I really wanted to talk about something that didn’t involve my childhood or the 80’s
or 90’s, but, since those make up the most appealing topics for me, we will all
just have to deal with it. You can always just go and read some Buzzfeed
article (I am sure they will probably plagiarize part of this anyway) and feel
like you’ve accomplished reading at a 3rd grade level for the day. It took me a while to come up with another subject,
and I eventually got distracted while looking at old Sears catalogs, pointing
out all of the things I wanted from the digital pages that are unavailable now.
So after I was told to put on pants or leave the library where I was doing my
research (people are so sensitive nowadays), I decided to write about some of those things.
So, here we are with:
8
Things I Always Wanted From My Childhood
1 1. A
Clear Phone
"Fucking neon colors and all that shit. Gossip time, girls!"
If memory serves me
correctly, my sister had one of these. I didn’t have a separate line, since I
didn’t necessarily have “friends” that were tangible beings to call, but I
always thought it would be awesome to have one of these as our main mode of
contacting others. Why did I want one? Because they were amazing!. Instead of
looking at some bland taupe-colored piece of crap, I could instead see the
inner-workings of these beauties! Okay, so maybe they weren’t much better than
a regular phone, but they had character. They were about as lazy an idea as
Crystal Pepsi, but I think most of us bought into the short-lived craze. It
proved a difficult task to gather any sort of historical information about
these marvels, so my fabricated
history goes as such:
Craig Graham-Bell
knew he had to make his mark in the communications world; his
great-grandfather, Alexander, had invented the telephone, his grandfather the
rotary dial telephone, his father the first mobile phone, and his cousin Terry
had an idea for Nike Squeezers, a blatant rip-off of Reebok Pumps (they were
never put into production or even acknowledged by Nike). While one day watching
doing his anatomy studies for college, he stared at the see-through
illustration of the human body when, according to him, he received a phone call
breaking him from his trance. As he looked at the phone, he thought it the world would benefit from being able to
see into everyday products, as he promptly dropped out of medical school to
pursue his dream. Incidentally, he was also a driving mind behind colored
ketchup and Zima.
Okay, I got kind of lazy
towards the end there, but these things deserve a story that is easily
accessible via the internet, and I don’t see any of you doing anything. Anyway, there is a happy ending to this tale:
I ended up getting a clear phone through eBay a year or so ago, and it is
hanging on my wall as of this writing. I don’t have a land line connection to
call anybody with, but I also still don’t have non-imaginary friends to call,
so it’s just like my childhood!
2. A
Kirby Puckett Starting Lineup figure
"I don't have a clever comment."
Remember gathering sticks
to tape together into human form, and then finding strands of your babysitters’
hair to put onto it and putting them in vague, sports-like poses? Neither do I,
but I do remember having an extreme desire for Starting Lineup figures, which
weren’t all that different. Unlike many other action figures at the time, these
didn’t have much articulation, so they were pretty much stuck in one pose at
all times, but they were essentially little statue-action figure hybrids of our
favorite athletes! You could play with them, but more often than not, it only
ended in frustration, as you moved on to better things. I directly attribute my
love of multiple teams (and old logos) to these little fellas, as I had not
only my favorite players (49ers and Cubs players) but also many from random
teams like the Mets, Jets, St. Louis Cardinals, Yankees and Bulls. One guy I
always wanted, however, was Kirby Puckett. At one point, my aunt had brought my
brother and myself to a local drug store, and they actually carried some of
these toys there. I couldn’t decide which I wanted, so we left empty-handed. It
was in the car on the way home that I realized I had made a terrible mistake,
but alas, it was too late. While I still have most of the figures I had back
then, I have never fully recovered from not getting Puckett in all of his
portly, plastic-y goodness. Guess it’s back to the twigs, then.
3. Teleportation
Pods
"Things are about to get ruff...hahahaHAHAHA."
Specifically from the
1986 remake of “The Fly,” starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Now, if you
haven’t seen that film, let me sum it up by saying that a scientist embarks on a
journey to invent teleportation pods, with a mix of failures and successes, and
hilarity ensues. And of course by hilarity I mean horrible, grotesque failures.
A fly gets trapped in one of the pods and he unknowingly “fuses” with it,
slowly turning into some kind of human/fly hybrid. I know, it sounds like the
feel-good movie of the year, but it certainly isn’t; in fact, its terrifying,
especially for kids.
