BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) SIMPLE TOYS
Remember when toys didn’t always include batteries or tiny screws? Neither do I. Still, my parents and grandparents liked to pretend they did. So in turn they’d expose me to “the paddle ball”, “jax”, and the “slinky”. If they wanted to get high tech they’d give you a Mr. Potato Head or an Ektra-sketch. These types of toys would get lost, broken, or boring really quick but that’s the kind of expendable sacrifice spending fifty cents on toys affords you.
(THREE) NERF COMMERCIALS
I miss cheaply cut and made foam athletic equipment. The NERF footballs were HUGE for a long time. They had commercials with people like Joe Montana or John Elway or someone else showing off how far they could throw it. It was soft, it was easy to rip up, and they did not hestitate to throw out a million different NERF products. I’m sure NERF has to be out there somewhere still protecting children from actually playing a real sport. It’s not as grand of scale as it was for a little while.
(TWO) EXCESSIVE BACK FLIPS
Am I the only one who notices that you never see back flips anymore? I’m sure people in dance still do a lot of back flipping, but it seems like it’s been phased out as the world got safer and softer. I’m not saying everyone used to go around and do back flips, but it was a stunt that people would always stop and crowd around to see. I think this is directly related to the decline in status of Van Dame and Steven Segel.
(ONE) MICRO MACHINES
I always had toy lust for Micro Machines. I can only really recall having like 2 or 3 micro machine cars in my time, but I REALLY wanted to collect them all like the commercial suggested. I don’t get why these were so cool for a while. Normal Hotwheels are bigger, better, and from what I recall cheaper. I think a lot had to do with the guy in the commercial who talked really really fast. If HE liked them… what right did we not to agree? Smart people, them Mirco Machine people.
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