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Childhood toy disappointments?
Read about this first one from Cracked.com and it set me to thinking, what childhood toys turned out to be the biggest disappointments? And later toys, when you were a bit older, too?
#1 -- the Slinky. Cracked's rant on this was right on target. The slinky was advertised as the greatest thing since peanut butter. But it never worked, except maybe you could get it to slink down, oh, three stairs max before it flipped over and died. You could also take the thing and sproing it back and forth hand to hand, but that fun didn't last long, like 20 seconds. And if the damn slinky got even one little kink in it, it never worked at all.
Of course you would then punish it for not living up to expectations by hooking the end onto a tree branch (or getting a pal to hold it) and stretching it out till the spring was sprung, after which it was useless except maybe to hang down out of your bedrooom window or to swing it against some bushes and then it would come back and zing you on the head.
#2 -- the "water paint" thing. I forget the brandname of this, but you could "paint without paints" and my little sister got one. What it was, this big coloring book with outlined cartoons and stuff, and instead of using "old fashioned" watercolor paints, you'd take this brush and dip it into plain water and swab it on the page, the colors would "magically" appear. Water-soluble dyes were printed on the sheet that would appear if wet.
Except the colors were bland and drab, and fer pete's sake, you couldn't choose the colors! So the novelty of the thing was over before you even finished the book. My sister, being diabolical and angry at being disappointed, just soaked the whole damn book in water so it all turned color right away, no more labor-intensive brushwork needed.
#3 Pong. Wife and I spent $100 for the thing, the first video game, and it was intensely boring. You played maybe 15 minutes and that was all she wrote. It sat unused by the TV till one day after the boys had said it was "boooooring!!!!" we disconnected it and gave it to an unsuspecting friend. Whose kids probably hated us afterward.
Any childhood toy agonies you'd care to wallow in?
#1 -- the Slinky. Cracked's rant on this was right on target. The slinky was advertised as the greatest thing since peanut butter. But it never worked, except maybe you could get it to slink down, oh, three stairs max before it flipped over and died. You could also take the thing and sproing it back and forth hand to hand, but that fun didn't last long, like 20 seconds. And if the damn slinky got even one little kink in it, it never worked at all.
Of course you would then punish it for not living up to expectations by hooking the end onto a tree branch (or getting a pal to hold it) and stretching it out till the spring was sprung, after which it was useless except maybe to hang down out of your bedrooom window or to swing it against some bushes and then it would come back and zing you on the head.
#2 -- the "water paint" thing. I forget the brandname of this, but you could "paint without paints" and my little sister got one. What it was, this big coloring book with outlined cartoons and stuff, and instead of using "old fashioned" watercolor paints, you'd take this brush and dip it into plain water and swab it on the page, the colors would "magically" appear. Water-soluble dyes were printed on the sheet that would appear if wet.
Except the colors were bland and drab, and fer pete's sake, you couldn't choose the colors! So the novelty of the thing was over before you even finished the book. My sister, being diabolical and angry at being disappointed, just soaked the whole damn book in water so it all turned color right away, no more labor-intensive brushwork needed.
#3 Pong. Wife and I spent $100 for the thing, the first video game, and it was intensely boring. You played maybe 15 minutes and that was all she wrote. It sat unused by the TV till one day after the boys had said it was "boooooring!!!!" we disconnected it and gave it to an unsuspecting friend. Whose kids probably hated us afterward.
Any childhood toy agonies you'd care to wallow in?
Replies
George Carlin
LOL!
Sam, don't be so hard on the Slinky. Remember, they're like Liberals. They're not good for much of anything but it still brings a smile to your face when you push one down the stairs.
AKA: Former Founding Member
After a huge meal dad is given coffee first and everyone waits as the norm for him to have the first sip, dad put 6 spoonfuls of sugar on his coffee so he did not stir it, this time he did, he takes a large gulp and there's coffee on everyone, I am in a corner "enjoying" my revenge, got a nice belting for it, dad just got off the table, pulled the belt, made a beeline in my direction as it was an open and shut case.
Fixed it for ya! :rotflmao:
- George Orwell
The Xray glasses were kind of cool for awhile:up:.
