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Fear and Loathing on a College Campus
By: Mikey Vu - Lifestyles Editor
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Reverse Card, Wild Draw Four
Do you ever get that feeling that you’re getting old? Think about this for a moment, Disney’s The Lion King came out twelve years ago. Does that seem strange to you? How about this, The Little Mermaid came out seventeen years ago.
In any case, while I was having this little revelation, I started to recall all of the toys and fads that were popular in the 90’s, and I came to a conclusion that for the most part, you know what? They failed miserably in the entertaining me department.
Adolescent boys experienced the resurgence of yo-yos, the rise of Pokemon cards, and the worst offender of them all, Pogs.
They were the worst because they were easily the biggest scam of all time. In case you aren’t quite familiar with the concept of Pogs, they were those little cardboard circles with designs on them, usually a holographic skull of some sort, which each player would try to flip over by slamming a metal disc aptly named “Slammers,” on top of them. Strange, yes I know, but what really gets me is that we bought into something so stupid. Who plays a game where the only goal is to flip over a piece of cardboard?
Ladies, don’t think that you were guilt free from those youthful toys of retardation. You ladies had the most pointless toys of all.
First, there were tamagotchis’ and gigapets, annoying little handheld digital animals displayed on a screen that would incessantly beep if you didn’t feed it. To make matters worse, they would continue to beep if you didn’t clean up after it took a crap, which you had to otherwise your Tamagotchi would wallow in its own feces, die from unhappiness, and then come back to life again, hatched from an egg. Isn’t that a great lesson for an impressionable eight year old? “Hey, don’t worry if you don’t feed your dog for four days, or if you come back home to find your malnourished pet dancing around making snow angels in its own fecal matter because hey! You can always bring them back to life Pet Cemetary style.” Those little beeping, pooping machines were the bane of my existence.
Let’s also not forget about the wildly entertaining Beanie Babies. I remember a time when people were fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on the rarest beanie babies, often times blood was shed, hair was grabbed, and at some point I am pretty sure that guns were drawn. And this was all in aisle 6 at Toys-R-Us. I like the thought that someone out there at some point in time was sitting around thinking, “Hey, maybe if we fill these things with beans, girls will want to buy it.” Because when I think of beans, of course the first thing that comes to mind is, “I WANT IT.” It makes total sense.
Not all of those games and toys were that bad though, I don’t know how many of you are going to remember the actual board game Crossfire, but it was the most kickin’ rad game back in its time. The reason I remember this game so vividly is because of the commercial. To give you some context first, remember that this was during the 90’s when everything that was advertised had to be EXXTREME, which basically boiled down to, “Imagine the most ridiculous thing in the world, add different letters to the beginning of words like during the whole Mortal Kombat phase, add a couple Xplosions(see what I did there?), and then make sure someone is shouting in the background.
So in the actual commercial, two boys enter an arena by teleporting there in lightning bolts (extreme!), and then the jingle that sounds like it’s sung by the lead singer of Journey kicks in, “Crossfire... you’ll get caught up in the... Crossfire!” Then, after one of the boys loses the game, the other gets ejected into Mount Vesuvius or something, all while Steve Perry is screaming, “Crossfire!” over and over again in the background.
There are of course amazing games with less interesting advertising such as UNO, but don’t even get me started on that one. I’ll save that one for another time. Views: 306
Comments (2)
1. 03:27AM 09-21-2006
MIkey Mikey!! I can't believe you fell for the pogs thang. Haha! Yes, I laughed at people who bought those damned things back then, too. I laughed at people who watched the Lion King. And I sure as hell laughed at all who had a friggin gigapet. No, I was not into fads or pop culture much when I was a kid. I was reading novels in first grade. And on my spare time, I played sports. But the toy that my brothers and I always played with was, in the epitome of the 80's, GI Joe. These things were freakin' amazing. They weren't "Action Figures," of which the arms would move up and down but not left and right. No my friend, if you recall, these toys had every joint in the human body. It's as if an MD designed these things. My brothers and I would have battles, fights, wars, and the like with the Great American Heroes and their spectacular vehicles and planes. Or, I would let my imagination run wild on my own, having Colonel Courage and Red Ninja Viper fight it out to the death on the staircase. Yes, it was a glorious, imaginative time. Too bad the GI Joe's were taken outta business because they were "perpetuating nationalistic militarism." What's up with that? I like America. Why not defend it with a real American hero?
Guest
2. 03:56AM 09-21-2006
haha I like the writing style dunphy, it's reminds me of someone....
Guest
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Thank you for reading and have a wonderful holiday season.
Lifestyles 
Do you ever get that feeling that you’re getting old? Think about this for a moment, Disney’s The Lion King came out twelve years ago. Does that seem strange to you? How about this, The Little Mermaid came out seventeen years ago. 
