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

What about things that are hip and trendy now, but will quickly descend into tack in the future? I've been hoping that this would happen to all things Pokemon for a year and a half - but there's no sign of it yet.

Furbies!!!!

Already happened to Furbies hasn't it? Those stupid robot dogs - they must be candidates for the yesterday's tacky toy of tomorrow.

You're much better off with a stupid real - you may have to pick up their poo in a plastic bag, but at least they show you some affection and guard your house (from the postman).

I was fascinated by the "Furbie Autopsy" site, showing you how to dismantle and reprogram them... Apparently the standard Furbie has the same processing power as an Apple II...

What would you reprogram a furby to do?

From what I remember, you could tinker with the "speech pattern" to make it sound like it was mangling different Western and Eastern languages... I'm sure we could come up with something more creative, though...

If you tinker with and torture them enough, perhaps you could turn them into Gremlins...

Surely you just have to feed them after midnight for that?
And I agree that it is high time for Pokemon to become yesterday's tack, right along with Westlife.

I never understood the "after midnight bit"--isn't it always after midnight?

And what about Beanie Babies? (Did those ever make it over to Europe? ) Well, they are sort of gone now, I guess....

Yeah, the after midnight is a bit confusing. When does it stop being after midnight, and become morning?

I don't know guys, I think Pokemon might be tack proof. It's too well put together ya see. While some elements like the films and cartoons might make it into the tack bin the game boy games and card games at the centre are just set to run and run I think. They're gonna be one of those things that people associate with fondly when thinking of playtimes at school. I certainly have these feelings toward things like garbage pail kids cards and all the poor quality Star wars merchandise of my childhood.

I do think that the future will look disdainfully on the Harry potter films and all the tat they have dumped in the shops (the books will still demand respect though).

Undoubtably micro-scooters will be a laughing-stock in ten years. I think they're unspeakably naff now and it says a lot about the "fashion-sheep" mentality that grown adults were scooting around the streets with them not so long ago. Bl**dy awful!

Another Sinclair C5 you think? There is no such thing as poor quality Star Wars merchandise, it's all great however cheap and badly made it was. And Garbage Pail Kids! I used to have loads of them, now where did I put them......