The return of the Pog

While out on an Easter egg shopping expedition yesterday, I walked past a shop advertising that they were selling Pogs. Yes, pogs are the latest toy from the past to make a comeback in the 21st century.

Pogs, if you remember, were one of the big toy crazes of the early to mid nineties-little cardboard discs with different coloured patterns and pictures on them. You could play a game with them by stacking the cardboard ones up and hitting the pile with a plastic one which you also got with each packet. I can't remember all the rules of the Pog games (I know there were a few variations of the game that I saw people playing), but then I didn't really collect them to play them. I mainly collected them as I liked the pictures on them. My favourite ones were the ones that featured the brand mascot, a caveman-like character who I think was called Pogman. I was hooked on them the moment I first got a packet of them free with a magazine. I even got a Pog making machine for my birthday and made my own, using pictures I'd cut out from old magazines. I remember that Walkers crisps also cashed in on the craze with their own range of pog like discs that featured Looney Tunes characters and had little slits in them so you could put them all together, but they weren't as good. For one, you couldn't fit them together that well and the cardboard used could be easily bent.

Whether kids today will be as interested in them as I was, I'm not sure. They seem so preoccupied with their mobile phones and other high tech stuff you wonder whether they'd be bothered playing with multicoloured cardboard discs. At the same time, it remains to be seen whether the pogs of today can compare with the ones I had growing up. If I see any, I might buy a packet just to see what they're like. I've still got all the ones I had, both bought and home made, somewhere at home.