h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Little more info?

I'd almost forgotten that. I got a fishing set once that worked like that, only these fish were plastic and coloured and had staples for mouths. Came with fishing poles, magnets, and I think we put them in the bathtub to fish them out... or the swimming pool, maybe.

Wow, was there really a high tech version? Now I feel like I had a deprived childhood! *sob**sob*
So, *sniff*, do you still go fishing?

More fun involving swimming pools is to drop a Mars Bar into a crowded one. I know it hardly qualifies as a childrens' toy, but there was more to childhood than toys - maybe we need a forum on pranks?

A red plastic base with a white top, rectangular, inside which was a frame onto which you clipped a small piece of paper (about A5 size). This frame was rotated about a vertical axis, by an electric motor powered by two U sized batteries.

When the paper was whizzing round nicely you had paint in special pots with nozzles, which you could dribble onto the paper to make circular patterns with runs of paint flying out under centrifugal force (note to pedants: lectures on the centripetal force / centrifugal reaction debate will not be appreciated).

Did anyone else have one?

This is called Twirl'n'Paint, I believe. You can still get them in the UK, and they form the basis for some quite sild parties at Durham University, or so my sister (who went to one) tells me.

OK, you can still get them. But what was it called back in the 70s? I'm pretty certain it wasn't twirl'n'paint, because the Nacton hadn't been invented back then

Hmmm... Never saw the practicality of practical jokes, myself... nor much humour, either.

Cookie: I guess you could call it high tech if you really reached.

Well actually, high tech is this game that I found yesterday!
There's like a big tree with a gorilla at the bottom, and a bunch
of bananas at the top, and then you've got to link monkeys from
a brunch, arm to tail, until it gets too heavy and the gorilla goes
running up the tree! He who places the last monkey loses!
Sound complicated? Actually it was made from plastic so I
guess it's not really a classic, but it sure was fun!

Indeed. Dna uoy dluow eb dewolla ot lleps sdrow sdrawkcab, sa llew.

Ho, taht skool ekil nuf,
nac I od ti oot?
I tnaw ot od gnihtyreve
sdrawkcab htiw uoy!!!

Well, I dont remember anything with a tree and a gorilla, but there was this brown plastic barrel with red and blue plastic monkeys inside. They had curved arms which you could use to hang them in a string. I think it was supposed to be a game, but I never learned what the rules were. I just kept picking them up and putting them away in the barrel after my kids finished playing with them.

It was called, naturally, Barrel 'O' Monkeys. More fun than a...????

hmmmmm...did you ever see monkeys in a barrel? And, think about it--do you really think they would be having 'fun' in that situation???

*grinz* ... That's the first thing I thought of when I read that, too... I think it (Barrel of Monkeys) was a take-off on pickup sticks, played much the same way except you had to keep them in a chain.

sdrawkcaB yrteop, oot??

Yeh esuom, s'tahw pu?
Emoc no ni,
ekat rouy taoc dna evah a nig.

Eht s'ytrap ylno tsuj nugeb,
tub t'nod eb yhs, emoc evah emos nuf!

Okay... I'll be that cross-eyed mouse over there in the corner now.

Nac I reffo uoy a eceip fo eseehc ro gnihtemos?

Cheese, yes, wonderful cheese

*blank stare, begins mumbling incoherently*

Oh no! They've gone into That's Life mode!

*zzzsssszhwtzzzzurp!* *temporary focus* Oh dear.