Reminiscin' This 'n That...Part Two

There are just so many amazing toys from when we were kids. The 80s and 90s really had a multitude of fun stuff to play with. I mean, the EZ Bake oven it self was fantastic! Let's allow children to play with a little plastic device that "bakes" stuff with a 100 watt lightbulb to come out to the consistancy of an old sponge! Delicious. As you may have guessed, I never had an EZ Bake oven, so I am bitterly making fun of it.

Anyways, here's a second list of toys of the past. Some of these may be a little more obscure, but hopefully at least one person remembers them!

Bedazzler
"Don't be dull, be dazzlered!"
This little contraption could make a boring piece of perfectly good clothing into an eye sore full of tacky rhinestones! I had one, but I'm not sure I ever did anything with it. I may have used it on a spare rag to see what it did, but none of my close were bedazzled.
Flipsiders
This is an obscure one for sure. It looked like a cassette tape, but it folded out into a magnetc board game. I'm pretty sure it didn't play music, and I'm also pretty sure it would wreck your tape player if you tried to play it. Trust me.



My Little Pony and Fairy Tales
"My little pony, apocalypse pony..." Wait, wrong theme song. Anyways, these things are still around. I just got my niece one for her birthday. I remember having a white one with red and green hair. She (or he, they weren't really gendered specific as they had no genitals...probably a good idea that they didn't) had a maple leaf on her hind quarters. Or there were the ones that your rubbed them and a picture would appear. Pretty high tech stuff.

Glo Worm

Ah, glo worms. How I loved these guys. You'd squeeze them and their face would light up!

Magic Nursery Baby

"Magic Nursery Baby! Bringing you surprises and magic too!"

These dolls had "magic" nighties that, when put in water, disappeared and revealed whether it was a boy or girl. I got a boy. I was disappointed. But I loved him the same anyways.

Nosy Bear

These were another obscure toy to me. I never had one but my cousin did. I'm pretty sure you squeezed their tummy and their nose would spin around whatever was in the plastic bubble.

PJ Sparkles

She had sparkly pjs!

Rainbow Brite

Come on, everyone has to remember this multicoloured gal!

Strawberry Shortcake

Same goes for her! Plus I think she's still around.

Troll Dolls

These things were hideous beyond all reason. I have no idea why they were so popular. My sister had a bunch of them.

Yawnies

These stuffed animals had these huge mouths that made them look like they were yawning. I'm actually yawning right now thinking about them. Damn contagious yawns...

Water Babies

You filled these little rubbery dolls with water so they were to feel like real babies. They were awesome throwing toys!

Watchimals

They were stuffed animals but also watches! Watchimals! I just love blended words.

Teddy Ruxpin

He had a tape cassette in his back and he read you stories. He was slightly creepy in this form. I preferred his tv show with Grubby his awesome Octopede friend.

Speak & Spell

Everyone I knew had one of these. Except me. Tear.

Etch-a-sketch

These were just awesome. And still are. I loved making pictures of stairs with them, since that's pretty much the only thing I could do.

Magna Doodle

I remember drawing the most amazing picture ever on this, and then my brother came over and erased it. I never recovered and this is why I am not a famous artist today. The only reason. Nothing to do with my lack of talent. Only to do with my brother crushing my dreams.

Puppy Surprise

"How many puppies are there inside? There could be three or four or five!!!"

I never knew anyone to get five. Most people only got three. Cheap Puppy Surprise bastards! But it was pretty sweet seeing a dog give birth with none of the mess!

Cabbage Patch Dolls

Everyone I knew (including my husband!) had one of these dolls. Greg still has his. His name is Ned. He has a plaid shirt on and brown pants.

Lite Brite

"Lite Brite, Lite Brite, turn on the magical shining light!"

There was no end to the fun these provided! But I'm pretty sure that light was not magical. It was just a regular light bulb. Oh, as kids we believed these lies...

Wrinkles

This was also a puppet! I'm pretty sure my sister still has hers around the house somewhere.

Baby All Gone

She really looked like she was eating these plastic cherries! Turns out, they just tucked back into the spoon quickly. Very tricky. I'm pretty sure my baby all gone died of starvation. I thought she was eating!

Pound Puppies

These were just awesome! And there was a pretty sweet board game too.

Puppy in my Pocket

"Puppy in my pocket they're as cute as can be! Now I can take them all home with me!"

They're dogs and they fit in your pockets! What more could you ask for? Uh...money? Or a car? Or...ok, we get it.

Slap Bracelets!

These were just the coolest things ever. I had one with the New Kids on the Block and another with the Ninja Turtles on them. Both the NKOTB and the TMNT came back, so maybe slap bracelets will too? One can only hope.

Reminiscin' This 'n That...

I had this on Facebook, but I'm going to put it up here too. Just because I love the subject and wanted to share it again!

I'm a big fan of dwelling on the past. Not to an excessive amount to which I don't pay any attention to the present or the future, but quite often I enjoy thinking back to my childhood/adolescence, remembering the "good old days." You know, those days before bills needed to be paid? Or you had to be at work on time? Or you went to school for free? I miss those days! Anyways, I have this insane memory when it comes to anything completely useless. I can probably remember exactly what I did on every single Christmas morning (excluding, of course, when I was too young to remember). I can probably even remember exactly what I got for every Christmas and who it was from. This being said, I had this one toy that was really stumping me. For the past few years, I couldn't remember the name of this toy. I remember what it looked like and all that, but I couldn't remember the name of it. For some reason it bothered me. I asked my family, but of course, they didn't remember anything either. In fact, I'm pretty sure they thought I was crazy. But yesterday I remembered. Pretty much the best day of my life. And in case you're wondering, they were called "Be Mores" (see below).

