I like to reflect on how different things are now as they were when I was a kid. If I had access to the toys they have now, I would have chewed on Fred Savage’s earwax for an hour to get a hold of some of them. Instead I was reduced to playing with much less sophisticated toys to pass the time. Some of them were not bad for their time, but I’ve compiled a list of some of the ones that really sucked ass. If you’re from my generation then you might remember some of these pieces of shit. If you had any of these toys and thought they were really cool then don’t let me know about it because I’ll just make fun of you.

1. Pillow People

I never had any desire to own one of these things. It’s a fucking pillow with arms and legs. Every time I went to a friend’s house and found out he had one of these I would instantly think he was gay. How long could you possibly own one of these before it becomes all fucked up from all of the drooling that’s done in your sleep? I bet there are collectors looking for these on ebay and unbeknownst to them, any one of these that they buy is going to smell like 5 years of spit and slobber. I’d rather use a sack of bananas for a friggin’ pillow or go without any pillow at all.

2. My Pet Monster

You can call it whatever the hell you want to, but it’s still a stuffed animal with plastic handcuffs. In the commercial they would show all of these kids running around with these things like it was the most innovative thing on the planet. How much fun could you really have with this? It doesn’t do anything exciting, it doesn’t make noise, there aren’t any lights… what the fuck? It’s not even a cool looking monster. Stuffed animals should never get the acclaim that the real toys get. They are in an entirely different category and they’re about as boring as your grandfather’s stamp collection.

3. Talking Viewmaster

I can’t stand it when they elaborate on a good idea and concoct a truly shit product as a result. There was nothing cooler than the original Viewmaster, but this clusterfuck was a pity. The original was simple and provided a couple of minutes of fun until you were bored with all of the discs. Take the original design and add 6 inches of bulky plastic to the bottom of it, give it some sound, and voila… you have the Talking Viewmaster. I never held one, but it looks heavy and the idea sucks. If you want sound all you have to do is turn on the TV or the radio. Who gets enjoyment out of narrated sound put to still pictures? It would be like watching a film strip in grade school with the beep after every paragraph which was instructing the lucky fuck who was chosen to advance the frames that it was time to move forward. I bet these didn’t fly off of too many shelves. I heard that the Bosnian army bought all of the surplus and converted them into night vision goggles or some shit.

4. Pogo Ball

I will never stop hating this toy for as long as I live. The commercial was one of the worst ever. I still remember the song (”Pogo Ball is what they call it…”). Ugh, god awful! The toy itself looks like a pair of nuts being strangled by an S&M device. It just has prettier colors. If you’ve ever seen anyone using one of these, it is the most ridiculous thing you’ll ever see. I’d like to allow the makers of this toy the chance to redeem themselves by launching a “Pogo Porn” site where all of the actresses blow Mandingo through a glory hole while jumping up and down on these contraptions. It might even make me change my opinion. I once made one of these out of a watermelon and an old hubcap, but it didn’t fucking work. One of these days I’ll go back to the schematics and see where I went wrong.

5. Tuba Ruba

“Look everyone, my friend and I like to rub our pre-adolescent asses together and everyone thinks we’re playing a game!” The only people I would respect that ever played this would be any guy that played against a hot chick otherwise you’re a flamer ’cause I said so. Oh, and the same goes for Twister. Something about binding yourself to another guy with plastic tubing and then wriggling around sounds kind of fucked up. The idea is that there’s a marble inside the tube that you need to get to come out of the other side. So that doesn’t make it gay anymore? Like hell it doesn’t. I hear they play this up in Ogunquit, Maine except there’s a gerbil running around in the tube in lieu of the marble.

6. WWF Wrestlers

Don’t get me wrong, I loved WWF as much as anybody, but the toy rendition was complete ass. These are supposed to be wrestlers and you can’t move any part of their bodies. Arms don’t move, legs don’t move, head doesn’t move, etc… It’s just a chunk of rubber painted like Junk Yard dog or Ravishing Rick Rude. Then once you accumulate enough of these hunks of shit, you were supposed buy the wrestling ring so you could have matches with your friends. Bullshit. You couldn’t do anything with these fucking things. You see all of the awesome moves they do on TV? How the fuck are you going to do that when you’re wrestler is stuck in a prone position? Simulating various sexual positions is about the most you could hope for with these sacks of crap. Macho Man Randy Savage could deepthroat Big Boss Man while Ted DiBiase sucks a hundred dollar bill out of Sgt. Slaughter’s starfish. See? Lots of fun!!!

7. Perfection

This game should of been renamed “Shit Your Pants”. I don’t know how many times I played this, but I was never ready for the board to come popping up all the while tossing pieces all over the fucking place. This game was more work then it was fun. It would always go something like this:

1. Start the timer.
2. Start putting pieces in their respective places.
3. When you have two pieces left to go, the game demons unleash their fury and push the board up with impressive force.
4. Pieces fly out of the board.
5. Diarrhea shoots out of your ass.
6. Then you’re expected to clean up the pieces, change your slacks, and start over.

8. My Puppy Puddles

9. Zap-It Guns

10. Trapper Keeper