[Note: Every Friday on First Thoughts we host a discussion about some aspect of pop culture. Today’s theme is childhood fads. Have a suggestion for a topic? Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com.]
They were the best of fads, they were the worst of fads—all at the same time. The faddish objects of our childhood were sometimes loved and sometimes hated but they were hard to ignore. Here are a list of the 50 best/worst from the 1960s to today:
1. Beanie Babies
What made it the best: You and your friends loved collecting them.
What made it the worst: Old ladies loved collecting them too.
2. Bratz Dolls
What made it the best: 559 different dolls to choose from.
What made it the worst: They all looked like strippers.
3. Cabbage Patch Dolls
What made it the best: You got a birth certificate certifying when you “adopted” them.
What made it the worst: They were just an overpriced stuffed doll.
4. Charm necklaces
What made it the best: You could create them to match your personality.
What made it the worst: For every birthday someone would give you a cheap charm instead of a real gift.
5. Cheap cologne
What made it the best: The girl you had a crush on loved the way you smelled.
What made it the worst: Every other six grade boy smelled like Old Spice/Polo/Drakkar Noir too.
6. Chia Pets
What made it the best: They were easy to grow.
What made it the worst: Not matter what shape they were supposed to be, they always ended up looking like a green afro.
7. Cinnamon Toothpicks
What made it the best: Liquid cinnamon on a stick to make your tongue burn—in a good way.
What made it the worst: Because you couldn’t stop at just one, your tongue blistered—in a bad way.
8. Clackers
What made it the best: You could scare your little brother by clacking them right beside his head.
What made it the worst: You were a little brother.
9. Energy Drinks
What made it the best: After a can of Red Bull you could stay up all night texting.
What made it the worst: After the sugar crash, you felt like you needed to go to rehab.
10. Friendship Bracelets
What made it the best: Getting them from your friends.
What made it the worst: Not getting them from people who you thought were your friends—but obviously not since they gave them to every one but you, even to that ugly girl that they talked about behind her back and that other girl . . .
11. Friendship pins
What made it the best: They were cheap and easy to make, all you needed was colored beads and safety pins.
What made it the worst: Whenever you opened the pins the beads would spill everywhere.
12. Frisbees
What made it the best: Could make anyone feel like a minor athlete.
What made it the worst: Unless you had a frisbee-catching dog, they quickly became boring.
13. Furbies
What made it the best: Your first robot!
What made it the worst: Big-eyed robots are kinda creepy.
14. Garbage Pail Kids
What made it the best: They were disgusting.
What made it the worst: They were disgusting.
15. Gel Pens
What made it the best: Notes to friends looked better in neon orange.
What made it the worst: They always smeared.
16. Hacky Sack
What made it the best: They were easy to carry around; you could start a game anywhere.
What made it the worst: Phish-listening hippies made them uncool
17. Hello Kitty
What made it the best: They’re so cute.
What made it the worst: Good grief, they’re everywhere!
18. Hula Hoops
What made it the best: Having “hooping” contest with friends.
What made it the worst: Trying to find a place to store them.
19. Kewpie Dolls
What made it the best: They’re cute.
What made it the worst: They’re creepy.
20. Koosh Balls
What made it the best: You could throw them around without fear of breaking anything.
What made it the worst: They were only fun for five minutes.
21. Lava Lamps
What made it the best: The calming effect of watching the lava go up and down.
What made it the worst: They turned you into a hippie.
22. Lipsmackers
What made it the best: What could be better than makeup that taste like root beer?
What made it the worst: Realizing that it was just flavored chapstick.
23. Mad Libs
What made it the best: The fun of thinking up strange/funny/naughty words to fill in the blanks.
What made it the worst: After the third one they started to seem all the same.
24. Magic 8-Ball
What made it the best: More fun than flipping a coin.
What made it the worst: Ask again later.
25. Choose Your Own Adventure Novels
What made it the best: You got to be the hero of the story.
What made it the worst: The stories usually weren’t worth the page-flipping effort.
26. Matchbox Cars/Hot Wheels
What made it the best: They were almost as cool as having a real Ferrari/Corevette/Camaro/etc.
What made it the worst: Dad stepping on them in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom.
27. Mood Rings
What made it the best: People could tell what mood you were in by looking at your finger.
What made it the worst: Unless “hot and sweaty” counts as a mood, they couldn’t detect anything.
28. Nerf Balls
What made it the best: Finally, a ball that you could bean your siblings with and not get in trouble!
What made it the worst: If they came in contact with nature (water, dogs, etc) they’d become a mess.
29. Ouija Boards
What made it the best: They were dangerous and mysterious.
What made it the worst: They were a starter kit to occultism.
30. Paper Footballs
What made it the best: They were easy to make.
