(Not sure if this is better suited to Cafe Society or MPSIMS)
A contestant on this season’s America’s Got Talent produces what he calls “Kinetic Sculptures.” His installations are similar to falling-domino sculptures, except he uses popsicle sticks, balls, cans, and a host of other things. It’s actually pretty fun to watch.
I remember for a time that domino sculptures were all the rage, at least for a few months in the early 1980’s. You could even go to a toy store and buy domino kits. In the summer day care program I was in (I’d have been 11-12 in the early 80’s), I was looked up to as one of the masters of domino arrangement.
I even remember a domino sculpture coming to our mall and setting up an installation; took him about four days for about two minutes’ worth of entertainment. IIRC, his name was Bob Spega.
Wow, haven’t thought of those in years! I had this giant kit of smallish, coloured domino-like tiles. Being lighter and smaller than regular dominos, they were kind of a PITA to set up (I think the toy came with some sort of anti-Pez like contraption to set them up, but it didn’t work very well), but there were bajillions of them in the box. Wish I could remember the name of them.
I had the Rocket Set, it was bitchin’. Of course, it came out about ten years after the OP’s “domino craze,” so was there a second domino craze in the late 80s or was there not one in the early 80s?
I got a set of those one Christmas and was quite disappointed to discover that instead of dominoes, the box was essentially filled with plastic Tic Tacs.
I had another sort of pseudo-domino toy, in the late 1970s. I can’t remember the name of them, but they were the size of dominoes, but with one end heavier than the other (the “light end” had several visible holes). They came with a booklet showing all the special tricks you could do with them, thanks to the odd weighting.
But crushing as that disappointment was, I still managed to play the hell out of them. I also remember the frustration aptly described in the wiki link:
ETA: If you thought the cake was a lie, check out the commercial. Clever editing made everything seem as large as the bridge-mounted tiles.
I remember having a set of Disney dominoesgrowing up in the early 80’s. They had pictures of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and the like. I don’t think I ever actually played dominoes, but I did use them as pins for a miniature game of bowling.
Yeah, that’s the one I had. Here’s an eBay auction of it. Those had the tiniest dominoes (at least they seemed smaller than Domino Rally’s), and it came with a frame in which you could put in any of a number of cardboard templates with domino patterns cut into them, to facilitate setting up complex displays.
I remember it, never particularly entertained me, even as a young kid, but I loved setting them up myself.
As for the AGT guy, I wonder what his “Vegas act” would be. You walk in, he sets off a display that takes 90 seconds and then says “wasn’t that great, now I’m going to spend the next six hours setting up the next one why don’t you go have a latte or something.”
[QUOTE=kenobi 65]
I had another sort of pseudo-domino toy, in the late 1970s. [T]hey were the size of dominoes, but with one end heavier than the other (the “light end” had several visible holes). They came with a booklet showing all the special tricks you could do with them, thanks to the odd weighting.
Though I’m not sure why I had them actually, because most of our house was carpeted wall-to-wall. Also, the big tables in the kitchen and dining room were usually covered up. That is to say, I didn’t have much in the way of the hard, flat, and open surface you’d need to enjoy this particular toy.
I do remember building that big “mountain” or “house of cards” arrangement a few times. (See the last diagram on that web page.) It required delicate balancing and was a real bitch to set up. Much like a real house of cards, it was too easy to destroy it during the process of constructing it.
Yeah, we had wall-to-wall shag carpeting in most of the house (it was the 1970s, after all). I know that I had asked for them as a Christmas present (probably had seen them in ads). Due to all the carpeting, I’d set them up on either a sewing board in my bedroom, or on the tile floor in the finished basement.
We had a hilarious domino-setting-up thing in the 80’s. It was a little battery-operated train engine that you would load up with little plastic dominos, and it would trundle along and poop dominos out the back!
I’d forgotten all about them.