George Carlin
I had the Weeble submarine, as well as other submarine play-toys, and I was disappointed because I could never get any of them to "hover" with truly neutral buoyancy. I could get them to float, and at best to sink slowly, but the true hover never happened. The baking-powder filled ones were amusing for a time, but not really what I was after.
Not a toy, but I was always disappointed that SC Johnson's "Scrubbing Bubbles" were a lot less energetic in real life than they were in the commercials. . .
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
Yeah, I was always dissapointed by my cat's inabilty to sing along with the 'Meow Mix' jingle....They might get the first note or two but would rapidly lose interest after that.
George Carlin
One of My pals tried to wrestle it away from Me while it was loaded and got shot in the junk, oh wait, it was his disappointment !!! he got Me grounded for 3 weeks....... :yikes:
My favorite toy was a battery powered tugboat that sprayed water, and one of those model passenger jet planes that would circle the room on a tether...
Oh, well that explains a lot then...
Rank does not concur privileges. It imposes responsibility. Author unknow
The ball is supposed to go on the spike or one of the cups on either side. Mine never worked. I think it was probably defective. Dang "Made in Japan" toys.
Mine were the plastic pellet firing pistols that cost a whopping $4.95 and came with 100 pellets; I bought the "Dirty Harry"esque revolver model that said G1000 on the side in gold letters, because the barrel length and "He Man" grips combined to give unusual accuracy... :jester:
Taurus 605 .357, Ruger .45 Vaquero, Colt frontier commemorative .22 SA, Pietta 1860 .44 snubnose
My pal ordered those, being a smarty-pants I told him "Don't -- they're just brine shrimp" and sure enough they were, looked nothing like monkeys, in fact precisely like shrimp, so naturally he got angry with me.
Reminded me, back in college we ordered this "torpedo firing submarine" from a Marvel comic, it was essentially a cheap cardboard box printed like a sub (yeah, sure) and a spring loaded "torpedo tube" that shot a little cardboard missile about 3 feet.
So we modified and souped it up. Strengthened the sub w. layers of duct tape inside (what else), then taped it to an old roller frame for moving crates like they have at loading docks which can be easily stolen. Ahem. Then we replaced the torpedo spring with a heavy one, made new torpedos from dowel rods. Added gunports to the sub so you could shoot shave cream or light deodorant spray cans for flame thrower effect. And we'd zoom up and down the halls of the scholarship dorm late nights, on search for enemy vessels (drunk guys coming home) and fire a salvo of shave cream.
It's not always the item itself but inspiration that can be gained (see my submarine post). I ordered a Steve Ditko (the artist) poster of Dr. Strange. It featured him looking mysterious and gesturing magically.
Then I got an old electric wall clock, mounted the poster on cardboard on the front of the clock, carefully cut out Dr. Strange's two arms and glued them to the clock hands. Put the thing on a shelf and ran the power cord hidden.
So people coming into my room would see the Dr. Strange poster hanging from the shelf, and then notice, after a while, it was a working clock.
(yes, I somehow graduated, BS in Chemistry, minor in math, later picked up a major in English Lit. And no, parents didn't pay, not enough family money. I did all on loans and grants and my working temp jobs in between)
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
Have you ever put IKEA jigsaws together?:rotflmao:
Oh yeah, I remember those. They were okay as long as they lasted. The sub we ordered was this big shipping-size cardboard box thing. It would sort of be large enough for one suicide pilot on the retrofit wheels.
The residence hall supervisor made us toss it. Such are the vagaries of warfare.
My Dad got one of those, yes the cartridges leaked, he sent it back and surprise! they fixed the seal problem and sent him a new one. It still leaked a bit but held its charge through, oh, a month worth of pigeons who nested in the eaves of the house.
Shooting pigeons off the roof was one of our Saturday adventures, Dad and I. He was a crack pistol shot and I still don't know how he did it, mostly head shots, fast, barely time to aim. "You got to have a feel for it" Dad told me. We'd practice in the garage and then Dad let he shoot some of the pigeons. I got pretty good but never like he was.