"Yeah, going through life like this could present some problems"
I probably saw it shortly after it came to home video,
which was quickly followed by a release on HBO, which was likely around age 6
or 7 for me. Sure I was horribly and irreparably scarred from it, but the most
important takeaway for me was that this dude still teleported himself across a
room with his invention, he just needed better quality control. Can you imagine
a world where we could just hop into a pod and almost instantly transport
hundreds, nay, thousands of miles
away? I imagined it all of the time. Sure, you would inevitably end up with
some mistakes, but a couple of people ending up looking like a He-Man villain
is worth avoiding the commute to Disney World. This is definitely one that
won’t be happening during my lifetime, however. You would essentially have to
disintegrate every atom in your body and recreate it elsewhere, which is pretty
much the same thing as dying every time you teleport. Not to mention that the
amount of data that a computer would had to go through to accomplish this task
would be outrageous. So, for now, it looks like I will be stuck either driving
20-some hours to the world’s favorite theme park, or be sandwiched between a
guy that snores too loud and a lady who won’t stop talking about her ugly
grandkids for several hours on a plane, followed by an uncomfortable taxi ride
to a hotel that looks like a crime scene from CSI.
4. Dino-Riders
"I just came."
Dino-Riders was a
14-episode cartoon in 1988 about two races who, you guessed it, rode dinosaurs
and fought one another after somehow being transported to prehistoric Earth
(don’t bother asking). The good guys somehow befriended the dinosaurs, while
the bad guys brainwashed them. Being an 80’s cartoon, it was primarily used as
a 30-minute advertisement for the Tyco toy line of the same name. As you could
probably figure out, the toy line was amazing! Roughly the same size as
M.A.S.K. products (just Google it if you don’t know, I’m not here to hold your
hand, dad), it featured all of your favorite dinos, equipped with lasers and
rockets. Are you fucking kidding me?! This was like a little boy’s wet dream! I
mean, you essentially have giant killing machines decorated with more killing
machines. This would essentially be like putting rockets on tigers and sharks
and watching people shit themselves as we drop several ranks on the food chain.
I never had any of these, but holy hell did I want them. This entry is
two-fold, however, as not only did I want the toys, I wanted an actual dinosaur
to ride around on and shoot things. That is why this toy line is so memorable:
it taps into the childhood fantasy of roughly 75% of kids (you are either part of
the lame 25%, or you are just lying to yourself and should be ashamed). Specifically,
I wanted the Brontosaurus or the T-Rex. I am not sure exactly how you go about
befriending dinosaurs, but if it is anything like how I tried to “befriend” a
rattlesnake when I was 23, it shouldn’t have gone that well. I likely would
have been part of the brainwashing group, which means that, eventually, my
reptilian pals would have turned on me and ripped me to shreds while shooting
lasers down my throat and rockets up my ass. I suppose it’s a good thing I
didn’t have a dinosaur around, then. But I still would like the toys,
"I probably would have ended up with this retarded excuse for a dinosaur."
5. Proton
Pack
"We came, we saw, we...accidentally killed 46 people."
Anyone who really knows
me knows that there are three movie series that continue to have a huge impact
on my life, and one of them was Ghostbusters. From the moment I saw this
foursome bustin’ ghosts, I wanted to be them.
Even the second film, which is pretty widely regarded as the much weaker and
lazier of the two, even by the film’s stars, is amazing to me. The cartoon, The
Real Ghostbusters, allowed for toys to be made of this fantastic universe, and
I eventually procured the Firehouse (one of my holy grails of toys), the
figures and the Ecto-1, but there was still something missing: the proton pack.
I wanted to recreate the movie as literally as I could, and I needed the number
one ghost-catching product in the world. Did these actually exist? No, but that
didn’t stop the rumors from swirling all around every kid in the world. Someone
always had that friend who had a an unseen cousin in Canada that had a proton
pack, which only fanned the flames that burned for these mythical devices. What
the hell would we do with them, anyway? Sure, I believed in ghosts back then,
but surely there still wasn’t anywhere near a cry for help equivalent to the
films. If this was to be a job, I would have to settle for living in m parents’
basement for life, because this career path sure as hell wasn’t going to pay
the bills. I don’t think I was aware, or paid attention to, the destructive
capabilities of the packs, as the only rule I needed was to not cross the
streams (but even that was questionable, because how the hell else do you get
rid of a centuries-old god). I probably would have unintentionally fried a lot
of animals in my neighborhood playing pretend, which definitely would have
landed me in a mental institution at some point. So, I guess we have another
product that the world is better off not having.
6. Hoverboard
"Welcome to the future, bitch."