What made it the worst: No matter how many you made, the teacher always took them away.
31. Pet Rocks
What made it the best: It’s a rock. . . and a pet! Get it?
What made it the worst: What? I paid how much for a rock?
32. Pez
What made it the best: They were cheap and easy to collect.
What made it the worst: The candy was terrible.
33. Pogs
What made it the best: You could both collect them and win them.
What made it the worst: Your friends would always get them taken away by the teacher.
34. Pokemon
What made it the best: You could collect them all.
What made it the worst: No matter how much money you spent, you could never collect them all.
35. Pop Rocks
What made it the best: The fizz and the pop.
What made it the worst: Didn’t they kill that Mikey kid from the LIFE cereal commercial?
36. Rubik’s Cube
What made it the best: They made you think you were smart enough to solve them.
What made it the worst: They made you realize you weren’t smart enough to solve them.
37. Scratch ’n’ Sniff Stickers
What made it the best: The cherry and banana stickers that smelled like cherry and banana (sort of).
What made it the worst: The licorice one that smelled like the inside of a baby’s diaper.
38. Sea Monkeys
What made it the best: The ad in the back of the comic books made it look like they were people from the lost city of Atlantis.
What made it the worst: Brine shrimp? Seriously?
39. Silly Bandz
What made it the best: They are cheap and easy to collect.
What made it the worst: Realizing that your generation is getting stuck with one of the lamest fads ever.
40. Silly Putty
What made it the best: You could press them on the Sunday comics and make a colored copy of the picture.
What made it the worst: There wasn’t much else you could do with them.
41. Skateboarding
What made it the best: The rush of riding for the first time.
What made it the worst: The first rush to the ER after you fell off and broke your arm.
42. Slime
What made it the best: Sliming your friends, brothers, and sisters.
What made it the worst: Trying to get snot green plastic out of the carpet.
43. Slinky
What made it the best: Those cool television ads that showed it “walking” down the stairs.
What made it the worst: They taught you the meaning of false advertising.
44. Super Balls
What made it the best: Nothing could bounce higher.
What made it the worst: They’d always bounce to a place you couldn’t find them.
45. Swatch Watches
What made it the best: They made you feel sophisticated.
What made it the worst: Your parents wouldn’t buy you an overpriced piece of Swiss plastic.
46. Tamagotchi
What made it the best: Like having a pet that you could carry around in your pocket.
What made it the worst: Like having all the responsibility of having a pet without the loyalty, love, etc.
47. Troll Dolls
What made it the best: They were adorable.
What made it the worst: When you’re not looking, they eat your soul.
48. Yo-Yos
What made it the best: The sense of accomplishment you got from learning to “walk the dog.”
What made it the worst: The stupid string always got tangled and knotted up.
49. Waxed lips candy
What made it the best: You could convince that cute girl/boy to give you “kiss” on your wax lips.
What made it the worst: The heartbreaking let-down of wax lip kisses.
50. Whiffle balls
What made it the best: The bat.
What made it the worst: You could never figure out how to actually play Whiffle ball.
Which favorite fads did I forget?
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:27 am
Early baby boomers grew up in a veritable paradise of distractions, fueled by primitive black-and-white TV commercials. Duncan yo-yo’s, Remco magic sets, magnetic King Tut mummies, Silly Putty, Pez dispensers, Hobie skateboards. I still pull out a Duncan Imperial yo-yo now and then and do loop-the-loops and rock-the-cradle. My children stare with incredulity. America is the most entertaining place to live in the history of the planet.
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:32 am
Wacky Packages.
Weakies? Jolly Mean Giant? Blunder Bread? Choke Wagon dog food? Minute Lice?
Anyone? Anyone?
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:43 am
Sally Thomas Wacky Packages.
I don’t know how I forgot Wacky Packages. I used to love those.
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:54 am
Wiffle balls have been around for 57 years. Three generations have used them. My kids and their friends still use them.
Not a fad.
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:56 am
Another vote for Wacky Packages.
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:19 am
I can see I led a seriously deprived childhood.
Which doubtless explains much.
The only fad I can recall participating in was ankle boots, sometimes called the “Beatle Boot.” As I recall, they were brown shoes, coming just above the ankle, with a fairly thick heel, flattish toe and a zipper on the inside side. A lot like this, actually: http://cgi.ebay.com/vtg-70s-80s-Men-BEATLE-Short-ANKLE-Leather-Boot-9-5-D-/280517976036?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Vintage_Shoes&hash=item41502c9fe4
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:48 am
I hit Bratz Dolls and noticed two bests with no worsts. I wondered if it was a Freudian slip. Then I noticed many fads had two bests. Apparently, Joe had a fight with the ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ functions and lost.
* Frisbees have lasted over 50 years, not a fad.
