I'll trade you a poison 8-ball for your holographic ninja star
May 25, 2012 7:46 AM Subscribe
The Pog A Day Blog. One man's quest to bring you a lot of pogs (although not quite every day).
With unicorns, clowns, skulls, dogs, eight balls, movie tie-ins, and cartoon characters, among other designs.
With unicorns, clowns, skulls, dogs, eight balls, movie tie-ins, and cartoon characters, among other designs.
But does he have a Steve Allen pog?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:55 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:55 AM on May 25, 2012
Remember pogs? They're back. In blog form!
posted by cottoncandybeard at 8:02 AM on May 25, 2012 [16 favorites]
posted by cottoncandybeard at 8:02 AM on May 25, 2012 [16 favorites]
Remember pogs? They're back. In blog form!
It's a shame that I can't edit the title of this post...
posted by codacorolla at 8:08 AM on May 25, 2012
It's a shame that I can't edit the title of this post...
posted by codacorolla at 8:08 AM on May 25, 2012
Ah, pogs...the trend that latest a single summer. Come the following summer, everyone in the schoolyard was back to playing marbles, as they always had.
posted by asnider at 8:19 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by asnider at 8:19 AM on May 25, 2012
I tell you what, the pogs and slammers I had were far more bitchin' and Tumblr-worthy than this guy's. Where'd he get these from, Del Taco?
Go home and be a family man!
posted by Redfield at 8:25 AM on May 25, 2012
Go home and be a family man!
posted by Redfield at 8:25 AM on May 25, 2012
I was too old for the pog fad and thus I still don't get them. Can someone explain what the hell they were used for and why you had to have so many different ones? At least with marbles the different ones had different physical gaming qualities, but does a Waterworld pog have any better qualities other than its awesome depiction of Waterworld?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:34 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:34 AM on May 25, 2012
Pogs were called Tazos here, and you got them free in packets of Walker's Crisps. Hence they can be blamed for starting CHILD OBESITY.
posted by mippy at 8:34 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by mippy at 8:34 AM on May 25, 2012
the pogs and slammers I had were far more bitchin' and Tumblr-worthy than this guy's.
I had a slammer that was SHARP. It would cut the first 2 or 3 pogs in the stack in half and marvelously flip the rest. Pretty soon, people would either counter with a "pog protector" (essentially, a very slim slammer that you'd put on top of the stack) or just not play with me unless I stopped using the cutter.
posted by asnider at 8:35 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]
I had a slammer that was SHARP. It would cut the first 2 or 3 pogs in the stack in half and marvelously flip the rest. Pretty soon, people would either counter with a "pog protector" (essentially, a very slim slammer that you'd put on top of the stack) or just not play with me unless I stopped using the cutter.
posted by asnider at 8:35 AM on May 25, 2012 [2 favorites]
I'm curious: Does anyone who wasn't ~11 in 1993 even know what pogs are?
I think, ultimately, the demise of the pog must have been due to the sudden return of skateboarding. Or maybe the sudden return of skateboarding merely filled the vacuum left by the death of pogs. Either way, skateboarding has to have had something to do with it.
(Or maybe hackey sack.)
posted by Sys Rq at 8:37 AM on May 25, 2012
I think, ultimately, the demise of the pog must have been due to the sudden return of skateboarding. Or maybe the sudden return of skateboarding merely filled the vacuum left by the death of pogs. Either way, skateboarding has to have had something to do with it.
(Or maybe hackey sack.)
posted by Sys Rq at 8:37 AM on May 25, 2012
I remember them being a mid-90s thing here thanks to the crisp business. They were never going to top Panini stickers as a thing kids collected (what's the US equivalent of those, baseball cards? Is that something kids still do?) partly to complete a collection, partly as a form of currency.