Yeah, we have all heard
this one, so I don’t need to spend much time on it. Back to the Future is one
of the other two move series that I mentioned earlier that largely shaped my
childhood, and some of my adulthood. There were a few products from those
movies that I loved, the DeLorean being most notable, but it should be quite
apparent by now that I would never turn down a time travel device. It should
also be quite apparent that I make questionable life choices and should get
that rash looked at, but hey, the world isn’t perfect. The hoverboard is a
no-brainer, even for those of us who would most certainly get severely injured
on one. I didn’t skateboard in my childhood, and even what little I do now is
usually restricted to shakily moving in one direction and firmly driving my
body into the ground several times per trip. I should probably be more specific
and say I wanted a Pit Bull, which is essentially a hoverboard with rockets on
it (to go over water, and probably other things), but considering my lack of
skill balancing on something that was clearly meant for children, it is
probably a good idea I stick with the base model. Besides, the thing just looked cool, and remains a product
heavily desired to this day, even prompting people to make their own. This is
one of those products that has a definite possibility of being produced, but it
is unlikely that it will work the same, or that I come across the money to
purchase one. There is always hope for a wealthy distant relative to kick it
and leave me a fortune, but let’s face it, at that point I’m just going to use any hypothetical money to fund an expedition to find Bigfoot.
7. Lightsaber
"Anything is a dildo if you're brave enough."
Ah yes, the number one
product that falls under the “every kid wants but is irresponsible to create”
category. We all want one, so stop shaking your head. Even those of you who
don’t care about Star Wars could find some sort of use for a laser sword, even
if to slice bread and make toast at the same time. It could also be fun to try
to bat away insects with, or keep children in line. They didn’t really make
toys of these when I was younger, except for knockoffs that literally dubbed
“laser swords” and gave us a whopping two minutes of waving them around in the
air and accidentally hitting your brother in the face before you lose interest
(and get beat up by said brother). It isn’t like an actual licensed toy would
have been much better, but they did eventually make hyper-realistic
lightsabers, complete with proper sound effects and the look and feel right out
of the movies. While they still can’t help me perform surgery on my dad’s knee
or anything, they make for some pretty awesome visuals when I have a battle
with my brother or his daughter. Much like the other movie products on this
list, this was a fantastic example of something I would most definitely hurt
myself with; I mean, considering the amount of bruises I have received from
nunchucks over the years, I can only imagine how dead I would be with one of
these. Besides, most of us would have ended up looking like this kid.
8. The
U.S.S. Flagg Aircraft Carrier from G.I. Joe
"Holy shit, that thing is beautiful."
Okay, so anyone who has
spent a decent amount of time with me knows that this is the one product that I
would take over all others, and the best part is that it is 100% safe to own! If
you don’t know what G.I. Joe is, I already dislike you. This 7 ½-foot behemoth
was the ocean-going command center for the 3 ¾-inch figures, and came with a PA
system to announce aircraft launches, incoming attacks, and to publicly
humiliate Gung-Ho and Shipwreck for dressing like stereotypical gay sailors. Released in 1985, the Flagg originally sold for roughly $99-$109. Not too bad considering now complete sets can fetch thousands of dollars. Only
once did I actually see this toy in person, and the kid who had it didn’t want
anyone playing with it (dick), so I was introduced to it and quickly ushered
out the door. Imagine meeting the girl of your dreams, and then someone
promptly tells you that you can’t do anything about it and have to leave and
that you have to put your clothes back on in public. That is exactly what
happened here. Admittedly I didn’t, and still don’t have the room to house an
item of that size, but I would imagine that the day I do is the day I could likely
afford to purchase something so frivolously. If nothing else, it could serve as
one hell of a coffee table, but honestly, it would be a complete shame not to
play with it, and I would totally get my money’s worth of playtime with that
thing. For the first week I would likely be a hermit, and eventually my playing
would evolve into making a series of short films with elaborate plotlines and
scripting, complete with an original soundtrack created on my Yamaha keyboard
and enough lens flare to make J.J. Abrams jealous. Soon my time would likely be
consumed by this thing, and eventually I would die of starvation and
loneliness. But at least I would already have a coffin available, you just have
to hollow it out. And as my body was set in the ocean inside of the toy I had coveted
for so long, someone gets on the PA system and loudly proclaims “And we send
Shawn off to that big, unknown ocean called death. He would not want you to be
sad, but instead imagine him battling the forces of Cobra forever, something he
often dreamed about, aboard his favorite toy/vehicle/piece of furniture. Also,
is anyone else seeing what Gung-Ho and Shipwreck are wearing? I mean, c’mon
guys, you are setting the LGBT community back, like, 30 years.”
"Look at all the fun I never got to have. Thanks a lot, dad."
So thanks for reading, and I have another post coming real soon, so be on the look out for that. Any comments can be directed towards the little comment section below, or something. Also, Brian, if you're reading this, you still owe me five bucks, jerk.
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