Stuck on You – The 80s Sticker Album
By Lori Ferraro I’m thankful I managed to hang onto as many keepsakes from my childhood as I did – old diaries, cassette and VHS tapes and tons of photo albums all make me nostalgic and happy. But there’s one album I can’t believe I got rid of. My sticker album! In the 80s photo albums weren’t just for pictures of your friends and family, they were a safe place to display your collection of carefully selected rainbow,...
Hungry Hungry Hippos Madness
There are certain commercial theme songs from the ‘80s that are permanently embedded in my brain – especially the ones revolving around food. Like whenever I know we are having chicken for dinner I silently sing the “I feel like Chicken Tonight” song. I still drink Crystal Light lemonade and you better believe that “I believe in Crystal Light ‘cuz I believe in ME!” plays when I’m mixing up a big pitcher of the yellow stuff. And when...
Round and Round ~ My Love of the Spirograph
By Lori Ferraro Who knew a box full of plastic circles could make a little kid so happy? Spirograph was the closest I ever got to doing well in math – put out by Hasbro it is a “geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves.” Huh. I don’t know about that, but I do know that by spinning my colored pens around and around inside the circular guides, I was able to create the most intricate, artistic, beautiful designs....
The Ring’s the Thing: Waterful Ring Toss Game
By Lori Ferraro So many toys from the 80s that I loved so much…board games, (Trouble!, Trivial Pursuit) electronic games, (Speak & Spell, Merlin), and video games (anything you could play on the Atari), but there’s one game that stands out for its simplicity, its one-player challenge and for its use of water. The Waterful Ring-Toss by TOMY. I was obsessed with this game – can we even call it a game? More like a test of your...
Top 8 Retro Game Remakes
By Jake Rock Classic Frogger vs. Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition Remakes of our favorite 80s movies and re-masters of our favorite 80s albums have been all the rage for quite some time. The videogame industry has noticed this trend and as a result many reboots of our favorite games have been released. So many, in fact, that it can be confusing for fans looking to get a nostalgic kick along with a new thrill. Don’t fret, I am here to...
Sea Wees
By Alli Denning Kenner first introduced the Sea Wee dolls in 1979, offering “Oceans of Fun.” But, it wasn’t until Christmas of 1980 that they came into my life. Initially, there were three dolls, Sandy, Coral, and Shelly (see what they did with the nautical naming). Each doll came with its own comb and a lily-pad sponge. The sponge had a convenient hole in the middle so that the doll could sit in the sponge. That way, she could float...
Top of My Toy List: My Barbie Styling Head
By Lori Ferraro I loved my Barbie Dolls growing up – like lots of girls, I was kind of fanatical about them. I had a few different versions of Barbie, Ken (with his purple ascot and hot pink shirt), and Barbie’s little sister Skipper too. I also had Donny and Marie Dolls that used to come on over to party with Barbie. And Darci, Covergirl Darci was a bigger, bustier version of a Barbie doll. Donny and Marie dolls But my favorite...
Garbage Pail Kids: Garbage Worth Keeping
When I was little I collected baseball cards – not because I liked or cared about the sport but because I liked “flipping” cards with the boys and winning their cards during recess on the playground. I also liked the flat, powdery bubble gum stick that came with the cards. My love affair with baseball cards was short lived. A few years later another type of card came along that I could really get into. Garbage Pail Kids. Garbage Pail...
Gleaming the Rubik’s Cube
By Lori Ferraro Imagine my surprise and absolute delight when I saw that THIS was on my eight-year-olds Christmas list: Yes. Oh yes…my old friend/nemesis, the Rubik’s Cube. Everybody had one back in the 80s! You did too, right?!? I begged my parents for one for my birthday – they ended up getting me a knockoff pyramid shaped puzzle that I pretended to enjoy for a while. The pyramid was cool and all but it wasn’t the real deal. I...
Holly Hobbie
By Julie Anderson Eighties girls will totally recognize this bonnet-clad little girl and the way-back-when lifestyle she conjured up: http://youtu.be/XnNlbl0EYhU It’s Holly Hobbie, the artistic creation of author/artist Holly Hobbie. (I know, right? I was fascinated to learn that she named her character after herself.) Denise Holly Ulinskas marred Douglas Hobbie in 1964. In the late 60s, she created the Holly Hobbie character and sold...
Monchhichis
My husband, like me, is a child of the 80s. I asked him if he remembered Monchhichis, thinking that surely he’d have no idea what I was talking about. But NO! He immediately burst into that commercial jingle. You totally know the first couple of lines at least: Monchhichi, Monchhichi, Oh so soft and cuddly! With a thumb in her mouth she’s really neat. Fun to wiggle his little feet. Yah yah yah yah yah Happy happy monchhichi! I love...
Chat with Spy Hunter Game Designer
By Dave Ellis One of the most awesome things about video games in the early 80s was that, just about every time you went to the arcade, there was a new game vying for your attention (and your quarters). As far I was concerned, some games instantly faded into the woodwork, while others made an indelible impression. I don’t remember exactly when or where I first played it, but Spy Hunter was a game that hooked me instantly back in 1983....
Coleco Mini-Arcade Tabletop Games
By Thomas Zizzo Birthday parties as a kid usually meant a day at the arcade. I can remember not being able to sleep the night before a friend’s party; the anticipation was too much. The old Atari 2600, sorry to say, just wasn’t the same as that dark, black-lit room, buzzing with lights and beeps and the bright marquees of our favorite video games. Unless you were as cool as Ricky Schroder (I’ve been dying to make a Silver Spoons...
80s My Little Pony and Today’s Bronies
By Julie Anderson Eighties girls will totally remember My Little Ponies, those hugely popular plastic horse figurines. The first herd of candy-colored toy horses was created in 1981. My Pretty Ponies were significantly bigger than My Little Ponies and were nowhere near as popular. In 1983, Hasbro’s My Little Ponies hit the jackpot with the elementary-age girl crowd. They were perfectly sized for little hands and little purses. We...
The Plasma Ball
By Julie Anderson Also known as lightning balls, plasma globes, or plasma lamps, plasma balls were one of the coolest home accessories of the 80s. (And they’re still pretty bitchin’ in my book.) A plasma ball is a clear glass sphere filled with low density noble gases. Inside the ball is an electrode that causes the gases to glow in flowing streaks of colored light. When you touch the surface of the ball, lightning bolts run from the...
