{"id":1776,"date":"2022-06-14T20:17:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T20:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peternuttall.com\/wp\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2022-09-02T20:21:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T20:21:45","slug":"1776","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peternuttall.com\/wp\/2022\/06\/14\/1776\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best and Worst Toys of the 1980s (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best (and worst) Toys of the 1980s (Part 2)<\/h3>\n
\n\t

Etch-A-Sketch<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was the precursor to the Laptop. A Laptop that could only run Microsoft Paint in black and white.\u00a0 It had a monochrome screen so everything you drew looked like it was set in the 1930s.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what the appeal of the Etch-a-Sketch was because a pencil and a sketch pad was infinitely more enjoyable. and easier to use. and cheaper. and were already in your house.<\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t used to which knob did what, or which direction went which way, you\u2019d always twist one of the knobs in the wrong direction to make the cat you were drawing now have whiskers coming out of places it shouldn\u2019t have whiskers.\u00a0 Diagonals were a challenge too as were circles so you could forget drawing Pacman eating a bag of Doritos.\u00a0 If you wanted to keep the picture you\u2019d drawn, you either had to take a Polaroid of the screen or you had to frame it and then go out and buy another<\/em> Etch-a-sketch.<\/p>\n

To remove the picture you\u2019d etched and sketched, in order to draw another one, you had to shake it up and down so the polystyrene beads inside smoothed out and recoated the glass with aluminium powder.\u00a0 My mission was to remove all the powder from the glass by meticulously moving the needle up and down the screen, 1 nanometre at a time.<\/p>\n

This is what happens when you\u2019ve worn out all the actual uses for a toy; you start inventing different<\/em> uses for it. Like when you\u2019d got bored of riding your bike, you\u2019d turn it upside down and turn the pedal with your hand to see how fast you could make the back-wheel spin. Action Man became a teaching hospital specimen and the one of the speakers from your hi-fi became a makeshift stool when you had friends over and not enough seats.<\/p>\n

Raleigh Chopper<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Made of steel, making it ridiculously heavy, with one wheel bigger than the other resulting in involuntary wheelies and the fact it wobbled when you got up any kind of speed, the Raleigh Chopper was a death trap.<\/p>\n

Add in the fact it had a T-bar gear stick not three inches away from your groin, there were plenty of opportunities for birth control if you braked too hard.\u00a0 First released in 1969, it was still a big seller in the 1980s until the BMX took over.\u00a0 The film \u2018Raleigh Chopper Bandits\u2019 didn\u2019t quite have the same ring to it but would definitely have been a better film.\u00a0 The main draw for this bike was the sofa it had on the back in place of a conventional saddle.\u00a0 You could fit three maybe four of your friends on the back and take them for a short weekend break in Rhyl.\u00a0 The low-drop handle bars and the addition of a kick stand made you feel like a Hells Angel too; only with less tattoos (apart from the ones you got inside bubble gum which you licked and pressed onto the back of your hand).<\/p>\n

Purple people eater<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1958, Sheb Wooley had a song called the one eyed one horned flyin\u2019 purple people eater. <\/em>In it, there is a monster that wants to join a rock and roll band and tries to achieve this by eating purple people.\u00a0 In 1982, I thought I\u2019d never sleep again when I got a Waddingtons<\/em> Purple People Eater. It was made of rubber; a creepy latex type of rubber with a face that would have given Freddie Krueger nightmares.<\/p>\n

The premise of the game was much like that of Operation<\/em> \u2013 you had to remove the people from its mouth with a pair of tweezers without touching the sides.\u00a0 If you did touch it, its right eye lit up and it screamed a scream that made my soul temporarily leave my body.\u00a0 There\u2019s an online legend I read in which a young chap\u2019s dad used to wear the rubber monster over his head and chase him around the house.\u00a0 He still sleeps with both eyes open. Forty. Years. Later.<\/p>\n

Hungry hippos<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These days, the single biggest cause of repetitive strain injury is typing on keyboards. In the 80s it was Hungry Hippos giving us all carpal-tunnel syndrome. A game for up to four players, each taking their place behind a hippo with a lever on its back. Marbles are released into the playing area and each player has to smash the lever down as many times as possible in order to extend the hippo\u2019s telescopic neck to grab as many marbles as possible. A game of luck, then, which invariably ended up with someone slamming the lever into the table so hard, the entire game was catapulted across the room into your Nan\u2019s face whilst she was watching Metal Mickey.<\/p>\n

If you get a chance, take a look at the commercial from the 1980s. It features four children pressing their lever lethargically for 30 seconds, looking like it\u2019s not possible to have less fun. Then one of the kids shouts \u2018I\u2019ve won\u2019 in the least excited voice of all time. The other three kids look relieved rather than upset that they\u2019ve lost and they\u2019re now allowed to leave and go wash the dishes or count the blades of grass in the back garden, you know, something less tedious.<\/p>\n