The noble art of childish fun

Being a kid in the 90s was amazing. Between Pokemon cards and Dangermouse, there was so many amazing playful distractions that your parents threw at you by the bucketload to get you off their back for half an hour. In the spirit of restrospection and reminiscence, We're taking a look at the things that really made childhood special, and unbelievably fun, without getting bogged down by orgasmic love for lego that has become a cliche in the toy world since, well, forever.


6 Amazing children's toys (that aren't Lego)


6. Stickle Bricks

These things were similar to Lego in that you stuck them together and built things with them. The only problem was that they were frustratingly unlike lego in that they didn't stick very well, and when they did, the finished constructed product usually looked unbelievably terrible.

That said these things were really fun to play with, and treading on them in the middle of the night wasn't nearly as painful as lego. Jesus christ that stuff was nasty.





5. Pogs 

Becasue seriously, when you're 7 years old, is there anything more fun than throwing things at other things in a bid to steal said things from your defeated, weeping opponent? The answer is a resounding no. The best thing about Pogs was that as well as a really badass game, these things made great collectables. With countless limited editions, and special shinies to collect, this was more of a way of life than a children's game, and encouraged competitive behaviour like you wouldn't believe.






4. Scalextric

As well as loving to smash things up as children, we also thoroughly enjoyed racing cars at incredibly high speeds around a relatively boring circular track. When Scalextric came around it did something that far surpassed Matchbox and their mini cars that were pretty terrible in comparison, and combined racing things with smashing things. I know for a fact that this thing changed my life for the better and memories of finally managing to navigate that goddamn loop with the car falling to a disastrous death make me all warm and fuzzy inside. Also if there was ever a childrens toy that got your Dad just as excited as you, then this is it.



3. Marble Run

I'm not entirely sure that any of you will remember this, or if you do, why this piece of plastic crap is featuring on a list of amazing chldren's toys. And the reason for this is that it kind of fulfilled every single criteria for mental and educational stimulation for kids. And it was really good fun. Using only a few pieces of plastic and some marbles, this toy managed to teach kids about construction and physics, adding quite a challenging puzzle element for kids of that 5 years old target audience. You had to think pretty carefully about where to position each piece so that the marble wouldn't become stuck and a pretty good knowledge of the way gravity works to actually get the marble to reach the bottom. Eduational, fun, and retina-smoulderingly colourful. What more could you ask for.



2. Transformers

Before Transformers was made popular again by the recent movies and animated cartoons, the franchise consisted solely of a lonely little comic and series of action figures. The reason that kids love magic is because a lit of it essentially involves one thing turning into another, and the creaters of the Transformers did a wonderful job in exploiting that love of magic in children with their robots that turned into all sorts of cars, trucks, and sometimes even robotic animals. I still have an old version of Optimus Prime that turned into a truck and I do still play with it every now and then because I still love to think that my little green Peugot 106 may one day turn into a crime fighting robot. Although if it did, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work very well, and be very slightly retarded.




 1. Mighty Max

I'm pretty sure this was my favourite toy of all time as a child. Kind of like a little boy's version of Polly Pocket, but with more Indiana Jones style awesomness and terrifying creatures. Nobody really knew what to do with these toys other than pretty much rip them apart. I remember I has one with some weird little fish things whos heads, arms and tails you could rip off, for reasons that weren't immediatly apparent to my 9 year old brain. The fact that you could buy little Max in hundreds of different poses and expressions meant that you could also have a lot of fun just pretending the reason he wss stuck in the fire mountain was because some evil being had cloned him 700 times and then proceed to pull each one of their heads off. 

How the hell did they make an animated series about this thing?