You On Kazoo!

Some things you get nostalgic about are things you were lucky never to have seen when you were a kid, but you know exactly what it is when you see it because there was so much like it back in the day. And there was. The amount of weird direct-to-video VHS tapes that were pumped out in the 80s and 90s on every conceivable (and... "Inconceivable!") topic in existence can not be overstated. At a time before smart phones, anything you could put in a VCR was a parent's best friend to shut us up for a half hour... and they sold very well, although the quality of content is now... well, you know... the stuff that memes are made of. 

At first all I knew about the "Kazoo kid" was that he was a 90s kid meme goldmine. All I can say is, when I first saw "You On Kazoo" it was a few years ago on Youtube, and it genuinely, legitimately, horrified me. Not only did this kid look and behave pretty much like the 8-year-old me (as cringey as that is by itself), but I actually began getting more and more unnerved as the minutes wore on, and had to shut it off, convinced that there is real evil in this world and that it will possess you if you let it. To this day I haven't been able to watch the whole thing, plus some of this kid's other direct-to-video works which are just as terrifying, without getting legitimately, genuninely, creeped-the-fuck out... 

So here you go! Just don't look him in the eyes. You've been warned. 

So just what from the depths of hell ARE you watching? Well, what if I told you that everyone involved in the production of these videos was found ritualistically sacrificed in that very same field? Hmm? Well, then I'd be lying to you because that didn't happen, but after watching this, you'd believe it, right? And what if I told you you'd be next? You can thank me later. Seriously... I just keep waiting for the kid to go, "seven days..." 

Now I'm sure there's a perfectly silly and fun dorky kid cash-grab VHS rationale behind all of this cringe and genuine horror, and yeah, maybe the guy who played "the Kazoo kid" or "Brett" as he calls himself (Brett Ambler) came out in recent years to tell the story of just how these direct-to-VHS 1989 creepypastas came to be. And yeah, it's nice to know he's doing alright and proud of his work when he was an 8-year-old dork himself, but still...

Sometimes you just have to get the spirit to come out... partner...

Slap Bracelets

I remember these slap bracelet things were banned when some kid cut their wrist on them or something. Maybe the reason was because once you start snapping them around your wrist, it is impossible to stop. Bend them out, snap them shut. Bend them out, snap them shut. Over and over.

Nobody ever kept one on their wrist more than five seconds. Eventually the plastic inside would crack and they were useless, but were they ever colorful... just so long as you could bend them out, and snap them shut. Bend them out, and snap them shut...

Stride Rite Slimers

At the risk of further betraying the laws of gender, I'm writing another post about shoes. (Okay! Okay! First hear me out fellas, then you can kick my ass!) Rest assured, these were pretty awesome. It took me quite a while to find the right ones because all I could remember about the "Nickelodeon Stride Rite Slimers" was that they had this plush goo at the toes that you could touch and squish around into different colors. It was like something bionic, as if slipping on a pair would plug me into that battery acid... or like something aquatic or alien.

Everything in the 90s became 90% more cool with slime (Gak, Flubber, Creepy Crawlers, Nickelodeon Studios, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze... the sandwich I left under my bed...), so it was only a matter of time before the universal snot found its way into our footwear. And mine kind of looked like snot too, with a green/teal-colored slime pack at the toes and sides of otherwise white sneakers. I think after a while of smooshing it around it started getting rather bland though, but kind of like the Sketchers Hot Lights, these were pretty cool to flash around the 4th grade while they lasted. And if wearing the Hot Lights could get me aboard the Starship Enterprise, these were probably more Borg-ish. Resistance is Futile!

Needless to say, girls didn't like me. 

