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When I was a
child, I actually appreciated the useless crap I made my
parents buy me.
Nowadays kids don't want toys because nowadays kids age on a system
more on par with the tse tse fly's. Not in the sense that they're
annoying and transfer diseases through their blood-sucking feeding
habits, but in the quick-aging sense. Actually I guess both would be
kinda sufficient.
Kids today want adult things like DVDs, computers, mp3 players and
orthopedic beaded backrests. These types of "toys" make kids feel more
adult. I think this is ironic because all the kids I know still order
ranch dressing with their pre-dinner salads at upscale dinner
engagements. Ranch! What a social faux pas.
Without risk of coming off as being one of those "in my day" guys,
I'll just come right out and reveal that I'm going to be one of those
"in my day" guys, even though I'm still a sexy virile young man. Or at
least young. And theoretically male.
Ahh, memories. I can still sorta halfway remember it like it was about
eight years ago. My dad would regularly give me the famous "No son of
mine will wear pink shoes out of this house— I don't care if it's in
style— where I come from that sort of a style will get you a fancy new
slice from a shiv— for the love of God, play a sport!" speech I'm sure
we've all received. He would then add "Oh yeah. We had better toys
when I was a kid."
This leads me to believe each generation believes its toys to be the
best. This would make sense, but then I remember how kickass my toys
were, so I know I'm actually correct and everyone else is wrong.
Couple this with the fact that I think "wood" was still on the drawing
board when my dad was a child.
Back when I was a kid we had toys that made sense. If you'd watch a
Saturday-morning cartoon, there WAS a corresponding toy to buy/play
along with. This made marketing easier and more efficient for the
soulless corporations and more fun for us mindless children.
Children who played with toys from my generation understood that a toy
seriously needed to have logical purpose and teach valuable life
lessons. Take for example the Wuzzles. These toys taught kids about
the dangerous future of genetic experimentation. Many of you may
remember Bumblelion, the freak/toy that combined the classic
sensibility of a bumblebee with the responsibility of the noble lion.
Or perhaps Moosel, my personal favorite, who was a bizarre seal/moose
hybrid. I learned a valuable lesson from these cuddly genetic
nightmares that still haunts my dreams to this day.
And who can forget GI Joe, or Government Issue Joe (which makes much
more sense)? GI Joe taught kids everywhere that arguments and
difficult situations of all calibers can easily be managed through
war. Males between the ages of 8 and 8 1/2 would dump shoeboxes of
"Joes" out onto their floors and beds for some flashback-inducing good
times.
On a related subject, some friends of mine regularly engage in an
argument over the GI Joe laser situation. GI Joes shot red lasers
(quite inaccurately, I might add) and Cobra shot blue lasers. But what
would happen if a Joe, let's say Snowjob, was to pick up a Cobra laser
from a Cobra weapons shed. Would the laser remain blue? Or would it
turn red because a Joe was firing it? Is there a switch to choose
laser color?
Anyway, even those "outside toys" from my day were superior to toys of
old. The Hula Hoop had nothing on the "ball encased in a plastic ring
that looked a lot like Saturn that you jumped up and down on for some
reason." And neither of those toys had anything on the Roller Racer.
Remember this thing? You had one. If you didn't, your neighbor had one
and left it on your driveway for four months. It was that flat, red
toy with two metal handles. It was set on wheels very low to the
ground. To get it to go anywhere, you basically had to have multiple
lateral seizures.
I don't have a lot of room left so I'll just spout out random comments
on toys. Slime Time watches were awesome because they combined scary
animals with being punctual, laser pointers made every high school
classroom focus its attention on the teacher's ass at least once and
Nickelodeon's Gak was strangely fun but smelled like fromunda cheese.
©2004 Tim Landry
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