What Product Fads Did You Participate In?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Remember Topp’s “Wacky Packages”? I would blow my allowance on those every week, back in the early seventies. I had those amusing stickers plastered all over most of my belongings.

I also had to have the “Super Elastic Bubble Plastic” that was heavily advertised on TV one summer in the seventies. When I finally got it, it proved to be a terrible disappointment. Evil-smelling, tiny tubes of rubbery goo. I used it up in less than an hour. Thus was my bubble burst about the wonders of toys featured in commercials.

In fifth grade, I had a pair of earth shoes that squeaked horribly as I tentatively made my way down the hall on my first day in a new school. After a few days, my shoes stopped squealing, as I broke them in. I got a lot of compliments on those putty-colored leather beauties (this was the seventies—good taste was on an extended vacation), and wore them till they almost fell apart. :slight_smile:

42

I haven’t thought about these in what–ten years, twelve years, but right after reading this post, the My Buddy jingle popped into my head.

43

My little brother wanted one. Until he and I sat and watched Child’s Play.

Now I’m all depressed thinking about that poor Tamagotchi or whatever the hell it was that got punished to death. I need to go love on my kittie now.

44

Flashback time, I do remember the Mattel Creepy Crawlers[sup]tm[/sup] ! But ours was the one making the dragons (assembly required).

I also remember Green Ghost, that was the toy that thaught to never, never believe commercials again. What a piece of crap !

45

I took the stickers off and put them back on so it looked like I solved it.

HEY! I was around 6 at the time.
I had a Cabbage Patch Kid-I was almost too old when that fad really hit though. Beyond that, I really didn’t get too much into the fad toy things. Except for [sub}strawberry short cake. Remember the dolls-and the evil dude was The Purple Pie-man[/sub]

46

When I was a kid we would collect returnable soda pop bottles left at construction sites, then take them to the local 7-11 to buy all of those stupid Wacky Packages.

Before that I remember begging my Mom to buy something called “Shake-a-pudding”, where you would add water to some dry mix, then shake and mix your own pudding. I am sure it tasted like hell. About this same time (late 1960s) there was a pretty big fad of collecting stickers from companies, like Coca Cola in every imaginable language, and Avis “We try harder” stickers, also in multiple languages. Plus stickers for Bardahl and STP motor oils.

47

My parents have a singing bird clock – yes, the very same clock advertised on late-night television. You, too can enjoy hearing the repeated calls of the white-tailed pooperscooper and the scarlet-beaked vomitblaster if you ORDER NOW!!!

But, thankfully, they do not have a Billy Bass on the wall. I would be quite disappointed if that were true.

48

Tamagotchi! I used to have a dinosaur one. And then I had one of those nano babies. Well actually two. I had Nano Puppy and Nano Baby. I miss them.

As for Beanies…I have six. Three puppies, a kitten, a skunk, and a purple hippo. All adorable. I also remove the tags. They feel more personal that way.

I also was really into Pokemon a couple of years ago. No, I didn’t play video games…I just watched the show. And I have a stuffed Pikachu.

49

::blink:: This counts as a “product fad”? Damn. I own a couple of pants like this. Where I come from we call weird cloth sewn down the side “hugger stripes” as in “tree-hugger” cos that’s the kind of person that usually wears them ('though I’ve seen skaters wearing them, too). I made all my hugger stripe pants myself; does this still count as a “product fad”? Shit, and I thought I was doing so well as avoiding faddy trends… :frowning:

Okay, when I was a wee Lunatic I had a couple of Cabbage Patch dolls. I’m not exactly sure when the huge gimme-gimme riot-fad for them was, but I got my first one (named Inez, by the way) around 1986. I was crazy about My Little Ponys and Legos, and I had a brief infatuation with She-Ra, Princess of Power. Being a little girl in the 80s, I had all sorts of unicorn shit. When I was about 10 the big thing with the girls at my school was Maple Town figures; they were these little anthropomorphic animals-dolls, with little animal-clothes and an animal-school bus and all sorts of stuff. I think I still have my Maple Town stuff somewhere. For a few years I ravenously read every single Babysitter’s Club book, and there was another book series, called The Fabulous Five, or something.

But I thought left all that behind around age 13. I mean, yeah, I’ve gotten things that other people have, but, ya know, because I like them, not because other people have them or because they were all going screaming apeshit over them. But, man, with this revalation about hugger stripe pants… Are people going screaming apeshit over hugger stripe pants? Outside of my hippie college I don’t even see them around very often.

50

Shrinky Dinks

Yes, I know I’m showing my age. :slight_smile:

IIRC, they were little plastic sheets you colored in and then placed in the oven to shrink. Hours of non-fun.

When my nephews came along, I was exposed to the Power Rangers,Beanie Babies and Tamagouchi.

I do admit to owing four Beanie Babies-the kangaroo, the otter and both dolphins. Those are my favorite animals.

51

Hehehe…great stuff here. I’ve remembered a few more thanks to you guys…

I also LOVED Crystal Pepsi™, City Gent. I was so sad to see it go, to me it tasted sweeter and it was so awesome because you could see through it, but it still tasted like soda!