Obligatory Pogs Post

What can be said about Pogs that hasn't been said a hundred times? They were little Poker-chip-like disks with colorful pictures on them, there were like a million of them, and you played some kind of game with them. The 8yo me had no idea what those things were, just that they were down every cool kid's pocket, and that there were a million of them. Some were like the Holy Grail trying to find, but a whole lot weren't worth more than a regular soda coaster. Evidently, it seems that the game originated in Hawaii during the 1920s with kids using milk caps. Over time, some teacher somewhere started teaching kids how to play the game using caps from this stuff called POG juice (Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava), thus the name "Pog" became forever associated with it. In the 90s, for some reason, the game took off in popularity so much that it became a cultural phenomenon forever linked to the 90s. But I think Children of the 90s said it best:

Still, though, we're just hurling a slightly bigger disc at a pile of smaller discs, so something tells me we as 90s children possessed the inherent trait of being incredibly easily amused. You just couldn't sell that to today's kid. They'd be bored out of their minds before you even got to the word "slammer." 

Slammer? "Hehe... slammer... hehe" --Beavis 

Kids used to trade them on the bus, at the lunch table, at recess, and that's basically how I got acquainted with them. I didn't know what you did with them other than collect them and pass them around, but I was not immune to having a couple kicking around at the bottom of my backpack just in case I ever had to learn. There was no choice, you had to keep a few on you just to say you were cool. I still never really got what they were, just that all the cool kids were into them. And the reason they were cool? Because they had cool pictures on them.

And I mean if you could think it, there was a Pog for it. They came in these endless series, with cartoons, tire rims, sports teams, sports balls, movies, bugs, Goosebumps, states, flags, aliens, planets, cars, Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Trek, crazy 8s, psychedelic stuff, trippy flowers, monsters, eyeballs, skulls, superheroes... anything and everything that could be rendered in glorious 90s neon. If you were into something, there was a Pog for it that would immediately make you cool for having it, and if you actually "won" the entire series of something, then you could consider yourself elite.

The game itself had something to do with stacking your pogs four high and face down and then hurling other pogs into them to scatter them. Those that landed face up were claimed by the kid hurling the pog. Those that landed face down went back into the stack for another round. I'm sure though that there were as many variations on the game as there were elementary schools, but that was pretty much the gist. What made it potentially fun and potentially resulted in you getting an atomic wedgie from your opponent (and therefore interesting), was that (being a game mostly of luck), you always had the potential to start raking in your opponent's pogs just for landing them face up. However, there were two basic ways to play... for fun, and the infamous "for keeps," both of which had to be spelled out beforehand, but depending on the size and ferocity of your opponent, didn't always matter. That's basically how you collected new pogs, but if you had nothing to start, none of the big time players wanted to waste their time with you (unless they wanted to offload a lot of their worthless ones). Playing "for fun" meant the loser got back their pogs after the game. Playing "for keeps" meant that either someone was coming home with some new pogs, or coming home with a black eye, or both. 

Seriously, this was that important. In most cases though, experienced players knew not to let their rarer pogs enter the game play on the off chance they'd land face up. As many in the paranoid media and PTA groups at the time pointed out, it was a form of gambling. They were right, but still, there was no reason they had to try to get the things banned from schools just because they taught us the importance of the gamblers fallacy. That's educational after all, and trust me, these things made or broke you on the hallowed recess play yards of yore. If you had a badass design, or a neon-green or something, you were D-O-P-E, and everyone wanted to "slam" with you. If you had nothing but Care Bears and puppies, then don't even bother going to school. 

Besides the Pog, there was the "Slammer," and those conferred instant cool cred whenever they were whipped out, because they were like weapons. The Slammer was this heavy piece, like a medallion, which could get pretty badass if it was the "circular saw" kind, but it could also just be a plastic checker piece-like thing. If you whipped out your slammer, your opponents knew they were done for, unless they had a heavier one. It was literally an arms race of "mine's bigger" mutually-ensured destruction.

I had to picture that there was some kid somewhere who was sitting on a throne of these things, in a castle built out of stacks of these things, just kicking back, basking in the glory... some kid who was like, the Pog Master, who had somehow managed to land everyone's face down. That kid would've been the king of awesomeness. I wonder where that kid is these days.

