(Insert kids these days rant here)

There's certainly a childhood theme running through the Zombie Outbreak site this week, and I'm not one to rock the boat (I'll maybe shake it slightly for my own amusement, but that's as far as I'll go). With that in mind, 80's/90's cartoon intros!

Isn't it weird when you look back at cartoons you loved as a kid, and realise that nine times out of ten it seemed as if someone had left some acid lying around the studio? It's the only explanation for some of these:

Popples



Popples! Hulse talked about them yesterday and I remember having one as a kid, it's one of the toys I dearly wish I hadn't chucked out when I got older, along with the Bart Simpson doll that said 'Eat my shorts!' when you pulled the cord in his back. Sad times.

ANYWAY, from what I remember (which isn't much), the Popples seemed to live in these kids' house, and cause havoc whenever they felt like it. The theme song promises 'laughter, good times too', but what Popples really seem to bring is chaos and a huge cleaning bill.

Also they have pouches. On their backs. THEY TUCK THEMSELVES INTO WHAT ARE ESSENTIALLY BACK MOUNTED SKIN FLAPS.

Have I ruined your childhood yet?

Button Moon



As one of the video's comments says: 'There is no other explanation for the creation of this show than a small budget and some heavily, heavily cut drugs.'

Inspector Gadget



This was a little bit before my time, but I watched reruns religiously. Inspecctor Gadget was made of all types of win.

Who's the guy in the safe, though? WHY DID HE GET BLOWN UP?! That's disturbing. Not as disturbing as what what Hollywood and the recent cartoons did to him though. Inspector Gadget and the Gadgetinis? HELL NO.

The Real GhostBusters



Two things disturb me about this. One, once you realise Peter Venkman is Garfield in a human suit, you can never un-hear it. Secondly, I'm pretty sure my dad modelled his hair on Egon's do for his wedding back in '85.

Care Bears



'I WANNA BE A CARE BEAR!' What, so you can lose all your digits and go live in a cloud? Yeah, no thanks.

You have to wonder if this is what started a lot of furries off.

(Disclaimer: Nowt wrong with furries, obviously. It just raises a lot of questions...)

(We're going to get hate mail for this, aren't we?)

My Little Pony Tales



You thought you were getting out of here without a pony reference? Are you new here?

Anyway, there are many questions raised here, like, why are we watching ponies in bed and in the bath? Also, HOW ARE THEY HOLDING ANYTHING?!

Seriously, they have hooves, yet they're playing guitars, baking, holding milkshakes... are they magic?

NO. IT IS A TISSUE OF LIES.

Toys that shaped my life... Kinda...

Answers to last weeks photo shop things
1 Louis Walsh
2 Jimmy Saville
3 Sue Pollard
4 Des Lynam
5 Marilyn Manson
6 The Queen (god bless ya 'mam)
7 Ozzy Osbourne


__________________________________________
Staying on Lukes theme of childhood bits and bobs. I present to you.

TOYS THAT WERE GOOD AND STUFF YO!

Boglins

These were blatantly toys for boys, not girls. I was a girl, but I still used to love pushing their eyes inside out and trying to break them to no avail. I have two memories of these things; one is my cousins chasing me around my aunts house with one before I knew what they were and thinking it was real and the second was that my brother had a glow in the dark one which someone put on top of a lamp and it set on fire.
All bad memories, not my favourite toy.


Fish Price Tape Recorder

This was one of my favourite toys, mainly because I am self obsessed and could record myself and listen to it back over and over again. Every now and again I will stumble upon an old tape with a recording of myself babbling away and pretending I am funny. Much like now.

My favourite recording is one where I'm trying to tell a horror story about a old lady that was dead but a ghost which obviously ended with “BUT SHE WAS ALREADY DEAD” only to have my little sister in the background shout “HAVE I MISSED IT YET?” and then laughing to herself. It doesn’t make any sense, none of it does but its a lovely, although a slightly embarrassing, thing to listen to and it's nice to know I had bloody good fun using such a basic toy!
The oddest thing of all is that I have the queens accent, You know! A posh British accent! Not my awful brummie one I have now that sounds like you’re running in mud in slippers. I wonder what went wrong? I can't help but wonder if I'd kept using my tape recorder I could have been a more eloquent person. EH WHAT? BASTARDS!


Popples

 

Not only was it cute but look at it! It's fun! Best of all you can turn it inside itself and it's a weapon! If you threw one of these hard enough you'd cause some serious damage, Great! I cant remember actually playing with these, only really throwing them at people.

Glow-worms

 

Oh, I liked these, these were great.Not the cuddly ones but the plastic glow in the dark things! Yeah! Apart from when I forgot they were in my bedroom and I woke up in the night and thought they were ghosts. Can't do much with them, but when you've got a good enough imagination who cares?! Kids these days have too much complicated shit, bring back glow worms!


Werebears

I'm starting to notice a theme here, and its that I enjoyed toys that you could somehow turn inside out. Only these were cool! These were amazing! I only had 3, I wanted all 4! DAMN IT ALL I WANTED 4! although I think one was actually my brothers, but it was in my house so technically it was mine! Best of all is there was a comic book that went with it, and you could make masks! MASK! I LOVE MASKS! IM HYPERVENTALATIN! ARARAGH!

NO WAIT! Best of all is that you could turn their heads INSIDE OUT. One side a cute teddy bear the other a monster! Bwhaha! It was like they were bi-polar but a very dramatic metaphor.

Pound Puppies

Ahah! These. I had them. I cant remember much about them. Only that they came in a box that looked like a dog house. Shit.


Keypers

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! A TOY WITH ANOTHER TOY INSIDE THAT YOU CAN HIDE THINGS IN?! Thats right! You heard me! Whoa! So simple but so exciting for a 7 year old!
I remember vaguely my friend putting a pound in one of her keypers and it disappearing, we of course blamed the trampy girl that was present, a fight ensued, popples were thrown, turns out it had rolled under the bed. Brilliant.


Stickle Bricks

I hated these but I loved them at the same time. Every school seemed to have them. I think my school had about 5 tons of the stuff. There were pretty limited, I only really liked toys that had faces for some reason. Once you’ve stuck one brick on another you've pretty much reached the pinnacle of your stickle limits. Smash it up. Still keep finding random parts about five years later. Great.

Let go Sticklebricks! Let go! You were rubbish! No one wants you!

Fish Price Roller Skates

Ah my first pair of roller skates, so elegantly they were wedged onto your shoes and you didn’t so much roll and you clomped around making clanking noises. I'd like to say that these were the inspiration for me playing roller derby, but they weren’t, they were awful things that didn’t really work unless you got on some kind of slope and then you were in trouble, rolling at the max speed of 1 mile a day! Slow down! You’re going to fast! You’re a maniac!

...Not quite. They looked cool anyway.