* Hello Kitty! (I’m sorry to say) has also lasted for decades and is an industry unto itself.
* Ouija Boards are also quite old.
* Brine shrimp (Sea monkeys without the packaging) are an excellent way to teach biology.
* The Rubrik’s cube is also still around. My 14-year-old son and _all_ of his close friends can solve it in less than two minutes.
* Nerf balls have morphed into Nerf armories (pistols, rifles, machine guns, shotguns). My son and his friends regularly fill our house with a new carpet of Nerf bullets.
And what’s wrong with me? I never got caught up in any of these fads. I was always satisfied with a new set of toy dinosaurs.
But I am a late bloomer.
Supersoakers
Best: Your kids can shoot you without being sent to their rooms.
Worst: You have to change your clothes a lot.
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:04 am
Those shoes with wheels in them have got to be somewhere near the top of worst fads for children.
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:20 am
Mark Not a fad.
Not all faddish objects cease to exist after the fad fades. Hula hoops have been around for a half-century but they are not the fad they once were. The same is true for almost everything on the list.
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:24 am
The feminine corollary to #5:
Cheap Perfume
what made it the best: It was cheap.
What made it the worst: Realizing you were going around smelling like Baby Powder (Love’s Baby Soft)
July 2nd, 2010 | 12:22 pm
Circumcision, Tonsillectomy…
July 2nd, 2010 | 12:26 pm
Have you no shame? De-coder rings (sent for along with several box tops from favorite cereals) has to be mentioned.
What made it the best: You could send “coded” messages to buddies, and listen for the same on radio shows.
What made it the worst: Your buddies had different rings with other “codes”, and the radio messages were all about eating more cereal. Or drinking more Ovaltine.
We also used to have (or make) “Zorro” whips with which to torment each other.
What made it the best: You could intimidate all your playmates for hours.
What made it the worst: Once you let go of it they grabbed it up and got back at your for even more hours. Besides, it was one of the “you could put your eye out” toys and seemed to permanently disappear after bedtime for some reason.
And last but not least, the Saturday afternoon movie serials.
What made it the best: You could sit in a darkened theater for hours and hours, watching horses and cowboys and spacemen and cars and, and, and – everything! Without anyone bothering you.
What made it the worst: They weren’t “B” movies, but more like “Z” movies. Really, really bad filming techniques and totally illogical plot lines. But who cared? It was still freedom!
July 2nd, 2010 | 12:27 pm
Joe: That’s a curious definition of fad. Surely the objects in question must, at least, fade into obscurity even if they still exist. Hula hoops have. Frisbees and whiffle balls have not. But I fear continuing the discussion might devolve into which objects are mainstream and which are extremist.
July 2nd, 2010 | 12:32 pm
Shoe fads.
For about 5 minutes in 1982, Kangaroo shoes with zippered pockets on the sides were all the rage.
What made them the best: You could hide your super cool secret info in them and your parents and teachers would never find out.
What made them the worst: After Day 2, you realize it’s more convenient to keep your lunch money in your pants pockets.
Or those basketball shoes that were big for a year or two circa ’93, the ones with the pouch in the back filled with some fluid that was supposed to make you stop and start faster by redistributing weight and equilibrium or something.
What made them the best: Science! Plus, everyone on my varsity basketball team had to get a pair.
What made them the worst: Pouch tore open after a week and all that game-improving fluid leaked out.
July 2nd, 2010 | 12:35 pm
Mike Melendez That’s a curious definition of fad.
The dictionary defines “fad” as “a temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., esp. one followed enthusiastically by a group.” The objects themselves are not the fad—they are just the token that sparks and fuels the fad.
Many toys (and almost all of them on this list) existed prior to the fad and stayed after. But during the fad phase, they are items that almost all children have or desire.
Sure, frisbees and whiffle balls are still around. But when I was a kid everyone had them. Now, they are much more rare.
(One interesting example is the troll doll. They went through fad phases in the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s.)
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:21 pm
And the last time Troll Dolls were a fad, they were called Mary Kate and Ashley.
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:26 pm
Lawn Darts…just the best and most dangerous lawn game EVER!
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:29 pm
You forgot Lawn Darts!
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:30 pm
I have a few…
Shrinkey dinks…loved doing those as a kid.
Easy Bake Oven (although this one seems to be making a come-back).
Roller skates that hooked on to the outside of your shoes. (Always fun until you lost the “key” that tightened them.)
Spryographs (everyone I knew had one of these)
And last, but not least, Baby Alive. My mom wouldn’t buy me one, but I was glad after seeing what a mess they were!
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:32 pm
Well, and to go with your Lip Smackers and your Love’s Baby Soft (or Fresh Lemon, remember that one? Be the girlfriend who tastes like root beer and smells like lemonade!), you have your “Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific” shampoo.