So, in honour of my recent rediscovery, I thought I would share a few of my favourite childhood toys. Maybe someone else out there completely forgot about these things and wants to remember. Plus it's just fun for me! I actually wonder if anyone else remembers any of these toys? I mean, everyone remembers Barbie and Cabbage Patch dolls, but what about the more obscure toys? Keep in mind I didn't own all of these toys, but I certainly played with them at friends and relatives' houses. So, starting off with the one that sparked all this:

Be Mores

This loveable plush dinosaur was one of my favourite toys. It had velcro flaps which allowed it to turn from dinosaur to magical dragon!

Alphie

A robot that challenged kids to various learning games. I remember loving this toy as a kid

Cupcake Dolls

These were smaller than Barbies and would fold into a cupcake. Plus they smelled like whatever flavour of cupcake they were supposed to be! I remember having the lemon one. She was pretty sweet. Literally.

Moondreamers

I believe this was a short lived cartoon from when I was about five. This particular doll (there were a group of them) had pink hair that glowed in the dark. I'm pretty sure her awesome cape glowed in the dark as well. Her name was Star Gazer.

My Child

This doll was really soft - made of felt - and had posable limbs. And unlike the cabbage patch doll, they had synthetic hair, not yarn (I still love my cabbage patch doll though!)

Jem

Oh, she was hot. The rockin'-est rocker out there. Her and her band "The Holograms" were just off the charts. And I'm pretty sure her hair glowed in the dark.

Keypers

This was another toy that I completely forgot about. They were the sort of piggybanks where their back shell (or equivalent) would open and spin with a special key. You could keep all sorts of stuff in there (so long as it was small enough to fit in)! I'm pretty sure I had a turtle.

Precious Places

One of my favourite toys as a kid. These were little buildings with people that had magnets on the bottom of them. You used the special magnet "key" to move them around. I had the church and my sister had the ballerina dance studio. I remember seeing the awesome mansion at a friends' house and being so jealous too. Of course, we thought it was a good idea to put these little houses into our gerbil's cage. Needless to say those toys no longer existed. Man, those stupid gerbils could chew quickly!

Ninja Turtles

Well these still exist, so I imagine people remember them. Raphael was definitely my favourite.

Pogo Balls

These things were so awesome! Well, once you were able to get them going. I remember being in my cousins' basement playing with these things. We never owned one. Probably for the best. We broke everything we had.

Cherry Merry Muffin

This was a series of dolls that came with a tray of muffins and a little friend. There were different flavours (chocolate, cherry, banana, blueberry and apple). Each doll smelled like their flavour. I'm pretty sure they didn't taste like it, which was a downer.

Fisher Price Little People

There were a ton of these sets. The school, the farm, the pool, the airport, the main street...well you get the idea. They went a little overboard at the old Fisher Price factory. Anyways, I had a few favourites:
Lady Lovely Locks and the Pixietails

These dolls had a tv show. They were awesome.

Smooshies

These were small stuff toys that you would "smoosh" into their tiny cages or houses or whatever they came with. I don't know why I was fascinated with them. I guess I just loved shoving stuff into small places? That may have come out wrong...

Maxie

This was a more realistic barbie. She was slightly thicker waisted and had a much more achievable bust (well, achievable for some...for me, perhaps Barbie's little sister Skipper was more my model, haha). Her feet were flat and she had way cooler clothes. Plus her boyfriend Rob had real hair instead of plastic hair! So much hotter than Ken.

Sylvanian Families

These forest creatures were fuzzy and sweet. And they came with furniture and houses! I think my favourite was the windmill. It was pretty cool.

Play Mobil

Um, these guys were just awesome. I mean, they were bigger than lego men and had sweet hooks for hands. Plus they only bent at the waist, so there was none of that knee or arm bending hassle.

Polly Pocket

They couldn't actually fit in your pocket (unless you had a huge pocket...I guess the front pocket of overalls would have worked...or an apron...), but they were still fun nonetheless! And eventually they morphed into more details houses and eventually a huge mansion. Now they've just gone crazy and a lot bigger. That's just foolish.

Pogs

Remember Alf? Now he's back - in pog form! I'm sure most people remember the introduction and subsequent banning of these stupid cardboardish circles with lame pictures of Power Rangers or what have you on them. Oh, so many fights breaking out over these. Especially the metallic slammers.

Sweet Secrets

Now these I vaguely remember. Which either means that I never actually owned one myself and only played with it at a friend or relatives house, or I owned it for about 3 hours and broke it or lost it. Still, I remember them. They were these small locket-type things that opened up and had a doll that folded out from it. I assume you were to wear it as a necklace?

Skip It!

These things counted how many times you could jump over the skip it ball thinger. Pretty sweet. I probably broke mine.

Popples

These things were classics! I had a yellow one named "Buttercup" and Julie had a purple one. Greg actually had a football popple that he ended up giving away to our dog. Our dog loves it! Surprisingly she hasn't torn in apart.

So, I'm going to stop here. I have so many more 80s and 90s toys to share, but I'll leave that for a "part deux." I'm pretty sure this one went on a little too long anyways.