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

Anyone remember clackers?

What are those round things that were a fad a couple of years ago. You piled them up in a tower and flicked a plastic thing at them?

What were those plastic creature things that kids were collecting a year or so ago?

I remember the toys but not the names......

Childhood fads - Pomos? Was that it something like that?

The round things are pogs. And by clackers, do you mean those two balls sort of attached to a stick that you twirled around and the balls went clack-clack-clack-clack?

Oh yeah, and the plastic creature things would be virtual pets, I'm guessing.

You put your central finger through a kind or ring and then the balls went round your hand?

No, there was a handle. But other than that it sounds pretty similar.

From what I remember *he says in a deep masculine voice, exhibiting absolutely no 'female' tendencies whatsoever* the idea was the ring went on your finger, and the attached yellow balls of wood were supposed to clash at the bottom of the arc, then rise up and clash again at the top of the arc. Hence the name clackers?

In actual fact, 90% of the time the clash at the bottom of the arc worked fine, but when it came time to clash at the top, they would instead conspire with each other, do a double back flip, and whack on your knuckles as hard as humanly possible.

Maybe they should have been renamed to 'knuckle breakers' - a far more descriptive term of their intrinsically evil purpose.

*Walks of in a manly way to save the world from some horrible event, complete with superheromachoman teeshirt and jockey shorts - oozing bucket-loads of testosterone on his way*.

A lot of people did it that way, but it was much more satisfying to twirl the sucker around in a circle--one of the balls would stay put at the bottom while the other whirled around the top to hit it, at which point the first one would then whirl around to hit the second one, and so on.

Those were the things I was thinking about. I remember them, but unfortunately, not their name.

pokemon predecessors.

Annoying little contrivances.

Definitely. Although Pokemon has become an entirely new kind of phenomenon. I mean, first the original game, then the TV show, then the trading card game...it's insane just how big the Pokemon cult has grown. The girl down the hall from me has a stuffed Pikachu which my friends and I would dearly love to kill. We tried kidnapping it, but that didn't work out; we also have tried wearing down the battery, but so far without success. She watches the sucker way too closely when we're around...although we have managed to get in a few games of Pikachu soccer.

I had clackers in the early 70's but there was a big scare as some of these things were blinding kids cos they would shatter on impact and send little shards of plastic flying off in all directions. So actually you had to be tough (or stupid) to indulge in childhood fads in those days!. Not like kids these days you don't have to risk life and limb to play with furbies (or pogs!). Mind you I seem to remember my mum confiscated my clackers on safety grounds so there goes that theory .Hmm wonder if my parents have still got all that stuff somewhere??

The ones we had when I was a kid were made of plastic that wouldn't shatter unless you dropped something insanely heavy on it, and possibly not even then.

Probably the second generation of clackers then! Not that I ever saw any of the first lot break, I think mine were confiscated more cos I probably made a lot of noise with them and also found they were very effective for bashing my younger brother over the head.

Always a big mistake to brand a toy indestructible, I had a TONKA dustcart and at the time the TV ads showed TONKA toys being stood on by an elephant to show how tough they were so we promptly took mine out and threw it off the nearest cliff! Must give it credit though, it only got a slight crack in the windscreen and a bit fell off that you could easily push back on again! Shame we couldn't find an elephant....

I see. Let me take a wild guess as to your gender....

*clears throat ... ahem*

Don't go getting gender details confused with toy-destructability.

But how many females drop their toy trucks off cliffs in an attempt to prove the manufacturers wrong? Violent we may at times be, but more toward members of the male species than toward our own possessions.

*raises tail*

Well, it's true of most of the females I know. I do have a friend who massacred Barbie dolls when she was little, but that was because she didn't like them, not because she wanted to see if they would break. I've never known girls to push the limits of their toys' capabilities, whereas for boys it seems routine.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I'm afraid my daughter (8yrs) likes to "push the limits" of everything and everyone she knows. Just for the sheer joy of it!!