The mid-70′s were an olfactory era.
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:34 pm
I second pete. Lawn Darts, or Jarts as I remember were awesome and deadly.
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:41 pm
I remember Entertech – the water guns that looked like real guns, they also had a grenade launcher where you just pumped water into army green ballons.
Down side: Being shot because the police thought it was a real weapon.
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:47 pm
The reason fads keep coming back around is the people who participated in the fad go on to have kids, who will somehow be deprived if we cannot make them re-live our dorky pasts.
I don’t know if they were a fad outside of my school, but in the mid-70′s there was the lemon twist, which was a plastic lemon on the end of plastic tubing that secured around one ankle. You would get it spinning around that ankle and then have to jump over the lemon as it came around to wipe out your other leg. Thinking about it now, I have no idea where I found the coordination to play with the thing.
As for recent fads – I have a house full of them. Bakugan – best: balls that open up into dragons and such when placed on metal. worst: college educated adults can’t figure out how to play the Bakugan game, which is okay since it’s more fun to place them on various metal things in the house trying to open them.
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:47 pm
Missing item: Click-Clacks
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:50 pm
What about Fizzies! Lordy, if there was a worse tasting drink, I’ve never seen it. But the commercials made them look soooo good you kept buying them, thinking maybe the last batch was bad. Then Alka seltzer came out with a lemon flavor, Waaaaay better than Fizzies!
July 2nd, 2010 | 1:55 pm
As soon as I got to the bottom of the list I was thinking, JARTS!!! But a few others already brought that up… some states they are illegal to play… which makes them even more intriguing to play with.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:00 pm
Puppy Surprise!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:03 pm
And Skip-Its.
And Bop It.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:04 pm
Slap bracelets were a great fad, until the clothe wore away and the metla showed. We also had bardage pail kid stickerrs.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:07 pm
The one I remember that’s not listed was MUSCLE men. The pink, rubbery, other-worldly figures were a huge thing when I was in grade school. And you weren’t cool if you didn’t have the poster of the complete set up on your wall.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:10 pm
You forgot slap wraps bracelets.
What made it the best: They came in all sorts of colors, patterns, and art, and they… well… wrapped when you slapped them on your wrist. Hey, at least it beats pogs.
What made it the worst: Those kids who got their wrists sliced by the metal strip inside breaking out of the sleeve (though perhaps I should check snopes on that rumor), prompting schools to crack down on them.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:11 pm
Joe: If possession of frisbees were a fad, they long predated you. The same with whiffle balls. I have four male children spanning 26 years in their births. Add in my own 60 and I’ve got a fair number of boy-years covered. Frisbees weren’t even a fad by your definiton when they first came out in the 50s. They were enjoyable toys then and still are, though each generation discovers them anew. Whiffle balls are the same but mainly for pre-school aged children. On the other hand, Cabbage Patch Dolls owned the national marketplace … for one year. Beanie Babies lasted longer but their market also crashed. (My Marine son distributed my younger daughter’s former stock to the kids in Iraq.) In roughly the same category but not a fad, “Hello Kitty!” shows no signs whatever of fading. And I have no idea why.
But I proposed supersoakers, another non-fad except to the newspapers. I still remember my first set of small plastic dinosaurs, ordered off the back of a cereal box back in the third grade. I particularly liked the Parasaurolophus. It was purple and just fit in my hand.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:11 pm
Slap bracelets!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:11 pm
Ooh…and also bubble necklaces.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:17 pm
VacUForm, a plastic molding device.
Best: you could make an army of your own toys.
Worst: heat plate hot enough to burn you.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:19 pm
etch-a-sketch anyone?
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:40 pm
coon skin caps!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:43 pm
Another vote for lawn darts.
Also–what about candy cigars/cigarettes? Kind of lame (now) in comparison to that internet sensation–the smoking baby.
And those candy necklaces with elastic–you could bite off yummy candy pieces AND stain your clothes at the same time!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:46 pm
Did you forget the 80′s altogether? Monchichi, Popples, Fraggles, Wuzzles, Glo-worm, and Puffalumps just to name a few!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:46 pm
Paddles with small ball attached.
Pro: They were fun, see how long you could keep going.
Cons: Having your old man rip the ball off and use the paddle to whack your a$$ when you screwed up!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:48 pm
Pogo-Balls. Those were awesome!
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:49 pm
what about the old Wood Burning kit?
Best: you got to play with what was basically a giant blistering-hot soldering iron!
Worst: little kids playing with giant hot soldering irons! burning stuff! tracing the boring outlines on the wood pieces held your attention for only so long before inevitably asking yourself “I wonder what else I can burn?” or “what smell will this make?” …then eventually you pick it up by the wrong end.