Strangely, my youngest nephew was really into Beyblades aged eight (2003) and now they seem to be a hot toy again. So you never know.
posted by mippy at 8:41 AM on May 25, 2012
Strangely, my youngest nephew was really into Beyblades aged eight (2003) and now they seem to be a hot toy again. So you never know.
posted by mippy at 8:41 AM on May 25, 2012
I was 11 in 1993. I used to buy brown paper bags full of off-brand pogs. Those were the days. Of course they quickly fell out of fashion and mine disappeared. Though I still have a hot pink holographic Batman logo slammer I snagged out of the cashbox of a punk show I was working the bar at in '04 and to this day it provides me memories of two very different times in my life.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:46 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by yellowbinder at 8:46 AM on May 25, 2012
this whole thing is before my time
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 8:47 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 8:47 AM on May 25, 2012
I was too old for the pog fad and thus I still don't get them. Can someone explain what the hell they were used for and why you had to have so many different ones? At least with marbles the different ones had different physical gaming qualities, but does a Waterworld pog have any better qualities other than its awesome depiction of Waterworld?
It was the ultimate in cynical exploitation of child psychology. Pogs were supposedly modeled after a game played in Hawaii, using the lids off of juice bottles (Passion Orange and Guava (POG) juice, hence the name).
This manifested itself as a more mainstream American fad where companies realized that they could create cheap cardboard squares for fractions of a penny, and then sell them for thousands times that amount. I think I remember buying pogs at Walmart for something like 5 dollars for 20, or around a quarter a pog. The pogs were placed in to a stack, and then each player would take turns throwing metal or hard plastic discs at the stack. Any pogs that flipped over on a turn would become the property of the person that caused them to flip. Ideally you would play for keeps, with each player putting an even number of pogs in to the pile and then keeping what they flipped.
I never really played 'competitively' but was mostly a collector, since they were banned day-one at my school. Me and a friend both had pog collections, and would trade with one another, but we never played for keeps. I have fond memories of going to a drug store near my grandmother's house which had bought whole-sale in to the pog craze, and had dedicated a whole room to selling pogs, including a special glass counter that they kept the premium metal slammers behind. I probably spent most of my allowance each week spending 10 dollars on what probably amounted to 5 cents of cardboard and metal.
The designs were made specifically to appeal to the parts of the 10 year old brain which equates skulls with 'bad-ass' and shiny holographic skulls with 'the most bad-ass thing to ever exist'. There were collectable sets with commercial properties (like Waterworld), but my pogs were mostly weird things that probably whipped up in 30 seconds by some dude with a pirated copy of photoshop. Japanese robots, superheroes who never existed as more than a pog design, vaguely oriental mysticism with yin-yangs and eight balls floating around the planet Saturn.
The whole thing lasted for, maybe, a year, before everyone realized that pogs were abysmally stupid, or at least moved on to the next fad.
posted by codacorolla at 8:55 AM on May 25, 2012 [6 favorites]
It was the ultimate in cynical exploitation of child psychology. Pogs were supposedly modeled after a game played in Hawaii, using the lids off of juice bottles (Passion Orange and Guava (POG) juice, hence the name).
This manifested itself as a more mainstream American fad where companies realized that they could create cheap cardboard squares for fractions of a penny, and then sell them for thousands times that amount. I think I remember buying pogs at Walmart for something like 5 dollars for 20, or around a quarter a pog. The pogs were placed in to a stack, and then each player would take turns throwing metal or hard plastic discs at the stack. Any pogs that flipped over on a turn would become the property of the person that caused them to flip. Ideally you would play for keeps, with each player putting an even number of pogs in to the pile and then keeping what they flipped.
I never really played 'competitively' but was mostly a collector, since they were banned day-one at my school. Me and a friend both had pog collections, and would trade with one another, but we never played for keeps. I have fond memories of going to a drug store near my grandmother's house which had bought whole-sale in to the pog craze, and had dedicated a whole room to selling pogs, including a special glass counter that they kept the premium metal slammers behind. I probably spent most of my allowance each week spending 10 dollars on what probably amounted to 5 cents of cardboard and metal.
