Competition Closed: Nostalgia Week Day 2, and the worst toys EVER.

This post is, by its very nature, depressing as The Cleveland Show, except that The Cleveland Show is a recent kind of letdown and this one will twang at the very fibres that you’re spun out of. Yes, it’s Nostalgia Week on Culch.ie, and it’s all very well reminiscing about the great and the gloopy, but a huge, blown chunk of the Irish psyche is “suffering” - that bit chipped out of your rose-tinted glasses - and we’re gonna wallow in that for the day. Want to hear something even more disappointing? This isn’t even an original list; I wrote it about a year ago. Disappointment is like the smell of boiling turnips, though; it lingers. It doesn’t matter that this is an old list. Nothing. Has. Changed.

I’m gonna sweeten it up with a prizey at the end for those of you sturdy enough to get through this, though. I’m not completely heartless. So, without further ado, retro-gluttons, here’s …

Sweary’s Top 10 Most Disappointing Toys Ever!

10: Playsets of Any Bloody Description Apart From Maybe Sindy’s Dream Room Which Was Awesome.

You think you’re getting a world as big as your imagination, which has its own gravitational pull and room for a winged ninja unicorn. Instead you get a bi-folding piece of plastic an inch deep with two floors and no stairs, and it won’t stand upright on your bedroom floor carpet, and your action figure gets stuck in the ultra-secret trapdoor, and the “accessories” are only painted on.

9. Make-Up Just Like Mam’s.

Except it’s not just like Mam’s. It’s either actual moulded plastic, or it melts your eyelids you when you try to Alexis-Carrington yourself up a bit. Either way it’s not very glamorous. I blame Catholic Ireland and its prejudice against hussies.

8: Tamagotchis.

The virtual pet that purported to be easier to look after than a real pet, with less dire consequences in the event of a childish lapse in concentration. In reality it shat all over its screen if you left it alone for the odd real-life toilet break. If you dared fall asleep, it died. A generation developed OCD and twitches in unusual places.

7: Furbys

I rather agonised about whether or not it was wise to include an evocative picture here, you know. Furbys are just that fucking annoying. So here’s a dead one instead. The gibbering, ever-conscious, creepy little freak.

6: Paper Dolls.

I got a lot of paper dolls as a child, because I liked fashion but was too poor to afford any. Fashion made out of paper isn’t all that clever, though. No matter how careful you were, you’d slice through the bendy bits that were all that stood between your doll’s garden party glamour and her arrest for indecent exposure. Also, the shoes kept flipping up like a hoop skirt. Sure Pritt was your only man, and that defeated the purpose entirely.

5: Sea Monkeys

Disgusting. Jesus, keeping brine shrimp on your dressing table and pretending they were elements of a sophisticated mini-society? They floated, for God’s sake! That’s all they did! Plus, they looked like something out of The Thing, except Things that were content to just float passively … oh, Jesus, they were just SHIT.

4: Barbie’s Pony …

Coz that was no feckin’ horse, let me tell you. Not to be an equine Nazi, but Barbie is at least seven feet tall, comparatively speaking. She should be atop nothing smaller than a Brontosaurus. Her legs, therefore, didn’t fit in the stirrups and she kept sliding off to one side, like the town of Fermoy.

3: Plastic Slinkies.

Like metal slinkies, but actually stocked in rural Irish shops. Unlike metal slinkies, because they stopped on the second step of the stairs, got wound up in your da’s runners, and warped like a Star Trek getaway within ten minutes of your bringing them home. On top of that, they always developed weird little black dirt spots. Perhaps because THEY WERE POXY.

2: Mr. Frosty

How I wanted a Mr. Frosty! How I longed for my very own slushee-making production facility from where I could experiment with Wonka-type flavours with the inhibitions of a plague of locusts. When I eventually got my hands on one, the resulting concoctions tasted like windscreen. I’m being kind.

And, the most disappointing toy of all?

1: Robin Williams’ “Toys”.

I mean what the fuck was that all about? What. The Fuck. What? WHAT?

If you’ve managed to get to the end without flying into a rage and leaving your parents an abusive voicemail in which you catalogue every gift they gifted wrong since 1982, why not stick your name down for the second of our lovely prize packs? They contain a pile of completely non-disappointing goodies, including Macaroon Bars from Wilton Candy, CDs and DVDs from EMI, double passes for Mish Mash and the Comedy Cellar at The International Bar, a Rubiks Cube, a gift voucher for Abrakebabra, Den goodie bags courtesy of RTÉ and double passes for the 90s season at Screen Cinema. I’d venture that you deserve one. But because this is a disappointment post, and because in real life there’s always another hill to climb, you’ve got to answer this question first:

We now know Louise Redknapp as a classy WAG and part-time hawker of Nintendo goodies. But which 90s-tastic girlband was she in?

Email your answers to [email protected] by midnight and a winner will be selected at random and announced in tomorrow’s competition post. Good luck (I suppose).

Competition closed, winner will be notified.

Oh, and feel free to disagree with the above list. I’m already down in the dumps; you can’t possibly disappoint me further.

Congratulations to the Winner of Nostagia Week Day One Competition: James Montgomery.