July 2nd, 2010 | 2:53 pm
Another vote for slap bracelets! you could slice a finger off with the sharp metal piece inside them.
And reebok pump shoes! cool to pump, but it’s pretty stupid when you realize that you’re pumping up little balloons in your shoes.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:00 pm
Lightbright: The paper “templets” sucked. Once you punched through the templets you couldn’t figure out which color went were, and the replacement templets were freak’n expensive. Then you aways lost the pegs. Of course if you forgot to turn it off, you could burn the house down.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:01 pm
PS. one disappointing fact I found out when I was little: an Easy-Bake oven just wont cook a live frog.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:08 pm
Pop rocks
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:11 pm
I had a Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow…
but what about fashion trend type fads… when I was a kid it was lines above your ears, coca cola and vuarnet shirts and addidas samba classics
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:21 pm
“Did you forget the 80′s altogether? Monchichi, Popples, Fraggles, Wuzzles, Glo-worm, and Puffalumps just to name a few!”
I was born in ’89, but I must say…as a collection, those fads sound like an awesome band…
Popples on drums, Fraggles on bass, Wuzzles on guitar, Glo-worm on keys, and Puffalumps as the rockin’ lead singer!
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:21 pm
Red-Rider Lever-Action Air Rifles…
…you’ll shoot your eye out.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:27 pm
Silly Bandz are coming back this year. I’m going into my senior year of high school and the second half of last year, a lot of people picked them up and gave them to their friends to show appreciation (like a friendship bracelet) and it usually had something to do with them.
Pokemon will NEVER die. My generation is the Pokemon generation, and we see nothing wrong with it. But I do have a problem with having so many pokemon, they just sort of keep making them up… anyways, Pokemon isn’t a “fad”. It’s the story of a generation.
The shoes with the wheels on the back were called Wheelies. I was just over the age of demographic for them, so I think they’re lame. The kids in the malls always almost running into you or sliding down the stairs ><
Also, Bratz Dolls are sluts. NOBODY likes them. At all.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:27 pm
z cavariccis
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:41 pm
Woodburning kit… soldering iron for 8 year olds
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:45 pm
Lawn Darts!!!
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:48 pm
How about the original Creepy Crawlers and Incredible Edibles that you had to use those little hot electric stoves with the molds?
What about the Submarine you could buy in the back of comic books that was just a box with a sub printed on it and a little plastic torpedo that shot out with a rubber band?
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:50 pm
What about that Home Radiation kit (complete with 4 samples of plutonium, how to mine radioactive materials, and a pocket Geiger-counter) they use to sell to kids back in the 50s?
That thing deserves an honourable mention at least.
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:51 pm
Pogo Balls. Seems like every kid in school went hopping around during recess. Everyone except me. I’m not bitter though. Really. really……
July 2nd, 2010 | 3:52 pm
Shrinky Dinks! You colored them with colored pencils and based them in the oven or something like that…
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:05 pm
Who can’t make a Slinky walk down stairs? I never had any problem with it. Of course, having the right size stairs, in terms of the ratio of tread width to Slinky diameter, does help. I still have a Slinky, somewhere in my clutter, and I walk it down things when it turns up during my occasional cleaning frenzies.
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:24 pm
Rainbow Brite
Hypercolor T-Shirts
Junk Necklaces– they were plastic chain necklaces with clip on charms that you could re-arrange
Slap bracelets
Cabbage Patch Kids
Pound Puppies
Care Bears
Hello Kitty
Atari
the 1st Nintendo
Shrinky Dinks
Spirograph
Holly Hobbie
Strawberry Shortcake
Smurfs
Pogo Ball
Viewmaster –and the discs that went with them
MTV when they actually played music videos 24/7
Lunch Boxes when they were made out of metal(I had several when I was a kid–wish I still had them now)
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:24 pm
Lets not forget LA Light.
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:40 pm
Ahhh…#28, the Nerf football. Got it wet, tried to dry it in the oven…forgot about it and Momcame home at the same time the fire dept did!!
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:46 pm
What made clackers the best? They really annoyed teachers. What made them the worst? The balls broke loose and went flying. Kids were getting nailed in the head, windows were breaking. School banned them and soon parents followed. End of clackers.
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:47 pm
dude… hypercolor tshirts
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:48 pm
STRETCH ARMSTRONG!! Best: fun to stretch, fun to break. Worst: goop got everywhere and killed your dog..
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:51 pm
Penny Candy
Best: having only a handful of pennies yet still being able to get candy
Worst: having a handful of pennies and a p****d off grocery store owner having to individually count 93 fricking pieces…
July 2nd, 2010 | 4:59 pm
Slot Cars – tiny zip-fast cars to race around industrial strength tracks against seven other addicts.