The designs were made specifically to appeal to the parts of the 10 year old brain which equates skulls with 'bad-ass' and shiny holographic skulls with 'the most bad-ass thing to ever exist'. There were collectable sets with commercial properties (like Waterworld), but my pogs were mostly weird things that probably whipped up in 30 seconds by some dude with a pirated copy of photoshop. Japanese robots, superheroes who never existed as more than a pog design, vaguely oriental mysticism with yin-yangs and eight balls floating around the planet Saturn.
The whole thing lasted for, maybe, a year, before everyone realized that pogs were abysmally stupid, or at least moved on to the next fad.
posted by codacorolla at 8:55 AM on May 25, 2012 [6 favorites]
A POG OF A SQUIRREL EATING A POG
Still not as mindblowing as the Waterworld pog.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:58 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]
Still not as mindblowing as the Waterworld pog.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:58 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]
Blimey, a whole counter? Reminiscent of the Beanie Babies stall on our local market.
It occurs to me that a ten year old could probably make their own very easily at home. They were always plastic here but it can't be far away.
posted by mippy at 8:58 AM on May 25, 2012
It occurs to me that a ten year old could probably make their own very easily at home. They were always plastic here but it can't be far away.
posted by mippy at 8:58 AM on May 25, 2012
The cartoon character - Donner-Tello the Power Turtle - is reminiscent of the trademark-infringing paintings on the side of travelling fairgrounds, the ones that always look 'off' like a bad tattoo.
posted by mippy at 8:59 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by mippy at 8:59 AM on May 25, 2012
I had that squirrel eating a pog pog! Immediate nostalgia rush as soon as I saw it.
I'm not sure I ever played more than one of two games, but I loved collecting those things. There was a craft store I went to with my mom that had a huge bin of them for a quarter a piece. I could easily spend an hour digging through them to find the most awesome ones.
posted by duien at 9:05 AM on May 25, 2012
I'm not sure I ever played more than one of two games, but I loved collecting those things. There was a craft store I went to with my mom that had a huge bin of them for a quarter a piece. I could easily spend an hour digging through them to find the most awesome ones.
posted by duien at 9:05 AM on May 25, 2012
I remember the 1992-93 school year, when I was in 8th grade. I was one of the Big Kids at Jr High, even moreso that the school just added 6th graders to the campus. Those kids were little and dumb. How dumb? A friend of mine almost sold a kid some a baggie with bits of shredded grass, because he told the kid it was marijuana. These little kids brought the fad of pogs to our school, which made them even dumber to us, the lofty 8th graders. Stupid kids, they're just cardboard circles!
The next year, I was a 9th grader in high school, and some of my friends got into Magic: The Gathering, which was totally different than pogs, because these little pieces of cardstock had actual ratings on them, and they were made by one specific company who made the rules for the game. Stupid 6th graders. Hah!
mippy: It occurs to me that a ten year old could probably make their own very easily at home. They were always plastic here but it can't be far away.
While reminiscing about pogs with some college friends, one friend said her dad made her pogs when she was in school. Her dad, like most intelligent adults, thought that buying circles of cardboard with pictures on them was a waste of money, but his daughter wasn't as persuasive as other kids. Or she was, and her dad thought he could provide a similar product for a lot less money. So her dad made her pogs, usually with pictures of pictures of tiny monkeys on them. Sadly, none of the other kids wanted to play for her home-made pogs, no matter how proud her dad was of his creativity.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:07 AM on May 25, 2012 [5 favorites]
The next year, I was a 9th grader in high school, and some of my friends got into Magic: The Gathering, which was totally different than pogs, because these little pieces of cardstock had actual ratings on them, and they were made by one specific company who made the rules for the game. Stupid 6th graders. Hah!
mippy: It occurs to me that a ten year old could probably make their own very easily at home. They were always plastic here but it can't be far away.