S Doodles and Transparent Cubes

To this day I don't have a clue what those S-things were (I guess they were called "stussies") and didn't back in the 3rd grade either. But back in the 90s, if you could draw one, you were cool. That's all I needed to know to start penciling it all over my lined paper and notebook covers. And there's only one way to draw these gangstah-like S things, and that's the cool way. You draw the diagonals first, only those pointing the same way at a time, and THEN connect them with the vertical lines to make the "S" appear. Oh yeah...

I think I figured they were some band logo, something to do with Sketchers sneakers or a something from the hip-hop world that I knew nothing about. Apparently nobody really knows what they are and they actually go back as far as the 1960s or something. All I knew was all the cool kids were doing it, and putting one on your notebook was absolute cred... especially if you could draw it the cool way. 

It's kind of like the cool way you'd draw the "transparent cube"-- the only other doodle that conferred you instant cred once emblazoned on your Trapper Keeper. In drawing the transparent cube, the only way to do it was to draw two squares on top of each other, and then connect the corners. Anything else just wasn't proper.

"Yeah, I just drew in 3-D, and I blew your tiny mind..."

Hot Light Sneakers

How do you get a boy "into" shoes? I don't mean on our feet, I mean on our crave list. If air pumps don't work (Air Jordans), you can always put lights in them. I didn't really care much about shoes since I'd given up on my old Thomas Engine straps, but the second my young eyes saw all those kids in the dim light of the commercials leaping over puddles with their heels ablaze in that colored neon light, I knew I NEEDED a pair of Skechers Hot Lights. They looked like something we'd be wearing in the future, and damn did I want to be first in line to board the Enterprise with a pair of those flimsy soles. 

For sure they'd make your every step radiate with coolness, like Michael Jackson in the fricken' Billie Jean video or some shiz... whether they blinked or changed color, stayed lit all the time or only when you stepped, but who knew what would happen if you stomped through a puddle? My mind only saw inevitable death by electrocution with all that "raw electricity" buzzing away at your feet, particularly in such proximity to all kinds of wetness, but little did I know the far more likely scenario was the things just going dead. Until that happened, I probably invented four ways to get them to blink besides just walking around (which never really seemed to work)... one of which involved taking them off and slamming them down on the desk. For some reason, they didn't work very long.

Like much of our most futuristic stuff these days, once the lights went dead on these things, you could forget it. There was no potato test. All of a sudden you'd find that they were harder and harder to get to light, you'd really have to pound your feet down, and then they'd just go out forever. But for the short time they did work, they were certainly cool. Def worth it for the players, am I right hommies? What a way to join the 20th century and embrace the future... light the way to your smelly shoes!

In-Line Roller-blades

Rad (adj.): see above.

Don't call 'em roller-skates, these bad boys are "blades". Since the first couple spins I took around the block in my old blades, back in the mid-90s, I don't think I've ever been able to sit quite right. Wearing these things was like learning how to walk all over again, only this time with eight wheels under your feet and a break at your heel. Come across any slope, or even just a gradual downturn or pebble, and you'll quickly find yourself careening out of control... BUTT I guess that's what your BUTT is for (...nature's impact absorber). Now if only I wore a helmet...
 
Seriously, after your first 200-something falls, you do get the hang of it, and then you'll be damned if you can go without them. The steady ground below your feet, the presence of "friction,"... it just no longer felt right. "If the good lord had intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller-skates..." said the great candy man, and I got to agree... except for the "roller-skates" part... (these things are too X-TREME!! to be "skates"). In any case, I think I went through a period in my life around the age of 10 where these were just the natural extension of my feet. I lived on wheels. My blades sat by the side door, so if I was going anywhere... "I--was--roll-ing!" (Forrest Gump everybody!)

Not me, but damn close!