Best: Something for ADD kids to excel at.
Worst: About the same cost as a real car.
July 2nd, 2010 | 5:09 pm
Another vote for Lawn Darts!
Could you imagine the lawsuits they’d cause now?
July 2nd, 2010 | 5:27 pm
The best thing about the current BOTTLED WATER fad is that you get to drink some other city’s tap water from a plastic bottle. The worst thing is that you have to pay someone to manufacture the bottle and tote it around in trucks. Oh, and also, the water tastes like plastic. Of course this is a fad for both adults and children, as is STARBUCKS.
The original EARTHSHOE, high in the toe, low in the heel, was a remarkable product from the everything-you-know-is-wrong era. The designer patterned it after footprints in the sand (because barefoot-on-the-beach is so natural). Unfortunately, it’s difficult to walk in sand because sand defeats the design of the foot, as did the Earthshoe. I had my mine at age 14. The good thing about them was that they were less trouble than the WATER BED that I took over from my big brother around the same time. It was an early model with no cells, heater or frame–it was just a two ton plastic bag of cold water and algae. The good thing about it was that it was cool in the summer.
But Joe’s post seems mostly to be about successful toy product campaigns. I really liked CREEPY CRAWLERS by Mattel. They were little plastic bugs, worms, and reptiles made by pouring goo into a mold on a special hotplate. Then came INCREDIBLE EDIBLES which were similar but edible!…sort of. This was cool because we enthusiasts had the chance to both burn ourselves and poison ourselves with the same toy.
Question: Is the current tattoo craze a fad? I mean, fads go away and tattoos are permanent.
July 2nd, 2010 | 5:42 pm
Parachute pants! MC Hammer made them cool and sometime in the late 80s or early 90s they were quite the fad. There was also a similar style of brightly colored cotton pants that were popular at the same time but I can’t remember what they were called. They were popular enough for a short time that sports teams had their own with the team colors done in a crazy pattern. A few NFL coaches wore them on the sidelines – made them look absolutely ridiculous.
Sometime in the 90s we also had the thermal shirts but again I don’t remember the popular name. They changed colors if you breathed on them or got them hot – made it lots of fun to leave bright thermal hand-prints in naughty areas. ;)
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:00 pm
Has anyone else been disturbed by the sexualization of Strawberry Shortcake? She used to be a cute little girl with strawberry curls or something like that and now she looks like a little club kid in a mini skirt and tights sticking her hip out.
I guess that is what happens in a culture where parents think it is okay to let their infant daughters and sons wear onesies that say things like “lil’ flirt” and “ladie’s man.” I get that it is supposed to be ironic. It just totally creeps me out.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:02 pm
Peter Frampton.
Okay, that might not count.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:03 pm
Does anyone remember Dolly-Pops? My best friend Amy and I used to play with these for hours.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:12 pm
Reebok Pumps
Plus side:….
Downside: too many pumps and they blew up
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:21 pm
Pop-It Beads — the things were ubiquitous in the late ’50s and early ’60s.
Baking powder-powered submarines! Found in cereal boxes, you packed the plastic sub with baking powder, then dropped it into water. It would sink to the bottom, then rise to the surface, emit a small bubble — and repeat the whole performance again and again.
Listening to ballgames from distant cities on AM radio, late at night.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:30 pm
The banes of my uncool existence back in the day:
Members Only jackets
Parachute pants
Reebok high-tops (they had shoelaces like normal sports shoes but then two strips of velcro on top)
Gloria Vanderbilt jeans
Blech. I knew there was a reason I never think of high school anymore.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:46 pm
Big Wheel and Green Machine! They were as popular as anything when I was a kid but seemed to disappear when I outgrew them.
Air hockey! I rarely see those anymore, but every other kid had one when I was little. Never quite made it to ping-pong/pool table status.
Light Brite!
I loved Spirograph. I just bought an updated version for my son in Paris two years ago. It is still fun…for about five minutes.
Do kids still play with little plastic army men?
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:48 pm
ORBITZ DRINKS!
Best: they looked cool
WOrst: they tasted awful!
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:54 pm
Ok..I’m really old:
Poppit Beads…to make necklaces that looked chintzy
Spoolies…to curl your hair into a frizzy mess
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:12 pm
Clear PEPSI — Does anybody remember that??
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:26 pm
Umm….I was born in the last two years of the 70s, but I don’t know what a “Wacky Pack” is. However, I DO remember my big brothers having a hamburger phone that never worked properly.
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:31 pm
Simon
Merlin
Mattel Handheld Football
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:31 pm
Does anyone remember the shoes called “wallabees”? They were kind of ugly pseudo-suede lace-ups, with rubbery soles. Very comfortable, but not terribly attractive. Nonetheless, everyone had a pair at my high school in the late 1970s. The other fad of the day was a clip-on koala. Being clueless, I had two because I thought it would make me really, really cool. Just signaled me for the nerd I was. But these may have been only southern California fads.
