The Funnies: Pogology (1922)

Pogology

Life Magazine, 1922

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the invention of the Pogo Stick. Though a "Spring Jumping Stilt" was patented by George H. Herrington of Wichita, KS in 1891 the Pogo Stick as we recognize it was invented by Hans Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall of Hanover, Germany in 1920.

Christmas List - Micronauts

Before the marketing geniuses at Kenner got hold of the Star Wars franchise and issued action figures for all characters, major and minor, there was a time when toys weren't spin-offs. Okay, I'll admit that's a lie. Since time immemorial there always have been spin-off toys. Whether you were talking about Buck Rogers or Roy Rogers somebody somewhere was making cheap knockoff guns, space ships, and the equivalent of action figures for the prepubescent consumer. In 1976 the toy-de-jour took the form of Micronauts.

Micronauts was the American name for the metal and plastic miniature action figures produced by the Japanese company, Takara. They were space men, or cyborgs, or time travelers, or I'm really not sure what. To be honest, their back story never was clear to me. I just knew that they were cool and I wanted them all. What did I like about them? Well, they were heavy. Yeah, that is a weird reason, but I was nine. If you look at the picture to the left, everything that's silver is made of metal. The plastic bodies were of a fairly heavy gauge too, making each tiny figure hefty and remarkably durable for a children's toy. My brother and I used to set them up on our dresser, creating a kind of shooting gallery. We'd use rubber bands to pick the little guys off, something my parents who paid for our targets never really appreciated. But, that's the purpose of being a child, isn't it? Gradually edging your parents toward the precipice of insanity and then giving them that last shove?

Looking back, I realize the reason for their frustration. Due to their construction techniques and the fact they were imports from Japan, Micronauts were expensive, and my father was paying for them out of a less than ample salary. The cost (and the fact we used them for target practice) meant that my brother and I never had more than two or three Micronauts compared to the hundreds of Star Wars figures that littered the width and breadth of our childhood. Now, forty years later, I find myself longing for the days of these little guys. They're a bridge back to another time and Christmas mornings gone by.

Indy 500 - Penn Line's A. J. Foyt Racing Set

In 1947 the trio of Albert Mercer, K. Linwood Stauffer, and Robert Faust came together, united by a love of modern model railroading. They had come to the realization that most of the model railroad equipment being produced was of inferior quality and lacking realistic detail. Penn Line used lead dies to cast their trains instead of the more common stamping employed by Lionel and American Flyer.

In the 60's Penn expanded into the slot car market, trying to bring the realism they'd brought to trains to the new market. Thus they produced the A. J. Foyt endorsed Indy 500 racing set. Reportedly it was a great looking, under-powered, flop. by 1963 the company had declared bankruptcy.

Longing for the Past - Avon Moon Flight Game

Do you remember the Avon Lady? I guess they're still around, every once in a while I find an Avon catalog in the break room at work, but I get the feeling there aren't any Avon Ladies anymore. I remember seeing the little old lady with her two-wheel shopping cart filled with beauty necessities trudging through our neighborhood regardless of the weather. She wore sensible shoes, a plastic rain bonnet, smelled of cheap perfume, and always was a nice as pie.

My mother was one of her regular stops. They'd gossip over nail polish and ode de cologne and occasionally my mom would hand the catalog, which actually had a children's section, over to me and tell me I could choose something for myself. Usually I went for bubble bath, and that's how I came to possess the Avon Moon Flight Game.

Avon's Moon Flight Game in all its glory!

The package shown above is exactly how I remember the game. The white command capsule and lander were a bottle of bubble bath that I used up as quickly as possible. When the nose of the lander was inserted into the command capsule, it could be slammed on the floor, compressing the accordion bellows, and launching the lander into the air. Each side of the lander had a number imprinted on it, indicating how many spaces to move. The bag contained a folded, plastic board depicting (if I remember correctly) a figure-eight track starting at the Earth, going around the moon, and then returning to the pacific for splashdown.

The game was another race track affair, like just about every other board game I played in my youth, with the objective being to move your poker chip-like game piece from home (the Earth) to the moon and then back again. Each space along the way was marked with instructions which helped or hindered you reaching your goal, all phrased in the lingo of the lunar program (it seems I remember "system failure, move back three spaces", but nowhere was there a "catastrophic fire which incinerates your astronauts, game over").

We played with Moon Flight until the novelty of shooting the capsule into the air wore off, then the game disappeared. I seem to remember the lander remaining around in a box of toys, the feet hopelessly chewed by a pet. Now I wish I had the thing again, though I can't imagine it being fun for more than a single evening. Then again, who knows, I could reawaken that part of me that thought he'd have walked on an alien planet by the time he got old enough to be nostalgic.

Longing for the Past - Green Ghost

I know I’m getting old. The first sign was a strong desire to roll my eyes at the younger generation’s version of pop-culture. Even though I own an iPod, I can’t manage to say iAnything without sarcasm coloring my voice and a strong urge to explain how things were “when I was your age.” I've resigned myself to the constant battle against becoming the old man with a cane, chasing delinquent kids off his lawn. To distract myself, I’m writing about the first sign of my impending decrepitude, nostalgia.

I remember a lot of things from my childhood with what's probably, I admit, undeserved fondness. I mean, come on, I come from the era of parachute pants, Poison, and the Cabbage Patch Kids. The seventies and eighties were filled with, well, crap that I'd sooner deny any connection with than defend. But there are those odd-ball markers that I can't think of without a deep, longing sigh. Sure, I could go on about all the easy, cultural markers. It'd be safe to wax on about Star Wars, GI Joe, and the pre-Michael Bay Transformers, but there’s more than enough chatter about them. Instead I thought I'd wax nostalgic over the outliers, the things time has almost obliterated from cultural memory.

In 2015 I'll be visiting the toy box of the ages and dragging out a few things that'll I hope with bring back a few memories for you too. Either that or they'll prove that I'm not only turning into an old crank, but possibly teetering on the edge of my generation's norms. Only one way to find out, I guess, and that's kick this thing into gear with the first of the toys from the past: The Green Ghost. 

I remember my mother bringing the Green Ghost home after one of her frequent garage sale trips. It was released by TransoGram Company in 1965, two years I was born. The box pretty much looked like this picture, 1950's nuclear family gathered around the soft, radium glow of the game board with looks that don't occur in nature plastered on their doughy faces. Unpacking the box, it was a simple racetrack board with a few plastic pieces for atmosphere and a gelatinous-looking ghost spinner with a rubberized finger pointer.

My brother and I would retreat to the garage and turn out the lights, then play would begin. I don't know if we ever finished a game, but if we did it must not have been very impressive because I don't remember the rules. I do remember the creepiness of sitting in the dark, with only the poisonous glow of the spinner to read by. With each spin we became more and more convinced there really was a green ghost and that it probably was inside the house just waiting for a chance to spring. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why I don't remember the rules - we never finished a game.

Back to the box, I'm not exactly sure what the mystery was, you moved your pieces around the board and drew cards that either helped or impeded your getting to the end goal. Never really thought of that at the time though, because that damned green ghost was lurking out there somewhere, oozing along the ceiling, getting ready to drop on your head at any moment...yeah, I better put the game up now. I mean shouldn't we be playing outside in the sun, the healthy, bright, sun?