Five 90’s Toys That Never Lived Up to the Hype

There was no shortage of toys in the nineties and back in the decade, companies spent a lot of time trying to re-think old toys, or deliver revolutionary new ways of playing with toys. You could probably make a huge book of nineties toys that were coveted by kids of all ages, but a few of them were so not worth the hype. Some of them didn’t work, didn’t work too well, or caused some pretty terrible injuries. From what I’ve read, apparently “Skip It” caused a few tumbles and plenty of bruised ankles.

Despite the great marketing campaigns and catchy jingles, these toys were never fun, and never quite compared to the actual experiences. These are five toys every kid wanted that were pretty much just garbage, in the end.

Power Glove
The Power Glove was easily one of the most hyped and talked about NES peripherals ever created, and we wanted one badly. The cost for the power glove was expensive, so my brother and I would have likely spent more time fist fighting each other for a turn than actually playing it. My cousin was one of the few to get it, and suffice to say, the glove was not at all worth all the publicity. It looked like a great futuristic device, but as many know, it barely worked with any of the NES games, and was painfully obnoxious to try to control. It was so much more convenient to grab an NES controller and play the darn game. It didn’t look as cool, but you got to play the game without a problem.

ANY Tiger Handheld Game
For a few years there the Tiger Handheld games were very popular and sought after by a lot of kids I knew. The fact is that they were considered by everyone to be a very cheap alternative for a GameBoy and or game gear. Why buy a $90 GameBoy, spend four dollars on batteries, and spend almost two hundred bucks on Game Boy Cartridges when, for a mere twenty five bucks, you can just buy a Tiger Handheld game with one game on it?

I mean, they technically had one game on them. I guess. The games were ridiculously easy, and became very repetitive after a while, but they had games for just about everyone, including girls, so despite losing its entertainment value after twenty minutes, everyone had at least four of these; even those that could afford actual GameBoys or game systems.

Sock Em Boppers
No, these were not more fun than a pillow fight. Truth be told, they were quite anti-climactic. First off there’s nothing more fun than an actual pillow fight, and two: once you inflated them, if you punched someone too hard you could pop any one of the plastic boppers effectively wasting your money. And if you punched too hard or the wrong way, there was the risk of spraining or breaking your wrists. At least with pillow fights there was only the risk of head injuries or bloody noses… especially if you snuck a few rocks in to the pillow case. What, I was the only one that did that? Okay, then.

Mouse Trap
“I-Is it doing the thing from the commercial yet? Is it doing the thing from the commercial yet? When is it going to do the thing from the commercial? This is boring. It’s not doing the thing from the commercial. Look! It’s doing it! It’s doing the thing with the mouse trap! Wow that was cool. Okay, let’s go play “Street Fighter II,” this sucked.”

The Virtual Boy
In theory the Virtual Boy was an amazing idea. In theory. What you had was a humongous video game head set that you attached to your head that was allegedly portable, and then you could only play it for twenty minute intervals because the all red screen and graphics often left you with a mind numbing headache, and blurred vision. If anything, at least a lot of kids learned what migraines were after experiencing this, uh, “machine.” Once those went away you also had to deal with the painful neck aches.