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:43 pm
Slap bracelets
The best: Just slapping them on your wrist
the worst: loosing them or getting broken
Lisa Frank Stickers
The Best: putting them in a book
The worst: Now you can’t find them….well found them at Sams Club a couple yrs ago.
Polly Pockets (the pocket sized compact with tiny pollys)
The Best: play with them for hours and collect them and some you could put water in it.
The Worst: loosing the tiny little pieces that go to it.
Yak-Backs
The Best: You can record anything and play it fast slow or backwords
The worst: Getting lost or having to buy button cell batteries for it.
Teddy Ruxpin
The Best: stick a tape in the back and it will play it back by reading it to you while you read the book
The Worst: Creepy and scared little kids (like a cross between Chucky and the Gremlins) and the eyes and the mouth moved. I hated mine so it got thrown away.
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:45 pm
How about the Fanner 50 cap gun. You were a nuthin’ boy if you didn’t have one or two of them. Also, for some reason I don’t fathom, having and eating Sen-Sen was “de riguer” (in my school, anyway) about 1960 or so. Duncan Yo-Yo’s were a big deal at the same time. Both forbidden at St. Joseph School – therefore more valued.
July 2nd, 2010 | 8:18 pm
Telletubbies Dolls (I was in highschool when they came back which was 5 yrs ago and i knew someone who brought the green one to school and one of the carebears as well. Uh highschool is for growing up lol not referting back to your childhood)
Jelly Shoes
Boom Boxes
Smurfs
Fraggle Rock and all the 90′s showes that are vintage now and so not like the younger kids crappy shows now. the same goes for the cartoon shows as well as Nickelodeian shows
Saturday morning cartoons: Pinky and the Brain, etc.
The Best: you could watch them all weekend
The Worst: now you dont see them on tv unless ur up before the crack of dawn at 2 in the am while cartoon network is on.
charms for your shoes
charms bracelets that you take apart and switch a different one in like a basketball. not as popular now as they were back then.
Michael Jordan’s AirJordan shoes
The word PSYCHE
Fanny Packs
The best: you can put anything in them
The Worst: old people wear them now
The tattoo bracelets
The best: made you look when you didnt have a tattoo
The worst: lose them in the pool or getting broke
July 2nd, 2010 | 8:25 pm
Remember Jumpsies? Our parents could never find any elastics in the house because we had tied them all together for recess.
Upside: free exercise!
Downside: they hurt when they snapped
July 2nd, 2010 | 8:41 pm
Somehow we moved from fads to toys…
The Bob-a-Loop: the first thing you did was break the string and then it was always gonna be too short for the toy to work. When they first appeared every kid at school brought one in so the teachers could confiscate them.
The vibrating Hocky/Football game, as long as it made a noise you couldn’t really tell if it was working right or not.
Those little mushroom shaped tops that turn upside down when you spin them…
July 2nd, 2010 | 8:57 pm
I like the creepy crawlers and incredible edibles. Duncan Yo-Yos were a huge fad in the seventies.
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:34 pm
speak and spell?
goood: taught reading
bad: dismantled for parts by aliens trying to send distress signals.
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:47 pm
littlest pet shop
my buddy doll/pillows
holly hobby
snorks
he man
jake and the wheeled warriors
thundercats
July 2nd, 2010 | 9:52 pm
Jarts! All the fun of darts, with the added risk of putting a steel spike through your friend’s hand, or foot, or head, or …
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:01 pm
Platform shoes for guys. A really, really brief fad. I had a bright green pair with white platforms. I also had a white suit to go with them. Hearing disco still makes me cringe even today.
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:27 pm
Just want to let you guys at First Things know that this article has been posted at the infamous offbeat Fark.com and the community is talking about their childhood fads. And considering that FT is a Catholic mag, you have scored cool points for nostalgia. Congrats to you!
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:30 pm
popples, lite-brite, teddy ruxpin, glowworm, those colored beads you put on your bike spokes, push-pops, jello pops, simon says, slip n slide….
July 2nd, 2010 | 10:52 pm
-Love #14. Garbage Pail Kids… great stuff! I used to have a big collection of them (a lot of the 1st and 2nd series early ones!) hahaha
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:21 pm
RE: 41. Skateboarding
What made it the best: The rush of riding for the first time.
What made it the worst: The first rush to the ER after you fell off and broke your arm.
Skateboarding is no fad! When college-aged kids regularly skate to class and Tony Hawk–a skateboarding legend in his own right–collaborates on a video game with a skateboard playing console, what you have is an awesome piece of modern history.
