I Love The 90’s: 7 Bizarre Toys And Games I Remember From The Best Decade Ever

On November 3, 2024November 3, 2024 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

You’re not tripping. These actually existed.

Man, I miss the 90s. Discovering the world wide web. Baggy skateboard jeans. TGIF. No smartphones. Alt rock. CDs. Neon-colored clothing. Polo Sport cologne. Nintendo. Going to the mall. Blockbuster. Pizza Hut. Going outside to play and disappearing most of the day with no way for parents to contact you (yes, that happened, and it was awesome).

Life before the internet became mainstream meant you had to get creative to have fun. You might have even had to go outside. Crazy, right? But there was a time — a much nicer time, if you ask me — before everything became digital and took place on a touch screen. There were also some pretty weird games and toys, too. Here are a few of them from the best decade ever — the 90s.

Elefun

Props to whatever genius dropped acid and came up with this game. And for thinking this would actually occupy children’s attention for more than like ten seconds. It never did mine or my siblings. I think the record amount of time we spent playing it was five minutes.

Basically, the “game” was a mini leaf blower in the form of a cute elephant that blew plastic butterflies out of its long snout all over the place. The object was to catch as many butterflies as possible in your little net. Whoever caught the most was the winner.

I guess Elefun was meant to sound like “Hella fun.” Except it was mainly a big pain in the ass to clean up afterward. This game is still available somehow, and makes a great gift for parents you hate.

Mr. Bucket

You might remember Mr. Bucket from his catchy commercial jingle. “I’m Mr. Bucket. Buckets of fun!”

Mr. Bucket needs you to do one thing. Stick balls in his head so he can spit those balls back out of his mouth. This is something Mr. Bucket needs you to do a lot. He enjoys very much, you see, shooting balls out of his mouth. While rolling around on the floor. Yeah, that Mr. Bucket sure was a freak. Always wanting you to put your balls in him. So he could spit them right back out at you. It was totally a normal kid’s toy. Absolutely normal.

Even as an innocent non-innuendo-understanding kid, there was just something not quite right to me about Mr. Bucket. He just seemed off. A little too eager to have balls put in him. I mean, I liked playing with balls too. But not that much.

Mr. Bucket. Buckets of fun? More like buckets of repressed memories.

Domino Rally

Fuck this “game.” Seriously. It wasn’t even a game. I’m convinced it was a psychological torture test some scientist invented to drive kids into therapy.

As the name implies, this “game” involved setting up plastic dominos in various patterns, and then knocking them down. Dominos is an old game, of course, but this game made the dominos cool and hip with neon colors. Some even glowed in the dark. There were various versions of this “game.” But they all only accomplished one thing — pissing you off, because no matter what, you’d always end up knocking down the dominos prematurely, thus ruining any chance at enjoyment. And this was before YouTube or social media where you could have at least uploaded a recording of a successful rally.

Making matters worse, the dominos would always go missing, forcing you to ask your parents to buy supplementary packs. The whole game concept itself was faulty from the get-go. The makers actually expected little kids to spend hours painstakingly setting up precariously-placed pieces of thin plastic that could be blown over with a whisper. Seriously. Hours of hard work could be derailed in seconds by an errantly-placed index finger, a troublemaking sibling, a clomping pet dog, or an oblivious shuffling adult on their way to make dinner or do laundry.

The ancient Greeks had Sisyphus and his boulder to learn about the horrors of futility. We 90s kids had Domino Rally.

Bop It

By Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5210668

I still have no idea what the hell this contraption even did. Was it some kind of trivia device? A sound effects machine? A tactile-learning tool that prompted hand-eye coordination? I don’t know and The Great Unsolved Mystery Of Bop It still bothers me to this day.

I do remember there were different variations of this toy thing. All in weird geometric designs that emitted wacky sounds. But the very few I ever saw in the wild as a kid were never used for their intended purpose, and instead were turned into play swords. Or as a baton kids would use to bop other kids over the head with. Hmmm…maybe that was the ulterior purpose of Bop It all along.

Skip-It

Okay, this was actually a really cool toy, although it was really more of an exercise device. It was really simple to use. You looped it around one ankle, and then spun it around, skipping over it with your other foot.

