The Toy Thread

edited 2012-01-02 23:10:26 in Talk
First off: I WANT A MAGNA DOODLE. Does anyone else remember Magna Doodle?

Secondly, does it seem like no lasting toy lines really came out of the 1990s? When I think of toys from the '80s, I can think of lots of things that are still in production and/or popular in one form or another: Simon, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc. But when I try to think of toys associated with the 1990s they tend to be fad items that have pretty much died off: Furby, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Tamagotchi, etc.
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  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I remember the name Magna Doodle but not what it was.

    As for the 90s...video games took over or something, I dunno.
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    The Magna Doodle is a little screen thing with an attached "pencil" on which you could draw.

    Also, when I think of 2000s toylines I think of Bratz.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Bratz is the one 2000s toy line that comes to mind for me, too.

    And for the past couple years I mainly associate Bratz with all the legal battles surrounding them.
  • edited 2012-01-02 23:26:03
    READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    K'nex and Bop it came out of the 90s, they're still out, at least.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I mostly associate Bratz with being extremely distasteful.
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    I used to want a Bop it but assumed Mother would never get me one. I was a stupid child.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    How did I overlook Bop It? My sister just got one of those for Christmas!

    ^ Why did you think that?
  • I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
    I don't know. I remember wanting these boxing glove things and she said no, so that stuck or something.
  • edited 2012-01-03 20:34:49
    BEEFCAKE
    Anyone else have a Furby? 
    image
    or how how about one of these?
    image
    Mine kept dying in its own excrement.  Sad times.

    OMG THERE'S A NEW GENERATION OF TAMAGOCHIS OMG.

  • READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    Your second picture doesn't work...
  • ^ I fixed it.  Thanks for the same information you just shouted across the house :P
  • READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    Just making sure you DOUBLE knew.

  • edited 2012-01-05 01:16:22
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    I can't decide which version of this toy is less creepy:

    imageimage

    Also, it never really made sense. It's like...it's, um, a telephone, but it, like, has wheels, and you pull it around...?
  • No-one even uses those phones any more.  The left one is waaaaaaaaaaay more creepy.
  • READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    ^ Agreed. The second one is actually kinda cute, but the one on the left has those sunken, dead eyes...
  • "It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
    I knew of Tamagotchi, but I never saw the point. I mean I already had real dogs and cats...

    Did have a Furby, though. If you put it by another one, they'd start plotting with each other.
  • edited 2012-10-19 15:27:16
    Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
    Being a monster-battling enthusiast, Tamagotchi and Digimon are forever linked in my mind. It's kind of interesting how what was basically Tamagotchi FOR BOYS became the arch-nemesis of Pokéfans back in the day.
  • The sadness will last forever.
    Stuffed animals are awesome.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    Stuffed animals are quite awesome. I have several, still, including a mosquito puppet and a box of white mice.

    *...*

    I'm really an overgrown child.
  • mosquito puppet


    :D
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    It's creepy and adorable at the same time.
  • "It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
    Mosquito Puppet should be the name of your band.
  • I have an Ebola neck warmer.
  • edited 2012-10-19 17:13:47
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    We have a song called "Mosquito!", actually...

    ^ Cool!
  • Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
    At this time, I have:

    *two dragons: a blue one and a black-and-gold one that looks kinda like Dragonite
    *two snakes: a tropical rattlesnake and a generic nondescript tan snake that I've decided is a ball python morph
    *Charizard and Squirtle (I used to have a plush Mew keyholder too, but I think that got lost)

    I also used to collect stuffed dogs and cats.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I have a walrus.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Justice42 said:

    ^ Agreed. The second one is actually kinda cute, but the one on the left has those sunken, dead eyes...

    See, that was my first thought too, but the more I look at the second one the more it looks like some artificially constructed idea of what "cute" should be, like they took the first phone and modified its children in lab or something.

    ...

    Yeah.
  • READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    It's definitely someone's sort of mathematically calculated version of cute, but that doesn't bug me so much. The toy just seems forgettable.

    Te other one though...I mean, that's the sort of thing that haunts you in the night.

    Like you wake up late, and you need to use the restroom, and you walk out into the hall and step on something that slips out from under you.

    You hit the ground hard and get dizzy, as your vision clears you see that phone with it's sunken, dead eyes and painted grin.

    The phone rings, but not a regular ringing. Like a bike bell that's bent out of shape. In your daze you answer it. You hear the sound of muffled screaming and a voice whispers like nails on a chalk-board with the whine of a loose belt on a car behind it, "See you soon."

    Your head clears and it's just a phone, and, head throbbing, you pick yourself up and use the bathroom. You make it back to bed and toss try to look at that phone again, but it's not there. Confused, you walk into the bedroom. The phone is on your nightstand. Startled, you put the phone under the nightstand. You eventully fall into a troubled sleep.

    You wake up. The phone is gone. You step out into the hall, but it is not there. You almost dismiss it all as a dream where it not for the bump on your head.

    You get ready for the day and go to work. Another regular, boring car drive, except...

    What's that in the review mirror? Is the phone in the backseat?

    You look behind you. Nothing there. The seat is empty.

    You look forward and slam the breaks. Your tires screech as your car narrowly avoids smashing into the back of another.

    You breath a sigh of relief and wipe the sweat that's forming from your forehead, but as you do, you think you see the phone inside the car in front of you.

