Stupid toys we miss (kind of)

With contributions from Angela Doell, Lyndsey Krezanoski, Mary Frances Pocrnic, Naomi Kariya, Rose Evans, Kaylea Hamaguchi, Doug Sarti, Tamara Robinson, Yukiko Nagashima, Lucas Aykroyd, Annette Spreeuw, and John Lucas.

Did you ever have toys that you played with obsessively as a kid but when you grew up and looked back upon them, you thought 'what was that all about'? The kind that you fought over with your brother and sister, and your mother took away and hid until you could learn how to behave yourself and you ended up crying yourself to sleep because no one loved you and you wanted to die or runaway or grow up to be a mime?

No? Okay, maybe that was just me.

The following is a tribute to all the stupid toys that gave us hours and hours of fun and wasted money as children, but were quickly tossed into the trash shortly thereafter, never to be remembered (sob).

Some of them, looking back, were actually quite dangerous. You could easily have injured yourself with them (as many of us did with glee). Kind of makes you wonder, what were they thinking?

Then again, those were the good ol' days when parents threw their kids in the back trunk of the Volkswagon without seatbelts and people raced around on bicycles without helmets (helmets? What kind of freak wears a helmet?).

Baby Alive Naomi says "you could actually feed her (real) baby food and, hence, change her (real) diapers. Seems sort of...eww now.")
Baby Tender Love don't look at me like that—my brother played with it too
Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven for early childhood food poisoning
Bionic Woman head that you could put makeup on and do her hair—wow, that sure is bionic
Cabbage Patch Kids remember the fights that broke out between Christmas shopping parents?
Captain Kangaroo Picture Pages
Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pet ch-ch-ch-ugly
Etch-a-Sketch
Fisher Price Camper Van Annette says "sure, those little people were cute and all, but you couldn't dress them up like Barbie and you couldn't actually build anything for them like with Lego"
Flower Patch Dolls Rose says "my little sister wanted one the Christmas the Cabbage Patch Dolls were all the rage. My mom couldn't find one so got her a knockoff called a Flower Patch Doll instead, which was fine until the day its head just kind of spontaneously fell off. My sister was really traumatized."
Gak some weird blobby thing my cousin used to play with
Garbage Pail Kids a take on the Cabbage Patch Kids. But more realistic.
gluing macaroni pasta shells to paper plates what was the point?
GoBots
Green Machine a green, low-rider tricycle
Growing Up Skipper doll Naomi says " if you turned her arm all the way around, she'd go from flat chested kid to Barbie busty teenager. This doll was later banned and pulled from the shelves after mothers complained to Mattel. To this day I wish I kept my Growing Up Skipper doll, I believe she's quite collectable now."
Hands Down had plastic hands that you slapped down
Hardy Boys board game
hockey card flicking to see whose could go the farthest
Hugo, the Man of a Thousand Faces
Hungry Hungry Hippos as Mary says, "WTF?"
Jem and all her rocker ho friends
J-J-J-J-Jenga! why did they think something sounded more fun if they pronounced it with a stutter? St-st-st-stupid!
Kerplunk
Lawn Darts John Lucas says "it's all fun and games until some whiny consumer-safety activists decide your favourite game could put someone's eye out"
Lite Brite
Littlest Pet Shop
Magna-doodle
Major Matt Mason
Merlin portable red video game shaped like a phone handset
Monkeys in a Barrel
Mouse Trap board game this game had way too many pieces—every kid who had one kept losing or breaking pieces so it never worked
Mr. Mouth a game with a rotating head that had a mouth that opened and closed and you had to fling things into it—that one was more WTF than the hippos
Mr. Potato Head only served as a source for using the name as an insult
My Buddy a child-sized doll for boys without friends—which probably trained them to use blow-up dolls when they grew up
My Little Pony
Operation board game gotta love a game that gives electric shocks to kids. Zzzzt!
Payday board game
Perfection timer puzzle game—had to solve it before the timer ran out and all the damn pieces popped out
Pez
Pick-Up Stix sticks that had pointed ends that you could jab yourself with
pipe cleaners throw the kids in a room with some pipe cleaners and they'll be quiet for hours (until one of them takes their eye out)
Playdoh Fun Factory what was the point? you ended up just mashing it all back into a lump anyhow
Pogo Ball Lyndsey says "stupid thing!" (?)
Pogo Stick who the hell thought of that?
Pogs
Polly Pocket
Punky Brewster doll as if the show wasn't bad enough
Rainbow Brite
Sailor Moon for self-loathing Asians that want to be white
sea monkeys what were they really? Sand fleas?
Shrinky Dinks pictures that shrank in the oven—John Lucas says "utterly pointless AND potentially dangerous!" (and a name to insult your siblings with)
Silly Putty
Simon the light-blinking memory game that made you want to smash it
Skip-It that ball on a string that you attached to one leg and it swung around and you had to jump over it
Slime green slime that came in a garbage can. Why not just go into the alley and find some? Or pick your nose?
Slinky a wonderful toy for girls AND boys—but why?
Slip 'n' Slide my friend slipped, did a belly flop, and winded himself on that. Hours of fun and tears.
Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine
Sock 'em Boppers Angela says "they were inflatable child-friendly boxing gloves"
Spice Girls dolls for girls that want to be skanks
Spirograph John Lucas says "seemingly designed to do nothing other than keep kids busy and quiet for extended periods"
sticky octopus wall crawlers that left an unintentional trail of slime behind them as they rolled down the wall or window
Strawberry Shortcake and all her flygirls
Tamagotchi
Trolls led to a generation of bad hairdressers
Trouble with that stupid pop-a-matic bubble
Water Weiner Rose says " it was basically a rubber tube filled with water that squiggled around when you tried to grab onto it. I think they were recalled because it turns out they were filled with contaminated water"
Welcome Back Kotter board game Mary says "it even came with a green rubber hose. Bizarre."

Got any other stupid toys to add? Send in a comment to contact@straight.com with "GS Stupid Toys" in the subject line.