A One-Sided View

A Salute to Fabulous Childhood Toys!

This was written by Diana, a friend of mine from high school... I thought it kicked ass so I posted it here, I also added a link to her blog on the side bar!

This is a salute to the awesome things you had growing up if you were born sometime during or between the years of 1982 and 1987 (generation blocks are thought to be six years long; basically, if you're anywhere in or between your senior year of high school and your first year out of college right now, this applies to you).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fun-Dip. Hey Dude. Cabbage Patch dolls. Pogs. Power Rangers. Doug. Punky Brewster. Ooze. Recess. Pixie sticks. Pinky and the Brain. Airheads. Rainbow Brite. Double Dutch jump rope game and associated songs. Kool Aid. Magic markers. Slip'N'Slides. Saved by the Bell. Batman movies. SNICK. Are You Afraid of the Dark? McDonalds PlayPlaces. Scrunchies. Lisa Frank. Keenan and Kel. Lincoln Logs. Ring pops. My Little Pony. Sega. Mighty Ducks. Spiragraph. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Animaniacs. Magnadoodle. Spiderman. Street hockey. GI Joe. LA Lights. Etch-A-Sketch. Ghostbusters. Bobby's World. Candyland. Skip It. Mickey Mouse Club. TGIF Lineup (Boy Meets World, Family Matters, Full House, Step By Step). Water guns. Gak. N64. Goosebumps. Berenstein Bears. Rugrats. Care Bears. Paintball guns. Handy Snacks. Transformers. The era of Disney movies beginning with the Little Mermaid and ending with the Lion King. Legos. Goldeneye 64. Ducktails. The Tick. Fruit rollups. Sesame Street. Ribbon dancer. Mario Bros. Babysitters' Club. Fruit by the Foot. K'Nex. Air Nike. Reading Rainbow. The best of Fisher Price. Pound Puppies. Easy-Bake Oven. Operation. Monopoly. Silly putty. Koosh balls. Rubix cube. Where's Waldo? Chef Boyardee. Pop-tarts. Nerf balls. X-Men. Eggo waffles. Fresh Prince. Trampolines. Salute Your Shorts. Homeward Bound. Goldfish crackers.

Okay, look at that, and then try to tell me that we didn't have the best stuff of any generation thus far. Ninja Turtles - a CLASSIC! Children born after us watch the newer, sucky versions and revere those of us who were old enough to watch the original (I used to get up early on Saturday mornings for that purpose alone) and still wear Ninja Turtles paraphernalia. A theory is being constructed that states what I have said - that we as kids had the best stuff growing up, in comparison to every other generation before or after us - and attempts to prove it. If you think I forgot anything, send me a message on AIM, and I'll see if it fits the requirements to make the list. The requirements are as such: 1) It must be something relative to 'pop culture' and/or daily life: music, movies, foods, TV shows, toys, clothes, etc. 2) It must either have originated during our childhoods or had a significantly high period of popularity during our childhoods. 3) It must be awesome. For the record, Pokemon is NOT on the list and DOES NOT belong on the list because a) it's not awesome and b) most of us were at least 4 years too old for it when it came out. My evidence of this is that I used to babysit a kid who was huge into Pokemon, even though he seemed a bit old for it, and he was 5 years younger than me.

Anyway, back to the point. Our shit was cooler. Why did we have the best of everything? There are several possible explanations for this. First, the majority of the people designing these things for us and then marketing them were in their 30s or 40s. Thus, they were of proper age (~20) to smoke pot and do psychedelic drugs during the 60s and 70s and were mostly crazy and hypercreative after those experiences. That's one theory; another is that the 80s, with its cocaine outbreak and other things, gave birth to a social revolution that suggested that being slightly crazy and offbeat and extremely interesting was a good thing, not to mention stylish. A third theory is that we had just begun to learn more about the psychological dealings of children and knew how to push those buttons, and when this was combined with the steady rise of technology, revolutionary classics were born. A fourth theory (that is slightly complimentary to the third) is that the advertising industry made a shift in the 80s to serving the newly funded younger part of society, so the majority of profits came from the desires of kids and teens and thus the majority of corporate energy was focused on us.

So why do today's toys and things suck (well, at least in comparison to our stuff)? Well, we've become obsessed with technology and progression. When we didn't have that much technology to work with, we couldn't have too much of it. Now that it's everywhere, children's games and things are centered around using it in every way possible. Cartoons have whacked up character names in episodes that are too technical to be enjoyed. Look at the Ninja Turtles: they had simple weapons, classic names (Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Leonardo), and they hung out with a sewer rat named Splinter all the time. You know, because turtles and sewer rats are legendary for their long-lasting partnerships. Makes sense. The qualitis of TMNT that drove it to amazing success? Vague, classic, action-packed, curious, talking animals, simple enough so that the cartoon doesn't get lost in the technical aspects of things, as many cartoons do now. They weren't trying to create a Star Trek for kids; there were no new and strange species names to memorize, but it still played to our imaginations by testing the boundaries of belief by creating talking turtles.

Go forth and play.

posted by Annie @ 7:28 PM