    You look again, just another commuter on their way to work.

    You make it to your job. A first few hours are incidental, but then the phone rings. It's not the regular phone ring, no it sounds like a bent out of shape bike bell and you look down and it's the phone and you yelp and swat it off your desk.

    You grab your coat and leave towards the exit. Your manager stops you and asks "What's wrong"? He just tried to call you but he herd your cry from his office. You mumble something about not feeling well and he asks if he can just have a quick talk about some project before he lets you go and get some rest.

    The permission of being able to leave comforts you a bit as you head to his office. You start discussing how the project is going and then his phone rings. A ring that all the phones in the building make. He syas "I've got to take this, really quick" and you nod and as he reaches down the tone of the ring changes.

    You think it sounds like a broken bicycle bell. You look away to clear your head and when you look back, your boss is no longer on a work phone, but a red one with a yellow string leading into a white box on wheels that has stars and a smile painted on it and cold, dead eyes that stare back up at you.

    Your boss nods as he talks on the phone and says "Yeah, they're here." He looks at you and hands the receiver and says it's for you.

    You think that this is impossible, that this can't be happening, but you pick up the receiver and choke out a "Hello?" That same muffled screaming, that same wispy, scratchy voice with the faint wine of rubber stretched too thin on a wheel says "See you soon."

    You scream and throw down the receiver. You rush out of the building and into your car.

    You drive home towards home in frenzy, you’re driving fast and reckless, but you just need to get home.
    A phone rings, but it’s the sounds of that bell again. Worse, it’s coming from inside your car. You look behind you…no not there, but closer. Like it’s inside your clothes…

    You check your coat pockets and grab your cell phone. It’s what is ringing with the sound of that bent bicycle bell. 

    You roll down the window and throw it out. In your review window you see a car swerve slightly to avoid the phone, and then speed up on your driver side.

    The woman in the car is irate, and honking, she screams at you about throwing the phone, but the honking is starting to sound more like a bell, and the woman is starting to smile, a big red smile, and her eyes…

    You push the pedal down drive as fast as you can home. 

    You make it inside and check the hall, and under the nightstand, under the bed, every room. Nothing. The phone is not there.

    The phone rings. It’s your land-line. You approach it but you dare not answer it, instead, you rip the phone cord from the wall. The ringing stops.

    You sigh, and the ringing starts again, but it’s not the normal ring. It’s that bell.

    You grab your phone and throw it on the ground and begin to stomp it.

    As you do the pieces seem to turn white or random bright pastel colors, the smashed receiver pieces turn red. The phone cord is not a cord anymore but a yellow string. 

    You gather the pieces and throw them into a garbage bag and throw it all into the garbage under the kitchen sink.

    It’s quiet. You feel it’s the first it’s been quiet all day.


    The phone rings. And then another joins it, and another, and another. A chorus of bicycle bells ringing their bent tune. You fetch the garbage open the sack and it’s full of red receivers, wheels, colorful stars, painted smiles, and dead eyes.

    You grab a knife. There’s got to be one place where there is no ringing, ONE place. 

    You put the knife to your throat.

    You wake up. Dizzy at first, your eyes adjust and it looks like your hallway. 

    You sigh, and then hear screaming, and then the smell hits you. The smell of burning flesh. 

    You turn and start to see the flames and pits as far as the eyes can see and a throne. A throne made from bone and covered with the flesh of faces in twisted screams. Hands, severed from their bodies, try to cover where the ears would be.

    On this throne you expect to see a red figure with goat horns and maybe a pitchfork.

    But he’s not there.

    There’s just a toy phone. White, on wheels, with little colorful stars painted on it. It has a big red painted smile, and cold, dead, sunken eyes.

    The phone rings.

  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Well then.

    I'm convinced.
  • I also used to collect stuffed dogs and cats.

    That's just nasty.
  • edited 2013-09-22 14:37:01
    You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    eBay is great for finding pictures of stuff you had as a kid.

    For instance, this piece of shit:

    image

    The LCD can only display numerals, so all the games and prizes (i.e., the parts of The Price is Right that make it fun) are on those little cards. They didn't even bother to add some way to automatically read the cards, so you have to punch in those annoying numbers on each one to tell the game what prize you're supposed to be playing for.

    Jeez, guys, if you wanted a Price is Right card game, make a bloody card game!
  • "It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
    That's really sad.
  • ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    I still have that first phone toy with the wheels and eye. I love that thing.
  • I have that shit, CA. Nobody actually played with it, I think.
  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
    I've got a box of tokusatsu toys that I got from various gatchapon machines while visiting Japan.

    Ranger Keys are kind of evil because you need to actually paste the sticker, and it's always a shitty sticker.

    OOO Medals are pretty okay, they're just big plastic coins with a chip inside for the belt to detect.

    Gaia Memories are these big USB-thumb-drive looking things. There's a button you press that makes a voice chip declare what kind of Memory it is. Good stuff.

    Astro Switches are little modules with chips and a little clicky mechanism that you can trigger, like buttons, slides, and switches.

    Bestial Batteries are these plastic cylinders that look like batteries, with a little dinosaur picture inside, and a jagged ridge across. When you press the tip-most ridge, the dinosaur picture flips very satisfyingly.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Why does this thing even exist? It makes no sense.
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