AMM9132, I never got into Seamonkeys but I always wondered what they were exactly.

delphica, I bought so many plastic horse figurines. I spent nearly $14 a piece on them, back when I was really into horses. I slept with them too, and poked myself several times during the night.

bean_shadow, I remember when my elementary school banned POGS. They said it was encouraging gambling. I just didn’t see it, but they never really appealed to me. Buy a bunch of plastic and paper circles, play a game, and then lose a lot if you suck at it? Not likely.
Does anyone in here remember Gak? That horrible slimey stuff invented for Nickelodeon. I wanted some so badly. Mom finally gave in and bought me a splat-shaped container of it, and I think it was that very day that I dropped it into the dirt. Being the young child that I was, I decided the best plan of action would be to wash it off in the sink. So, I did that, used soap, dried with mom’s towels. Unfortunately for me, Gak is extremely water soluble, so with every added drop it just became gooey, and more gooey, and even more gooey…man mom was pissed. No matter how water soluble Gak is, for some reason it doesn’t take nicely to the washer, and ruined mom’s towel. Oh well. I didn’t want Gak anymore.

Another thing I had was…arrrghh what was it called…Create-a-Dolly or something like that. A huge Easy-Bake Oven type of machine with several metal casts of dolls in different hairstyles, with different accessories and clothing. To these casts you squirt a colored goo into a dolly design, flesh colored, brown, blonde, a little blue and green tube for eyes, pinks for purses, purple for dresses, brown for teddy bears.
After you create-a-dolly you put it into the oven to bake, let it cool, then peel 'er out. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with them besides decide they turned out crappy and throw them away. But when you put that stuff back into the box for storage in the closet, the goo leaks everywhere…a nasty, flesh colored plastic mess.

That’s all I have for now.
Oh, I did collect Trolls as well. The prized one was an astronaut, back when I lived in Florida, and I got it from a friend of my dad’s who worked at Cape Canaveral. He was so great. The Troll, that is. I also had a tiny, pink-haired baby. He didn’t have a belly button jewel, not old enough I guess :smiley:

52

I’m glad that somebody has already mentioned Wacky Packages. I can’t imagine how much I spent on those things, and I still was always one sticker away from having them all.
In junior high I was Rubick’s Cube speed champ 2 years in a row. I put that on my resume.

53

ARGHHH! I only remember about 4 words of it, but it’s in my head now. Thanks a lot.

54

If I were in HR and saw that on somebody’s resume, I would hire (or at least interview) them in a heartbeat! Unless of course that was the only thing on the resume.

55

I had a knock-off Tamagotchi that was… Yoda!!! (Star Wars & Tamagotchi: two great fads that fad great together).

Actually it was kind of cute. You could feed Yoda bowls of gruel and practice using The Force. His ears would perk up if I could lift the rock, R2, and the X-Wing (indicating, I chose to believe, pride in my accomplishments).

He was very easy to keep alive, I had him for months until finally his battery died. When 400 years I reach, look so good I will not. I miss you, Yoda. ::sniff::

WHY is the “My Buddy” jingle burned into my brain?? Who remembers “Kid Sister” – his female compatriot with the equally heinous song?

56

Of course it isn’t the only thing on my resume. I also mention my proficiency at eating pies and my talent for blowing huge snot bubbles.

57

For kids back in the mid-1960s, movie monsters were all the rage. I had giant posters of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster.

X-Ray Spex. From the crummy little ads at the back of the comic book. The most blatant cheap ripoff ever. A punk band named themselves X-Ray Spex maybe as a satire on ripoff capitalism.

Space Food Sticks. I devoured tons of those as a wee bairn. The closest thing to plastic ever marketed as “food.” What a feeling of disgust to recall that now.

Back in the trippy 60s, there was a toy that they could never get away with today. Transogram’s Ka-Bala. It was a circular sort of Ouija made of glow-in-the-dark green plastic with Zodiac signs around the perimeter. You had to play it in a completely darkened room, of course; you held hands and chanted black magic invocations. It also had slots for miniature Tarot cards. Over it presided a huge buggin’ eyeball (ringed around with black flames borrowed from Hindu statues of Shiva): The Eye of Zohar. My first introduction to the occult. About 10 years later in college I got into the real occult Kabbalah, Tarot, Magick, and all that. Imagine the protests if they tried to market this to today’s kiddies!

58

I could never understand the appeal of My Buddy or Kid Sister. They looked too much like Good Guy Dolls from Child’s Play.

I used to have GAK. I really wanted it but when I got it I hated it. It’s appeal was lost to me after five minutes, after it started to get over my clothes and the chair I was sitting in.

59

My son had a My Buddy. He loved it! He also had Wrestling Buddies. (I think he kept one or two when we moved recently. He’s 17.) He was totally into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff, as well as Ghostbusters toys, and Power Rangers. As for me, as a kid I had a bunch of troll dolls, and Rat Finks. Anybody remember those?! As I got older I was attracted to Hang Ten sportwear, and puka shell necklaces. What the hell is a puka, anyway?

60

Pogo Balls!

Remember those things? I set a neighborhood pogo ball record with something like 4 hours straight on one of those damn things. Mine was red and black.