I like to think of Skip-It as the real foreunner to the Fit Bit, or any other kind of health-tracking wearable device. Skip-It cleverly had a counter on it that kept track of how many skips you made. This lead to competitions. All in all, a decent toy.

There was just one problem.

Skip-It was known as a girls toy. They came in pink. But many boys (including myself) were always trying to use because it looked like fun. And because it was a girl’s toy, it was easily broken, even when you used it delicately. The cheap plastic would snap apart. Or the counter would stop working and you had to count your skips yourself. Then you add roughhousing boys trying to show off in front of the girls and you can see where this tragicomedy is headed. Yep, a lot of Skip-Its met their demise at the hands (or feet) of careless young men, and a lot of young women were left bereft of their expensive proto workout trinkets.

Pogo Bal

I actually had to look up what these were called as I never knew. I just always thought of them as the little Saturn-shaped balls you jumped on and hoped you didn’t break your ankle in the process. I’m convinced toy manufacturers in the 90s were in league with the medical establishment, and were just trying to get as many kids injured as possible to drive up insurance rates. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

It sounds insane even describing how you use a Pogo Bal. You step on a dinky little platform which surrounds a rubber ball. Then you try to balance on the ball and jump around on it. Like using a Pogo Stick. Except without a stick and without the fun and ability to balance. God, what a lame toy this thing was. They coudn’t even give the “ball” two proper letter “LLs.” They had to use one “L.”

Even as a kid these things looked dangerous to me. I might have tried using one once or twice, and that was it. I was fine going off ramps with my bike. I was fine crossing stranger’s yards as a shortcut to get home. I was totally fine riding off by myself for hours into different parts of town. But this thing. This bouncy ball of doom. It scared me.

Creepy Crawlers

Girls had the Easy Bake Oven. Boys had Creepy Crawlers. Same idea. Both had a little oven. Both used recipes. Only difference was that instead of making delicious mini snacks, this contraption made groteque little rubber bugs that boys then left lying around to “scare” the girls. I’m not sure why the makers of Creepy Crawlers were trying to perpetuate a gender war. Especially after boys were out there destroying girl’s Skip-Its left and right already.

Overall, Creepy Crawlers was a clever way of making “science” fun, combining creative mold making with entomology. No doubt this game inspired some kiddos to go into biology, smelting, or 3D printing. This was probably my favorite 90s game. It wasn’t really a game, I guess. It was more of just a fun project. The best part was you could make a whole collection of bugs, swapping out different colors to make your own designs. The scorpion models were my favorite. Some rubber composites even glowed in the dark. Creepy Crawlers was that rare playtime activity that was even better than Nintendo (my addiction at the time) or watching TV (my second addiction).

Now that I think about it, I’ve been remembering a lot of these toys and games through a nostalgia haze. Turns out most playtime stuff from the 90s sucked. Did the manufacturers secretly hate kids? Their products were mainly cheap plastic and often got children hurt. Their real insidious purpose seemed purely to separate poor parents from their hardearned money via manipulative commercial campaigns. And putting children in the hospital. These toys and games weren’t fun. They were actually pure evil. Well, not Creepy Crawlers. Creepy Crawlers was solid.

You Don’t Need To Write A Lot To Write A Lot

On November 2, 2024November 2, 2024 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Consistent effort pays off with cumulative results.

Photo by Leah Newhouse from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-gray-typewriter-952594/

I’ll often see people post on book review sites or forums marveling over an author who churns out multiple novels every year. Popular authors like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Danielle Steel, and others who are well known for spinning doorstops with apparent ease.

How do these writers do it? It seems impossible.

Some cast doubt that the authors actually wrote their novels on their own. Often they accuse them of using ghostwriters. For sure, some brand name authors, like James Patterson infamously, employ an army of co-writers for their many projects. But many actually do it all by themselves, braving the blank white screen every morning. As David Baldacci says on his X account:

I live to write and write to live.

I recently finished my 11th novel. A book I started on March 23rd of this year — after almost 18 months of false starts — finally completing the first draft on August 27th. That’s a little over five months, or 157 days. The first draft is about 90,700 words.