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:45 pm
I loved fizzies as a kid but tried them as an adult when they came back for awhile and I have to wonder how I could like it.
There is jacks. I haven’t seen them in years.
The best–winning.
The worst– when you play outside on the sidewalk and scrape your fingers.
How about croquet? I haven’t seen that either
July 2nd, 2010 | 11:57 pm
snap bracelets!!!
July 3rd, 2010 | 3:49 am
Koosh balls made my hands smell after playing with them for a few minutes.
July 3rd, 2010 | 5:02 am
Sally,
70′s shampoos? Don’t get me started. . . Remember the beer shampoo, “Body on Tap”?
Kamilla
July 3rd, 2010 | 6:31 am
Wizzers
What made it the best: Cool sound and stayed up forever.
What made it the worst: Came along when long hair was in fashion
July 3rd, 2010 | 6:36 am
[...] [...]
July 3rd, 2010 | 8:37 am
Evil Knievil stunt cycle!
Cox cars.
Die cast metal fighter jets racing down a fishing line track, and crashing into the bottom of a door.
Toys & silly putty,that glow in the dark.
Toys that looked like real guns!
Disc shooter guns.
And for the comment about nerfs getting unusable when wet – that was the best part about them. Secretly soak that football in a puddle when your buddy’s not lookin’, and splat!
July 3rd, 2010 | 10:13 am
GoBots! My son had dozens of them before Transformers became popular. I especially loved the miniatures….really wish I kept some of them.
July 3rd, 2010 | 12:00 pm
[...] Here they are. [...]
July 3rd, 2010 | 3:27 pm
Why is “being a starter kit to occultism” (Ouija board) a BAD thing? Many mainstream religions have “occultist” roots, and occult studies aren’t bad to begin with…
July 4th, 2010 | 3:47 am
Some that I have yet to see mentioned:
Goosebumps books (making a comeback, but not NEARLY to the level they were when I was a kid).
-What made it the best: The creepy cover art, the twists in the end, and the gross-out tie-in merchandise.
-What made it the worst: Realizing that only a handful of the stories (usually the most known titles) were actually any good, but you still read most (if not all) of them anyway.
Curly shoelaces.
-What made it the best: You just pulled the laces tight, and the shoe would stay put. No bow-tying necessary! Plus, it was fun to pull the “spring.”
-What made it the worst: The laces lost their “spring” due to stretching them out and then they became regular shoelaces.
Plastic shaped barrettes (These things: http://www.totallyfashiontrendy.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/000%20bh%2050%20036.jpg).
-What made them the best: They were easy to put in, came in all shapes and colors, and often stayed put.
-What made them the worst: You bent them back and forth one too many times and they broke, and when you lost one, you found it by stepping on the open “teeth” that kept them in place.
Bazooka bubble gum (it seems to crop up and go back under the radar and crop up again).
-What made it the best: They all come with comics.
-What made it the worst: It hurt your jaws to chew it, and took a while to soften.
July 5th, 2010 | 11:12 am
Kamilla: Yep. All the great stuff to make your 7th-grade Dorothy Hamill haircut swoosh around just like Dorothy’s hair in the commercial, in slow motion. Followed by the realization that you can’t actually spend your life sweeping your head around like that, and even if you did, it wouldn’t have the same effect as Dorothy’s televised head-sweeping, and most importantly, still would not distract people’s attention from your huge mid-70′s VW-windshield glasses with your initials in gold foil at the bottom of one lens, or your braces.
July 5th, 2010 | 11:15 am
P.S. I believe the circa-1976 shampoo advertised by Dorothy was called “Short and Sassy,” and I used it for the duration of the Dorothy haircut. Fortunately my hair grows fast.
July 5th, 2010 | 3:19 pm
Frisbees?? Skateboards?? Puhleez, Frisbees and skateboards were not, ARE not, a passing fad. Been to the beach anytime in the last 30 years?? Seen what sponsors are paying professional skateboarders? Where ya been?
July 5th, 2010 | 5:39 pm
Hypercolor T-Shirts-
What made it the best: All the ladies wanted to hold your shirt to see a small section change color
What made it the worst: Everyone knew when you just got out of gym class
Pogo Balls-
What made it the best: The commercials with everyone bouncing in a line
What made it the worst: I got more air from jumping with my legs (and that wasn’t much)
July 8th, 2010 | 9:07 am
[...] 50 fads you’ll never forget! Your mother buckled you into the car once a week and made you accompany her on a quest to locate [...]
July 13th, 2010 | 8:23 pm
Mood rings, and this thing that I can’t remember what it was called: sat on my desk, metal balls that you would swing one on the end and it would crack into the group and one would swing out on the other end? I want to find one AGAIN. I loved it.
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