90s Childhood
So I was out with my cohort (the fancy-ass pretentious way we say "people in my year" in the department) at a bar the other night, celebrating the end of the quarter, and you know what I really wanted to order?
+
Equal parts DMD and OJ = transcendence. I'm telling you, this could be the next big thing. All I need for it is some vaguely amusing name (Dew-driver? Mountain-mosa?) and then I can start ordering it at fancy clubs. As an added bonus, I won't get mocked for ordering a Shirley Temple any longer.
So while we were there, we started talking about Crocodile Mile, the fantastic toy that we totally had when I was little. You remember:
Crocodile Mile! And I remembered all the words to the jingle, completely unprompted. I had forgotten that it was marketed as an Australian toy, but that makes the commercial even better. Actually, unless you have some incredibly lush carpet of a lawn, it kind of hurts to run and flop on your stomach with nothing but a thin sheet of plastic between you and the ground, but it was still awesome on hot summer days.
So then I started thinking about other 90s toys that have been embedded in my brain. I know the song for Skip-It!:
I mean, it's not like it's a hard song or anything, but still. We had one of these that we got at a garage sale, and the counter was busted, but that didn't really matter because I couldn't Skip-It! for the life of me. This thing, like the jump rope, is basically just designed to tire children out so they won't tear around the house (I mean, come on, who hops on one foot for fun? For an extended period of time?) but I was still really chagrined that I couldn't make it work.
Finally, the commercial that hit me the hardest was for Puppy Surprise:
OH MAN did I ever crave Puppy Surprise. The girls across the street had one, and it had FOUR PUPPIES, and I was convinced that if I could just get my hands on one it would totally have five puppies and I would be the coolest girl on the block. So I begged and pleaded and my mom informed me that I had an allowance for a reason, and that if I wanted the puppy I could save for it. I think I was eight or nine years old when this thing came out. So I scrimped and saved and didn't buy another thing in the world for months (Nicole's allowance at this point= $1/week) until I had the $20 it cost for Puppy Surprise. I took it as an article of faith that since I was buying it myself, it would have five puppies. This was the first toy I had ever bought all on my own. Mom took me to Toys 'R' Us and I picked out the one I wanted and opened it in the car and... three puppies. Of course. Two girls and a boy. It was the disappointment of my life to that point (and maybe to date). I eventually grew to love it, and we made clothes for the puppies and everything, but (evidently) I still bear the scars of opening up that mommy dog (how weird is the concept behind this toy, by the way?) and only finding three puppies.
This is my long-winded way of saying that I'm not giving any offspring of mine television. They can have books, and maybe I'll dig out the old Crocodile Mile, but TV is out.
+
Equal parts DMD and OJ = transcendence. I'm telling you, this could be the next big thing. All I need for it is some vaguely amusing name (Dew-driver? Mountain-mosa?) and then I can start ordering it at fancy clubs. As an added bonus, I won't get mocked for ordering a Shirley Temple any longer.
So while we were there, we started talking about Crocodile Mile, the fantastic toy that we totally had when I was little. You remember:
Click to viewCrocodile Mile! And I remembered all the words to the jingle, completely unprompted. I had forgotten that it was marketed as an Australian toy, but that makes the commercial even better. Actually, unless you have some incredibly lush carpet of a lawn, it kind of hurts to run and flop on your stomach with nothing but a thin sheet of plastic between you and the ground, but it was still awesome on hot summer days.
So then I started thinking about other 90s toys that have been embedded in my brain. I know the song for Skip-It!:
I mean, it's not like it's a hard song or anything, but still. We had one of these that we got at a garage sale, and the counter was busted, but that didn't really matter because I couldn't Skip-It! for the life of me. This thing, like the jump rope, is basically just designed to tire children out so they won't tear around the house (I mean, come on, who hops on one foot for fun? For an extended period of time?) but I was still really chagrined that I couldn't make it work.
Finally, the commercial that hit me the hardest was for Puppy Surprise:
OH MAN did I ever crave Puppy Surprise. The girls across the street had one, and it had FOUR PUPPIES, and I was convinced that if I could just get my hands on one it would totally have five puppies and I would be the coolest girl on the block. So I begged and pleaded and my mom informed me that I had an allowance for a reason, and that if I wanted the puppy I could save for it. I think I was eight or nine years old when this thing came out. So I scrimped and saved and didn't buy another thing in the world for months (Nicole's allowance at this point= $1/week) until I had the $20 it cost for Puppy Surprise. I took it as an article of faith that since I was buying it myself, it would have five puppies. This was the first toy I had ever bought all on my own. Mom took me to Toys 'R' Us and I picked out the one I wanted and opened it in the car and... three puppies. Of course. Two girls and a boy. It was the disappointment of my life to that point (and maybe to date). I eventually grew to love it, and we made clothes for the puppies and everything, but (evidently) I still bear the scars of opening up that mommy dog (how weird is the concept behind this toy, by the way?) and only finding three puppies.
This is my long-winded way of saying that I'm not giving any offspring of mine television. They can have books, and maybe I'll dig out the old Crocodile Mile, but TV is out.