That comes out to only 577 words a day. Some days I only managed a few hundred. Those were usually the days I worked. Toward the end of the novel, I picked up the pace (as I usually do nearing the exciting conclusion of a book). I probably wrote about 5,000 words in just the last three days before finishing.

Still, my average daily output comes out to a mere 577 words. A simple email might be 500 words. The average person probably texts their friends more than 500 words a day. It’s about the length of a two minute Medium article. A few tweets. Five hundred words is not a lot. Yet 500 words a day comes out to two 90,000 word novels a year. One thousand words a day equals four adult novels. Writing a “little” can really add up fast.

Of course, there’s the editing process. It’s not like once you finish typing that 90,000th word you’re all done. Editing is sometimes a lengthy, complicated process with its own messy timeline.

Then there’s outlining and idea generation. This last novel of mine was a struggle, unlike others in the past. But I found that by sticking to my daily writing regimen, I was able to push through a lot of supposed blockages. It’s usually best just to keep ploughing ahead anyway, even if you think you’re “stuck.”

If you are a prolific writer, sometimes it’s not enough for fans. Baldacci recently had this exchange with a reader:

Baldacci publishes multiple books a year, some of which are well over 400 pages. He certainly writes thousands of words a day. But you don’t have to write that much to write a lot. Even “just” 250 words a day is 90,000 words. That’s an adult novel a year. Or two novellas a year. Which is not bad at all.

Five Bizarre And Hauntingly Disturbing Deaths

On November 1, 2024November 1, 2024 By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

We’ve all got to go sometime. Just hopefully not like this.

With Halloween just passed, death has been on my mind lately. It might be due to the changing fall season. Or it could be due to recently watching horror flicks Barbarian and the latest Scream films.

How in the world does the Scream franchise keep chugging along? I thought it ran out of gas 15 years ago. Guess audiences will never tire of watching a dude in a mask stab people in the face.

Of course, if I have the choice on how to die, it’s definitely NOT going to be via some psycho going stabby stabby with my vital organs. I’d much rather die peacefully and in my sleep, with loved ones gathered around.

But sadly, not everyone gets to go out that way. Some people have died in freakishly weird and distubing ways. Ways that keep me up at night. Here are a few of them.

Guy Dies Accidentally Stabbing Himself To Death Trying to Separate Frozen Hamburgers

This story is why our moms warned us to always cut away from our bodies when using a knife or a pair of scissors.

Barry Griffiths, age 57, lived alone, and apparently was in the process of making himself hamburgers for dinner. His freezer door was left open. Thawed meat left on the counter. Police say it was an “unexplained” death, but that while separating the burgers, he inadvertantly stabbed himself. He was found on his bed several days later. Griffiths lived alone, and by all accounts was a “private” man. He also had limited use of one arm.

This death disturbs me because it’s so mundane and random. All the guy wanted to do was eat his dinner. You could easily imagine this poor fellow eager to make himself a meal, only to wind up slowly bleeding to death from the stomach. Blood was found throughout the kitchen and hallway. Making matters worse, he died alone. Who knows if he could have been saved. Many times people who are injured are in shock. If someone had been there, he might still be alive.

Guy Gets Himself Trapped Upside Down In A Cave And Dies 27 Hours Later

Why people go cave exploring where it involves squeezing themselves into VERY narrow crevices without knowing if there’s even an exit will never ever fucking make sense to me whatsoever. Why do that? Just why? Seriously, why?! I know there’s nothing good on Netflix to watch anymore, but that’s no excuse.

I say this as someone who liked doing bike tricks off ramps as a kid and has gone skydiving. I’m okay with some unnecessary risks. But not that.

John Jones was all of 26 when he and a few friends decided to go cave exploring at Nutty Putty Cave in central Utah back in 2009. They were in search of a passageway called “The Birth Canal.” Only Jones mistook an unmapped passageway for the correct one, and wound up becoming permanently stuck. Rescuers tried to pull him out, but the angle in which he was trapped made it almost impossible. At least not without breaking his legs in the process. Just look at the above diagram to see what I mean.

Actually, don’t look at it. That shit is pure nightmare fuel.

