You Are What You Were. Celebrate Retro Pop Culture At Retroland.
Few games have the risque reputation associated with Twister. Then again, few games have ever asked you make body contact with your opponents as you practice your contortionist skills. Competing toy companies have tried to paint the game as nothing more than a precursor to sexual activity, but that hasn't slowed the popularity of Twister one iota, a family friendly game firmly entrenched in pop culture ever since it arrived on the scene in 1966.
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Each of us seems to have a number of scents stored within our brain, just waiting to unleash memories of the past the moment we catch a whiff. Whether it be a freshly cut lawn before a baseball game, an oven full of piping hot-cookies, or simply a can of colored wallpaper paste, these fragrances instantly return us to a better time, a simpler time. Wallpaper paste?
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They say that good things come in small packages, and in the world of Toys, perhaps none have ever been smaller than Micro Machines – those tiny vehicles that made Matchbox cars look like a giant movie prop by comparison. And in the eyes of kids throughout the 90s, Micro Machines were must-have toys, beloved by car collectors, young and old alike.
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The tales of origin vary. Some say it hails from the name of a biting insect in Malaysia, Polynesia, or some other pacific island. Others believe that it cursed the American occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century. Still others believe it came out of the American trenches in Europe during the first World War. But one thing everyone could agree on was no matter where the term came from, Cooties were imaginary. For a while.
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At first glance, one couldn’t be blamed for thinking that Clue is just about the farthest thing from a family-friendly game on the market. Everyone gathers around and watches Mom accuse Junior of cold-blooded, motivationless murder with a blunt instrument. Junior points the finger at Pops and decries him for sullying the dignity of the conservatory. Pops accuses himself of everything in the book and glows with satisfaction when someone (anyone?) proves him wrong. Yet, families around the globe have gathered to play this addictive whodunit board game for over six decades now, ensuring its rightful place in pop culture history.
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Once you mastered the pogo stick and the Hoppity Hop, there was a new challenge on the horizon - a planetary-shaped projectile that could have you soaring towards the stars or, just as easily, dusting yourself off from an earthly collision with the unforgiving ground. It took some major balancing talent to propel yourself with the Pogo Ball, but if you possessed the right stuff, the sky was the limit.
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Children are not afraid of the dark. They are afraid of what is hiding in the dark, waiting to devour them whole once the last electric light has been shut off by a parent's treasonous hand. Possibly there is the faintest glimmer of a streetlamp's light slipping through the child's Strawberry Shortcake curtains, but the light is too diffused to overcome the inky darkness with all its hidden horrors.
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Moms don’t generally relinquish control of their kitchen appliances to the kiddies, especially the oven, and for good reason – a 450-degree chamber isn’t the best place for kids to stick their hands. And yet, the oven is where all those delicious baked goods come from – moist cupcakes, gooey chocolate chip cookies, basically the finest treats a kitchen can offer. And what about all those future culinary wizards, eager to get a head start in the world of batter and frosting concoctions? Luckily, for the upcoming chefs of the world, and the rest of the kids who simply dreamt of their very own bakery - where they could escape the “don’t touch that” limitations imposed by nervous adults and churn out a never-ending supply of tasty concoctions, there was the iconic Easy-Bake Oven. Let’s take a look back at a toy that offered the sweetest of rewards.
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Jenga is a game that required steady hands and nerves of steel. Forget Operation, forget The Game of Jaws - these were child’s play by comparison. You were going to need some serious intestinal fortitude to make it through a game of Jenga, where one wrong move, one unintended twitch of the wrist would bring the game crashing down around you much to the delight of your nerve-rattled opponents.
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A combined love of collecting bugs and playing video games led to one of the biggest toy crazes of the 90s, when Japanese gamer Satoshi Tajiri concocted a little game called Pokémon. As the editor of his own gaming magazine, Tajiri had become enamored with the Nintendo Game Boy system, especially the fact that two systems could be interconnected, and he wanted to create a special game for the system. After six long years of work, Nintendo bought the rights to his game and the Pokémon craze was officially launched.
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