remember these fucking things?


God knows how many fruitless hours I spent trying to draw the picture that came on the box. It was that house. That perfect fucking house. How was I to know, as a child, that that picture was put on the box with Corel Draw v.1 or equivalent? I hated that house, with it's perfectly sloped, 45 degree angle roof. I couldn't draw a diagonal line on that thing to save my miserable 7 year old life. Try googling etch-a-sketch, and see what kinds of things people are drawing with these torture boxes: The Colluseum? A zebra? Cal Ripken Jr? These are not toys for children. What kind of 7 year old has that kind of patience or motor control? Remember that Tom Hanks movie, BIG? This one was definitely designed by garbage-dick old dudes who have no idea what kids want, 'cause their own kids fuckin' hate them. Better than Lite-Brite though.

Remember those shitty pieces of shit? That was a real stroke of genius. A box, with a light (or even a 'lite', which is like a 'light, but a little more magic, and waaaay more fun), and a black piece of paper on the front that you could poke little coloured pegs into and make a fuckin' picture. When the picture is done, you turn off all the lights in your house*, like a fuckin' magic show, plug this fuckin' disgraceful piece of shit in, and feel what Monet felt every time he finished a painting. These things almost made me glad I never got Christmas. Then there were Pogs, which even as a kid, I thought were sinister as hell because they were pretty much a child's gateway to an adult vice. Maybe I have coloured memories though, 'cause i never got my hands on any good ones.

I dunno. There were still a lot of good toys when we were kids. Like this one:


The Super Soaker 50, ever heard of it? You might remember it as 'the best fuckin' watergun ever'. What set it apart from other pump type waterguns was that there was no release valve to let out pressure after hitting it's threshold. Remember how you could shoot that green bottle way over a streetlight? You could pump that shit till the bottle warped, no release. It'd shoot so hard, that if you were having waterfights with girls (or me), they'd quit. That thing could blast the freckles off the fat kid from the Sandlot. Someone even went as far as to pay tribute to it in t-shirt form, as modeled here by my friend known to many as Handsome Pete:

Also those little wrestling rings things, with the two spinning tops that would fight were awesome, because...they just were. If I could track one of those down today, I'd probably spend a long-weekend with it.

Nintendo 1 was the best video game system ever (2 posts in a row about Nintendo?). Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start. 30 lives. Contra. Also worked on Ninja Turtles.

I think most toy designers nowdays have come around, probably cause of that movie (Big). Kids like toys that make noises, or a mess, or involve bashing. Kids love bashing. I knew this girl who had a job at a recycling place or some shit, where she'd put on goggles and bash the shit out of a bunch of glass witha metal rod, I was so jealous of her. I still kind of am. Come to think of it though, I didn't really have too many toys as a kid. I mostly had books. A lot of books. I don't know what, in particular, my parents were trying to accomplish by that, but I don't think it worked. When I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to go bash some shit.

I love this song (every time I hear this, I crave a meatball sub from Peppino's, even if I'm in the middle of eating one):


Silver Pozzoli- - Around My Dream