Still, rescuers were able to get Jones partially pulled up, before their rope and pulley system collapsed. Joned eventually died later. They were forced to leave his body there. The cave was sealed to prevent anyone else from accessing it in the future.

Man, what a way to go.

Danish Astronomer (And Guy) Dies Due To A Burst Bladder After Refusing To Leave A Banquet

Look, we’ve all been in social situations where suddenly nature came calling, forcing us to quickly find a place to do our business. When I was a little kid I once went number two at a hardware store when I found a row of display toilets that I evidently thought were working models. They were not. No, were not.

Tycho Brahe, aside from having probably the coolest-sounding name ever, was a prominent scientist in his day. He also famously lost part of his nose in a drunken duel with a fellow academic over who was the superior mathematician. Nerd fights were hardcore back then.

While at a banquet in 1601, Brahe felt the need to urinate. But he refused to leave, as he thought it would be seen as improper. So he wound up staying. But later, when he did try to pee, he could only go a little, and only very painfully. He languished in his bed for eleven days, before eventually dying from what many modern medical experts deem a burst bladder.

This death freaks me out because it demonstrates how social pressure (real or imagined) can compel people into doing self-destructive acts just to be “polite.” It also shows how even geniuses can be catastrophically stupid.

Teenaged Guy Eats Slug On A Dare, Goes Into A Coma, Becomes Paralyzed, And Dies

Speaking of social pressure, this next freaky death happened because of a stupid dare amongst teenaged boys. In 2010, 19-year-old Sam Ballard, an Australian who liked playing rugby, was hanging out at home on his patio with a couple friends when a slimy snail happened to come crawling by. Prompted by a dare to eat it, Ballard scooped the creature up and swallowed it. Yes, alcohol was involved in this decision.

Almost right away, Ballard began to feel negative physical effects. Before long he was in a coma for over a year. When he finally awoke, he was paralyzed, and required a feeding tube and 24/7 medical care.

It wasn’t actually the snail itself that did Ballard in, however. It was due to a parasitic worm in the snail called rat lungworm disease. This worm is particularly harmful to humans because its larvae can spread to the brain, causing eosinophilic meningitis. This causes the membranes of the brain and spinal cord to swell. Ballard eventually died in 2018.

What makes this death especially haunting is the fact that Ballard retained his mental faculties until his death. He was fully aware of his surroundings. Making matters worse, his friends had to live with the fact that they had all played a hand in his demise. We’ve all done dumb things on dares. Or done stupid stuff while young. Ballard paid the ultimate price for doing something that probably seemed silly and harmless in the moment.

Guy Is Pushed By Jealous Friend Down A Manhole Into Boiling Water, Dies Later From Scalding Burns

This one is so bad it even gave a New York medical examiner nightmares.

In 2002, Sean Doyle, a NYC bartender, went out drinking with his friend Michael Wright and Wright’s girlfriend. At some point during the night, Wright accused Doyle of flirting with his girlfriend. While details aren’t clear, Wright wound up throwing his friend down an 18-foot manhole. Unfortunately, there was a broken main at the bottom leaking out boiling hot water, and essentially turning the narrow confine into a pressure cooker. Trapped down below, Doyle was, according Dr. Judy Melinek, “steamed like a lobster.”

Making this even more horrific, steam burns don’t kill nerve endings the way regular burns do. This meant that Doyle likely suffered all the way until his death. Emergency services arrived to help, but they were unable to retrieve him due to the 300 degree temperatures down below. By the time his body was brought up, his skin was completely peeled off, and his internal organs were cooked.

Undoubtedly, this ranks pretty high on the list of worst ways to go. It disturbs me not just because of the graphic and painful death, but that it started over an argument. Some men can become stupidly jealous and violently possessive when it comes to their girlfriends. Wright was later charged with second-degree murder. But there are conflicting reports about what really happened. His girlfriend maintains that the two men were just roughhousing, and that Doyle only accidentally fell in the manhole. I don’t know about that. If the girlfriend is covering for her boyfriend, that makes the whole thing even more tragic.

Well, that’s enough dwelling on death. I may never leave my house again. From now on, I’ll be staying indoors 24/7 wrapped in bubble wrap and seated on a nice plush sofa.