While reminiscing about pogs with some college friends, one friend said her dad made her pogs when she was in school. Her dad, like most intelligent adults, thought that buying circles of cardboard with pictures on them was a waste of money, but his daughter wasn't as persuasive as other kids. Or she was, and her dad thought he could provide a similar product for a lot less money. So her dad made her pogs, usually with pictures of pictures of tiny monkeys on them. Sadly, none of the other kids wanted to play for her home-made pogs, no matter how proud her dad was of his creativity.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:07 AM on May 25, 2012 [5 favorites]
Her dad, like most intelligent adults, thought that buying circles of cardboard with pictures on them was a waste of money
Ha HA! I bought a set of Simpsons pogs, ostensibly for my children, who were then the age to play pogs. Well, so the national media informed me, but my kids were all, like, "What the hell are pogs? Nobody does that. Go away, weird mother." So I put the Simpsons pogs in a sealed mason jar and waited for them to be worth a whole lot of money. And waited
and waited
and waited
and I wonder if that jar is still in the garage?
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:14 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
Ha HA! I bought a set of Simpsons pogs, ostensibly for my children, who were then the age to play pogs. Well, so the national media informed me, but my kids were all, like, "What the hell are pogs? Nobody does that. Go away, weird mother." So I put the Simpsons pogs in a sealed mason jar and waited for them to be worth a whole lot of money. And waited
and waited
and waited
and I wonder if that jar is still in the garage?
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:14 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
We had Wacky Packages as our collectable, and it's amazing how much more cynical than POGs they were.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:02 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by benito.strauss at 10:02 AM on May 25, 2012
We had Wacky Packages as our collectable, and it's amazing how much more cynical than POGs they were.
What are you talking about? Those are awesome! And cheekily anti-corporate! And were stuck all over my cousin's bedroom door!
posted by Sys Rq at 10:11 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]
What are you talking about? Those are awesome! And cheekily anti-corporate! And were stuck all over my cousin's bedroom door!
posted by Sys Rq at 10:11 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]
I hadn't seen Wacky Packages until I read one of the past MeFi posts on them.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:19 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by filthy light thief at 10:19 AM on May 25, 2012
There was a brief period where snap bracelets and jelly shoes were big with the girls, but I was too into Star Wars figures, GI Joes, and D&D to notice. Besides, girls have cooties.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:25 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:25 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
I still have my old POGs. Man this brings back very breif memories. I kept them only because I forgot they in this container that sat and collected dust.
posted by Twain Device at 10:51 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by Twain Device at 10:51 AM on May 25, 2012
Somewhere in California one particular comics retailer feels a disturbance in the force.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:00 AM on May 25, 2012
posted by MartinWisse at 11:00 AM on May 25, 2012
> What are you talking about? Those are awesome!
Hells yes they are awesome. And I'm hoping there's still that 2 inch thick stack of them somewhere in my parent's house. But they really do reflect the different tenors of the different decades. POGs are all "pew, pew, monsters and space", Wacky Packs are all "big companies lie".
posted by benito.strauss at 11:01 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
Hells yes they are awesome. And I'm hoping there's still that 2 inch thick stack of them somewhere in my parent's house. But they really do reflect the different tenors of the different decades. POGs are all "pew, pew, monsters and space", Wacky Packs are all "big companies lie".
posted by benito.strauss at 11:01 AM on May 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
Wacky Packs are all "big companies lie".
It's also interesting that the kids that Wacky Packs were marketed to grew up to be Gen-X.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:13 AM on May 25, 2012
It's also interesting that the kids that Wacky Packs were marketed to grew up to be Gen-X.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:13 AM on May 25, 2012
I have no idea what a pog is. This is the first time in my fifty-three years I have ever heard the word.
posted by Decani at 1:20 PM on May 25, 2012
posted by Decani at 1:20 PM on May 25, 2012
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Waterworld. Pogs.
Apologies for what that did to any innocent brains out there.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:53 AM on May 25, 2012 [3 favorites]