Payne.
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Those in the movie and music industry have elevated the “wacky” name to high art. These don’t have “double” meanings: they’re just stupid. Here are some of my favorites.
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RUMER, SCOUT and TALULA BELLE WILLIS (the three daughters of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.)
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MOXIE CRIMEFIGHTER GILETTE: daughter of magician Penn Gillette.
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PILOT INSPEKTOR LEE son of My Name Is Earl star Jason Lee. Come on! He didn’t even spell it right!!!
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BRONX MOWGLI WENTZ: baby son of Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy and Ashlee Simpson the younger, less-talented sister of Jessica.
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ZOWIE BOWIE: son of David and Angela Bowie. He later changed his name to “Joe”. Wonder why…)
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But my absolute personal favorite of this lot has got to be JERMAJESTY JACKSON son of Jermaine Jackson of the Jackson 5. All I can say to that is: “jerkidding, right?”
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Yes, I suppose these names are “fun”, “cute” even “clever”--but with all a kid already has to face--do you REALLY want to stick your kid with a name like this? I don’t think so.
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Think about it.
Sometimes news like this is just “2” weird to let pass without comment--thusly I chose Weird Web 2 as the fractal for today’s rant. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.
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Heath and Deborah Campbell of Holland Township New Jersey (and all I can say is thank God these two are clear on the other side of the country) have been kicking up a fuss since the ShopRite supermarket in Greenwich Township N.J. refused to make a birthday cake for their son. The cake would have read HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADOLF HITER. (Yes, they named their son Adolf Hitler Campell: his two older sisters are JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Himler Jeannie.) The store believes inscribing the cake with the name would be “inappropriate” (although the store DID offer the proud parents a cake without the name so they could put whatever they chose.)
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NOTE: I suppose I could spend several paragraphs berating the parents for their choice of names but there’s nothing I could say that would change their minds or shed any light on the situation. You have to let sick people like that be sick until they get themselves cured.
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If the story wasn’t weird enough it takes a truly bizarre turn when many people in the area complained to the local newspaper the Express-Times. Honestly, I don’t get that: the story is the sort of sad, if sensationalistic “human interest” piece that would be sure to grab attention ANYWHERE in the paper. Complaining about the story to the paper is just--dumb…
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Here’s the other thing I think is decidedly weird. The Campbell parents got the birthday cake they wanted at, of all places, Wal-Mart! Why is this odd, I hear you cry? Wal-Mart is such a guardian of public morals that they refuse to sell albums with explicit lyrics or books with “questionable” content. I can’t figure out why such a (supposedly) decent, “family friendly” business would want to associate themselves with something like this. It seems somehow inconsistent with the rest of the store policies. (Of course "Wally World" DID have a major distribution deal for Brokeback Mountain and we all know about that.) Even so, you gotta admit--that’s just plain weird…
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Think about it.
I picked Citrine as today’s fractal image for one reason alone: it’s green. (And if you can’t figure out why that’s important from reading this post maybe you shouldn’t be reading my blog, operating heavy machinery, going out unaccompanied…)
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The past few days there has been a lot of coverage in our local paper, the Press Enterprise, centering around some Hemet Senior Citizen complaining about their home on a golf course being damaged by golf balls. Frankly, I don’t get it: yes, I understand the need to bitch (I do that often enough in my blog--I'm doing it now!) but for the newspaper to spend multiple days covering the story and having people write letters to the editor? Say what you will about the Orange County Register--they never wasted their ink and my time covering such a complete non-story.
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Come on people! Is there some function of being a Senior Citizen that causes you to lose your mind? What did they really expect was going to happen on a Golf Course??? You’d think that they would have had SOME idea of the potential trouble living in such a spot would entail: complaining about it after the fact reminds me of people who buy homes under a flight path and then complain about airport noise. (It’s a different story if homeowner was there first but that’s just not the case here.) Suck it up and deal!
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Of course, it must be nice to live in a community so devoid of “real” news that our newspaper could devote so much ink. Dunno what, if anything, to say about that other than to note the fact so I guess I’ll simply make the note and move on. We never had this kind of problem in Orange County (or if we did the paper had more important things to do than air local citizens complaints). Is that a good thing? Honestly, I don’t know but it’s something worth thinking about…
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.
