Hey Arnold!

Now if you have never watched Hey Arnold! I would advise that you skip over this post, go onDemand, watch an episode and come on back.


For all of you who have seen arguably the greatest cartoon of my era, Hey Arnold! I have composed a list of universal questions I have:


1. How was it that Arnold's boarding house was so rundown and shitty, but his room was hands-down the sweetest bachelor pad known to man? For God sake the kid not only had a remote control for his couch, but I'm pretty sure in an episode he had a full scale science lab emerge from his ceiling.

2. Who is the local barber and how in the world do multiple character's hair stay the way it does?

3. Why isn't Helga's room infested with rats and roaches considering she lives in the city and has this stored in her closet......

4. Why is Arnold's hat so small and how is it that he is experiencing male-patterned baldness balding at the age of 9?

5. Ever notice that there are a significant amount of characters on the show that fit under a rash stereotype?


Oskar the Russian immigrant who's always mooching off of everyone.

Ernie the angry midget whose job is working a demolition truck [clearly compensating for his lack of height]

Mr. Hyunh the Vietnamese immigrant with a very, very thick accent.  Basically, Mr. Hyunh was the token Asian.  In this pic he is using a rotting fish to ward off spirits...

  
Gerald, the token black guy.  He's a cool, collected brotha who speaks in rhymes and has the vertical fro goin' on.

Stinky, the poor kid from the country [who is so poor his nickname is Stinky].  He's even got his overall's on in this pic.

6. Just how many pairs of glasses did Brainy have to buy?  It seems to me that every time Helga punched him in the face his glasses broke.

7. How does a fourth grade girl have such a profound unibrow?? [see above]

8. How does Stinky stay upright.  Proportionally the length of his nose is the size of his face.

9. Where in the world does Sid's nose start? His forehead? His hairline?? His brain???

10. Are Arnold and Nadine twins?? Or did the artists just get lazy?  

11. Is it just me or does Grandpa's chin look like........ (I guess it wasn't just me because a simple google search revealed this pic^)

(All Hey Arnold! pictures are from http://www.hey-arnold.com/Arnold/cast_kid.html)

Here are my top 11 questions so far, I will be back with more soon....

TAMAGOTCHI'S! [and the epidemic that ensued...]

Right around the time that Pogs became the "it" item another, much more sophisticated toy came onto the market.  I found out about this intriguing toy one morning as I entered continuous progress class [this in a nutshell means that my elementary school had too many students and not enough classrooms so they came up with this brilliant idea to combine the second and third grade into one class entitled "continuous progress" or CP].  That was a small rant, but back to the point.


I entered my second/third grade homeroom class on one dull morning to find one of the third grade boys surrounded by an awestruck group of classmates twirling some keychain around his index finger.  I found myself caught in the midst of quite a dilemma.  I, too, really needed to check out this new toy, but I was challenged in the height department and not only was I the shortest student in the entire second grade, but I was stuck in a class filled with mostly third graders, which essentially made me a smurf, or more appropriately a leprechaun as I stood a whopping three-feet tall with flaming red locks.


Anyhow, back to this toy.  I finally squeezed my way through my classmates and got a good look at this...thing.  What was it?  It was called a Tamagotchi.  It was a Japanese made toy that was a keychain, which fit in the palm of your hand.  It had a small black and white screen and three little rubber buttons.  Now the tamagotchi was like an innovative, robotic baby doll.  Basically, you bought this tamagotchi and the second you turn it on it hatches from its egg.  And then this tamagotchi is your child.  The three buttons are for the three essential needs of life: food/drink, bathroom, and playtime.

Image by Nate Lanxon from http://crave.cnet.co.uk

So, basically what would happen is every few minutes your tamagotchi would need food.  You had to feed it or it would lose life.  If you neglected this tamagotchi it would die.  The tamagotchi would also leave you presents in the form of giant mounds of crap.  In hindsight this old school Japanese toy was effectively teaching us youngsters how incredibly demanding having children is.  The tamagotchi was extremely needy.

In fact, this electronic baby was so incredibly demanding of attention it became a mini-epidemic through the halls of the Fort.  I'm sure you can guess what happened after that third grader showed off his tamagotchi to the second and third graders.  If you're having trouble figuring it out: by lunch every elementary schooler was obsessed with the tamagotchi.  Thus, when each child got home to their parents that night he/she begged for the toy.


Come the following Monday and just about every elementary schooler was walking through the halls of the Fort with their eyes glued to their keychain child.  class time became disrupted as there were kids shooting their hands in the air every three minutes begging Miss Block to let them feed their tamagotchi. "Samara, we are in math class this is no time for toys." "But Miss Block!  My tamagotchi is my CHILD and he is going to DIE if I can't feed him!!!" This same conversation repeated itself endlessly throughout the week until they were officially banned from Fort Garrison Elementary.


And what happened next?  Well the cool kids ditched the original tamagotchi and upgraded to the Nano Baby [a tamagotchi on steroids with some more cool features].  Teachers beware!

Pogs

Well, I would first like to introduce myself.  I am Samara and I am new to the blogosphere.  [Hi, Samara.] Though I have read my fair share of blogs, here is my first attempt at originality.  My blog is somewhat of a trip down memory lane for those of you who, like me, grew up in the roaring 90s.  I am 21 years young and on the verge of graduating.  Throughout my school days I have experienced an array of different fads and items that were absolute "must haves," which leads me to my first topics.

Pogs.


Now, if you are not aware of what a pog is you probably didn't grow up in the 90s.  So let me explain.  A pog is a circular piece of cut out cardboard with a picture or color or word on its front [see above].  Everyone had pogs.  Throughout my young days as an elementary schooler if you didn't have pogs you either had truly awful parents or were living under a particularly large rock.


Anyhow, what was so great about pogs?  Well, here is the sheer mystery of it all...I have absolutely no idea what was or is so great about those circular cardboard cutouts.  But, what I do know is that I had around 5,000 pogs, set up in order of the prettiest to the ugliest in an enormous black binder and if anyone were to touch my pogs without permission, I was NOT a happy camper.


And I was not alone.  Just about every kid at good old Fort Garrison possessed an average of 1,000 pogs--boys and girls.  And the funniest part?  You ask any kid from the 90s if the had pogs they answer "Of course!"  Then you ask, "Wait, do you remember how to play?"  Not a single person will have any concrete memory because not a single person really knew how to play the game.  It involved pogs in a circle and a slammer?  For those of you who may not know, a slammer was the ultimate, or if you will, the king of the pogs.  The slammer was metal and had engraved or colorful designs on its front and was the "it" item.  Anyhow, the slammer was definitely used in the actual game of pogs, I am just not quite sure how.  It is possible you stack the pogs and throw the slammer, but really, I have no idea.


So I ask you readers out there...who the hell remembers how to play pogs??