Photo: Kenner & Denys Fisher
With Christmas literally around the corner, now seems like a time to brew a warm mug of nostalgic over the days we used to believe in Santa Claus and feverishly unwrap gifts and toys as if we’ve never received a single present in our lives.
While all of this happened, our parents would sit their, piping hot coffee in hand, and watch as our spoiled adolescent asses unwrapped gift after gift, believing the majority of them came from an illusive and jolly figure we’ve read about in the books, when really your parents were the ones who spent the cold hard cash, getting no credit whatsoever.
It’s a shitty deal, considering the average shopper spends an average of $839 on gifts. But there your parents are, amidst the cannabolic commercialism of the year’s biggest holiday, feeding into the legend of a man who doesn’t exist. It’s almost admirable, in a way.
But now that we understand the truth, let’s revisit some of the best gifts to ever be placed under our trees by our parents, who’d wait in line at 6AM to get you the toy you so desperately wanted, and spent hundreds of dollars so that we didn’t have a shitty Christmas and could brag about our loot to other neighborhood children.
The Greatest ’90s Toys For Boys
Let me now sound like my father: “I sure miss the good old days.”
And let’s not forget these: The Best Loved Video Games Of The 90s Worth Going Blind Over
Greatest 90s Toys For Boys
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1. Sock ‘Em Boppers
“More fun than a pillow fight!” ...Until your Sock ‘Em Bopping privileges are unquestionably revoked for repeatedly punching your little brother in the face.
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2. Flip-Head Power Rangers Action Figures
These things were impossible to get, and they will forever be my favorite toys. They were your standard action figure, except for one very large factor: Their heads flipped, transforming the teens from their civilian selves to the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers with a simple flick of the thumb. Legendary!
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3. Tamagotchi
Girls had Nano Pets and boys had these mini digital alien pets that shit, ate and otherwise made your life a huge, elective inconvenience. There was absolutely no payoff save from the fact that the thing would grow.
Photo: YouTube
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4. Dragon Flyz
Based on the show of the same name that sees humans riding dragon-back on various missions and adventures, these toys were basically the male version of the very popular Sky Dancers, which, with one pull of a string, launched your figures into flight, where they’d then almost always land on the rough concrete and scratch the absolute shit out of them, ruining the toy forever.
Photo: Pinterest
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5. K’Nex
I never found the fun in building things, so these toys had no influence on me, despite being VERY popular. The K’Nex sets would include intricate building systems that consisted of interlocking plastic rods, connectors, gears, wheels, and other components, which can be pieced together to form a wide variety of models, machines, and architectural structures.
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6. Gak
Malleable slime. Nothing more, nothing less.
Photo: YouTube
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7. Creepy Crawlers
Like the Easy Bake Oven, except instead of making a shitty bite of cake in four hours, you melted plastic to form an array of various insects using a single light bulb as your only heat source.
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8. 1,2,3 Roller Skates
Roller blades were always a pain in the ass to put on, so many of us flocked to these babies instead. They were super easy to put on, could stretch to fit a wide range of adolescent feet, and, as a result, the appeal was instant, despite looking like a total nerd.
Photo: Via Fisher Price
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9. Tiger Games
Tiger games were individual games with terribly shitty graphics with three buttons that seemed to repeat the same level over and over again. While quite popular, these were the unspoken consolation prize to the coveted Gameboy.
Photo: Pinterest
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10. Moon Shoes
These shoes made you look like a Spice Girl in her platform sneakers and almost guaranteed an ankle-related injury. For how unnecessarily large and clunky these babies were (add the fact that mom scolded you whenever you wore them indoors), the appeal of Moon Shows wore off almost instantly.
Photo: Etsy
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11. Mighty Max
The male version of Polly Pocket where, instead of dream houses and hair salons, Max opted for skull fortresses and Egyptian pyramids made of snakes. Never had gender roles been more clearly established or unapologetically offensive.
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12. Talkboy
The only reason we wanted this so bad was because we idolized Kevin McCallister.
Photo: Via Mashable
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13. Stretch Armstrong
The coolest of toys. Everyone who is anyone had themselves a Stretch Armstrong, and he was the tops. That is until we took Stretch to his absolute limit and almost ripped his arms off, exposing a corn syrup-y gel that would leak all over the carpet, urging mom to toss him in the trash the moment you let him out of your sight.
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14. Magna Doodle
For kids who loved to draw and parents who don’t like wasting computer paper, came the mighty Magna Doodle, a drawing palette that somehow used magnetics to doodle within a confined rectangular palette. With one swipe of the sliding eraser bar, kids could completely erase their work of art within seconds. Easy clean up.
Photo: YouTube
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15. Game Boy Camera
In the height of its popularity, Nintendo released the Game Boy Camera, which, as you might assume from the name, was a camera for your Game Boy.
The image quality was black-and-white and inarguably horrible, but seemed great at the time. You could also print your images with the Game Boy Printer, which, of course, was sold separately.
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16. Sega Game Gear
I might be the only person on earth who believes this, bt the Sega Game Gear kicked the complete shit out of Game Boy. This victory comes courtesy of the backlit and full-color screen, which made it feel like you were playing a handheld version of Sega, whereas the Gameboy didn’t light up (at the time) and black-and-white was your only option.
Photo: eBay