At one point I could do everything in blades, like climb up and down stairs, use the bathroom (yes!), ride around on a trampoline (kids, don't try that at home), or fly down even the steepest sloping cul-de-sacs... (coming back up was a whole different story though). I even got up the guts to trick out a bit on the local half-pipe at the park, but only the kiddy one and only to the best ability a little dork like me could do... which meant a lot of back and forth on the bottom of the bevel and a lot of time on my butt. But isn't that why it's there? As I've said before, me and my butt are tight, we go way back.

The whole "roller-skating" thing that really took off in the 80's got another massive kick in the butt during the early 90s thanks to "rad" culture and the introduction of blades. Suddenly every kid on my block was either rocking a pair of blades, a skateboard, or a Razor scooter. Heck, video games like Road Rash and the very existence of Tony Hawk just became part of the lingo. Blades made their way into just about a thousand no-budget direct to VHS tapes advertising as "awesome jumps" and "XTREME tricks!" that were actually showcasing little more than the non-wipeout reel. They also made it into terrible kids' movies like "The Skateboard Kid" and... "The Skateboard Kid 2." After all, "When there's magic in your [fart], you can soar!" Yeah... all I can say about the 90s VHS craze, at least as far as skating videos and movies were concerned, is there are things more painful than wiping out on your blades.

The world would be a better place if people skated everywhere, I think. I mean, skater chicks have got to be the hottest kind of chick. Save for a bike, these were the quickest way to get around as a kid. After all, a car only has four wheels... these guys have a rockin' eight! Cool blades were definitely on my Christmas wishlist at some point, and I got to admit, I'm struggling to remember why I ever gave up my first real set of wheels.

....unless I want to count these babies.


< Here's a cool design I found on Zazzle, get it on a t-shirt! 

Sticker Fever

Throughout elementary school I was a hoarder for stickers. I couldn't pass through the back aisle of a Staples without feeling the itch to clean out the racks. I got stickers for being good, got them with my birthday presents, at retail checkout lines, at the doctor's office (once they let me have the whole roll! Bless their ENABLER hearts!). It was a disease. I saw one that looked cool and just had to have it.

I craved all kinds... cars, smileys, balls, clouds, words, animals, signs, flags, planets, aliens, dinosaurs...etc, ones that smelled (scratch and sniff), ones that sparkled, ones that changed color in heat, were plastic and popped up, or had googly eyes, ...etc. For sure, I was sick on the stick.

My teacher used to plant stickers on our assignments with uplifting sayings like "Excellent!" and "A+" when we did a good job on something, and of course I asked about her source. She turned me on to this little outfit called Office Max, which for me became more like "Office Fix." The biggest stash was back with the teacher supplies, that's a pro-tip.

What did I do with my massive collection? I plastered every square inch of the lamp in my room (all around its shade), and covered the top of my dresser. I was forbidden from sticking them on car windows and the walls of my room, but I did anyways. It was a typical pastime similar to stamp collecting but without any hope of them being worth anything in the future. It also ruined a perfectly good lamp and dresser (until they were scraped off), but that's what kids are supposed to do with their furniture.

Apparently it's a real hobby too. It's called "sticker bombing," and you can find people who have covered their cars, walls, radios...etc., with stickers end to end. I didn't know this at the time. People make awesome collages with them, and it's even considered a type of "found art." For me, it gave me something to do as a kid, but when it was time to put that old lamp out to pasture, all those stickers unfortunately went with it. So now I'm about 16 years off the stick (to which I was stuck), and haven't looked back (until now).

Magic Eye

These were so 'in' in the 90's. I stared cross-eyed into so many of these Magic Eye books when I was a kid, my nose pressed into the pages, it's no wonder I ended up needing glasses. These things made my eyes hurt--which, save for sticking something in them, is a rare occurrence.  And even if I saw the hidden image, I could never figure out what it was.

Remember, blur your eyes, look "through" the picture...or something.