Top 10 90s Toys You Forgot Were Awesome

Top 10 ‘90s Toys You Forgot Were Awesome

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 ‘90s Toys You Forgot Were Awesome.

For this list, we’ll be looking at some of the most amazing yet underrated toys from the ‘90s.

Do you remember any of these? Let us know in the comments!

#10: Bop It

When you went to a party in the ‘90s, was it really a party if there was no Bop It there? This game featured a voice giving you instructions on whether to pull it, twist it, or bop it, and you had to have some serious coordination to be able to master it. Bop It hit the market in 1996 and, unlike many of the other toys on our list today, it’s still available for purchase for your next party! Since the original version you remember from your childhood, the brand has released a number of new variations with advanced functionalities.

#9: The Talkboy

After the 1990 success of “Home Alone”, Kevin McCallister was back just two years later for “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know exactly what product we’re referring to. Interestingly enough, this product was specifically created for the film and also hit the retail market as a movie tie-in, in tandem with the film’s release. And that, friends, is how the Talkboy was born. It was a simple device that acted as both a cassette recorder and player, with a voice-changing feature added to the later model, as well as a design that appealed to the younger crowd. After seeing Kevin use it for his over-the-top antics, it’s no surprise that tons of other kids wanted one for themselves.

#8: gogo’s CRAZY BONES

Whether you simply collected them or actually played competitive games with them, you definitely carried some Crazy Bones in your backpack if you were a kid in the late ‘90s. Did you know that they’re actually based on a children's game from ancient Greece called “Astragal”? “Astragal” refers to“Knucklebones”, which is a pretty fitting name, because the game was played with sheep’s knucklebones. Crazy Bones, however, were actually pretty frequently prohibited in schools because they were reported to be distracting, and were also said to cause stealing and fights among students. If there’s one marker of success for a kids’ toy, it’s it being banned in schools...

#7: Skip-It

Today, kids are glued to their seats watching iPad screens, but back in the ‘90s we had plenty of toys to keep us active: like Skip-Its. It’s a pretty simple mechanism. There’s a loop that hooks around your ankle, with a ball on the end of an attached rope that you’re supposed to skip over. Technically, Skip-It was released in the ‘80s, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that the so-called “Skip-It Renaissance” took place, according to the CEO of the company at the time. As a mark of their popularity, the manufacturer even made stickers and streamers so you could personalize your Skip-It and stand out from the rest of the basic skippers.

#6: Socker Boppers

Want a toy that gives you an excuse to playfully beat the crap out of your friends and siblings? Then you need Socker Boppers! They’re even “more fun than a pillow fight”! Previously known as “Sock'em Boppers”, these inflatable boxing gloves were introduced in the ‘70s but didn’t reach peak popularity until the ‘90s. Incidentally, they had to change their name due to a lawsuit claiming they infringed on the name of Mattel’s toy "Rock'em Sock'em Robots”--so, “Sock’em Boppers” became Socker Boppers. While they did see a resurgence in popularity in the 2000s, we have a feeling that today’s helicopter parents probably wouldn’t be too keen on the inherently violent use of the toy.

#5: Koosh Balls

What was it about these things that made them so much fun to play with? The inventor of Koosh Balls, Scott Stillinger, actually conceived of the idea because he wanted something to teach his children to play catch with. They’re soft enough that they don’t hurt if you get hit with them and they won’t bounce away if they hit the ground. Released in the late ‘80s, their massive success continued into the next decade. By the time Stillinger and his business partner Mark Button had sold their company in 1994, they had sold 50 million Koosh Balls and were making around $30 million annually. Did you know that each Koosh Ball is made up of about 2,000 rubber filaments?

#4: Creepy Crawlers

The 1960s’ Easy Bake Oven saw the addition of the Snack Center in 1993. In a similar fashion, the Creepy Crawlers toy saw a revival 3 decades later. Originally launched by Mattel in the 1960s and known as The Thingmaker, this oven set popped out insect-like creatures to many children’s delight. It had users pour "Plasti-Goop" into moulds, which were then baked in a 390 degree “open-face electric hot plate oven”. 390 degrees is pretty hot for a kid to handle and safety concerns sent the toy packing... (Get it?). Luckily, Creepy Crawlers resurged in the 90s and this time, it was only powered with a light bulb. Much safer!

#3: Pogs

Pogs were another instance of toy manufacturers taking an essentially free game and commercializing it. There’s a little bit of history to unearth here, with roots maybe going back as far as 17th century Japan. Originally known simply as “Milk Caps”, this is a game kids would play with actual caps from bottles of milk before the World POG Federation and the Canada Games Company started selling Pogs. But did the gameplay even really matter? It’s hard to say. We’re not sure anyone had a serious grasp on how to actually play Pogs. It was more about collecting them and getting ones with cool designs on them to make your friends jealous… especially if it was a slammer.

#2: Dear Diary

With the tech revolution kicking off, no modern teen or tween in the ‘90s could be bothered to write in an actual diary. Especially not when they were the proud owners of a Dear Diary, which may make you think of another toy on this list: the Talkboy. Both toys were pretty similar in terms of their recording and playback functions, and they were both sold by Tiger Electronics. Released in 1996, Dear Diary let you type or talk into the pink device so you could record your innermost thoughts and deepest darkest secrets. While we’re not sure what the security was like, it had to be better than just posting it to the internet.

#1: Tamagotchi

Digital pets were all the rage in the late ‘90s, and Tamigotchis were the ones to kick off this major trend. What wasn’t there to like about having a little digital creature to take care of? They lived in your pocket and everything! So for a brief moment in time, we all lived like Ron Stoppable…! Sure, we’ve all killed our Tamagotchis once or twice after forgetting them at home or simply becoming negligent, but hey, at least they weren’t real pets! And we were only kids back then! Just like some of the other popular toys of the decade, this one found itself banned from many classrooms because kids kept putting their work on hold to tend to their pets.