Were any of you children in the 90s? I need help understanding something herePeople seem to really think pogs were fucking HUGE in the 90s. I was born in '92 and not only did I not have any pogs, I don't remember a single kid who did. In fact i'd never even heard of pogs until I was a teenager.I remember other 90s crazes like beanie babies and furbies, Lite-Brite, tomagachi and the cheaper giga-pet, not pogs. I have 0 recollection of pogs having any cultural presence.am I alone here? this feels like borderline mandela-effect to me.
>>11717131They died out by 94-95. They were huge, but dropped off almost instantly.
>>11717131Tpu would have been a toddler at best at the height of the pog mania, it was a very short-lived craze.>t.I was there
>>11717131I was a teenager, but I had two younger brothers that were in preschool as I started high school. Also I'm Australian, so that might skew the results.Here, Pogs were a brief fad for a couple of years in the early-mid 90s that were almost immediately superceded by Tazos. My brothers got a handful of Pogs just before Tazos took off, but once those Looney Tunes ones started showing up in bags of chips, Pogs were forgotten. Looney Tunes, Space Jam, and Star Wars Tazos absolutely destroyed whatever weird indie art shit Pogs had going. And Tazos were still pretty popular into the 2000s after I moved out. I think the last set I can remember my brothers getting was either Simpsons or Dragonball Z.
>>11717131You weren't even able to talk properly by the time that fad ended. Of course you wouldn't remember it. I certainly remember it, hell I still have at least two tubes of em in my basement with all my other 90s crap. Fun fact, POG is an acronym for Passion-Orange-Guava juice, which was the best selling juice from a Hawaiian Dairy farm kids used to get the milk caps that became Pogs from. The entire idea was based on ancient Japanese game that found resurgence in Hawaii in the 1920s when kids started using Milk Caps to play a version of the Japanese game. The caps were waxed cardboard with a staple, and kids would throw heavy objects at them to flip em over, winner take all. It stayed a local game until the 90s when a venture capitalist bought the POG rights and started a literal Global Federation to promote it. That initial idea made millions within a year....then crashed *hard* where it sat dead for decades. The brand was then bought up not too long ago by a *different* venture capitalist with plans to relaunch the brand. They started with online digital items but as of 2024 have started making physical collectibles again. So as of today, POGs are still an actual, marketable product being sold to people around the world. Also the CEO is literally named Frisbee. This shit be weird.
They were a big thing but it was more of just buying a bunch to show your friends and look at their collections, try playing the game, get bored quickly, then move on. It had the appeal of trading cards but the game wasn't engaging or exciting enough to merit the purchase so it collapsed very quickly. Here's some choice pogs from my childhood I picked out awhile back while going through some tubes.
>>11717131I'm slightly younger than you and only knew about them because they came packed in with my Pokemon toys. Never knew what to do with them or what they were called, though, until much later and just kept them in a little stack.
>>11717231I could walk by 10 months. my parents thought I was going to be a genius.ended up being a glueeater
>>11717131It was absolutely huge, at every mall in the country there had to be 10 or 12 stands selling nothing but pogs and slammers. Think of like now if you went to a mall and there's a stand of some middle eastern guy fixing cell phones, or someone selling knock off labubus. But it was when malls were most popular, there were 4 malls within a 20 mile radius of most suburbs, they were always packed, and every 100 feet there was another stand selling pogs. They even had pog fairs in parking lots and malls, special events where another 40 booths would spring up with pogs. It was massive, partially because unlike most other fads it wasn't tied to a single company or IP and wasn't limited by any sort of manufacturing needs. Literally anyone could get in the pog business which means that tons of people did. but ended after like a year and a half.
>>11717131I got into pogs after they fell off in popularity
>>11717334How avant-Pog of you.
>>11717131I had some Dragonball Z 'discs' that came in Chip packets basically my introduction to pogs. Then later Simpsons 'pickers' you sling a tennis ball and it grabs the velcro returning it to your hand.I thought after trading cards made a resurgence tazos and pogs / caps would follow but nope. I have a nice Mortal Kombat set made in Australia, they're not impossible to find but all the available ones are damaged to heck
>>11717131What is your exact age? I had shittons. I remember having Reboot pogs and everything
Had same Gargoyle pogs from Canada games. The guy i basically gave them to free listed it for like $200+, think i also gave him a Pocahontas box.
>>11717131They were on their way out by the time I got around to them. I even wrote a report for like fifth grade about how the fad was ebbing. Somewhere I still have that printed out essay with a ziplock baggie of pogs stapled to it as Exhibit A.
>>11717135Yeah, this.Vaguely remember having a few when I was four years old in 95. It was big then, but by the next year, the fad was dead and people moved on to beanie babies.
Pogs were for the first part of the decade, but they sort of lived on an easy , unofficial versions for promotions and board games. I always used to hear "oh hey they made Pokemon Pogs" when this board game and the kraft mac and cheese boxes came out but I never knew what pogs really were.
Born in '86. Pogs were fuckin huge. A lot of kids didn't actually play the game because it would kinda fuck your pogs up. But yeah trading them was a big deal at school. I had a shitload of them. They fell off very quickly though. Like one month they were still popular and the next month nobody cared. It was weird.
>>11717570also ‘86 here, can confirm. Pogs were a big deal from ‘94-‘96, but I remember most of the steam went out of the fad within a year. Nobody played the game, it was all about trading them at school. They were still around in the late 90s (I remember brands got in on them very late, like Doritos putting Star Wars ones in bags to advertise the SW: Special Edition releases). By then, nobody cared much, and they were relegated to storage cylinders in my closet. Beanie babies, tamagotchis, furby, and Pokémon cards were the subsequent fads. One cool thing bout pogs is they were always culturally relevant because you could so easily mass produce them to feature movies, tv shows, and characters, etc as they came out; I had a lot of space jam pogs. Also had a pog maker, which was fun.
>>11717131They were big when I was in kindergarten. I was born in 89.
>>11717231Holy shit. I had Pog when I went to Hawaii when I was a kid. That shit was good as fuck.
>>11717131They were huge at my school for about a yeah, though we didn't call them pogs. Was in Belgium at the time and they went by "hoppies" after the most prevalent brand, was pretty rare to come across actual Pog brand ones. There were also flippos which were plastic, came in bags of chips and different styles; a lot of them featured Looney Tunes, Belgian soccer players, Chester Cheetah. Still have a bunch of the "toothed" ones cuz they could be used to build forts and stuff for army men.The game was huge at school, I remember seeing several going on at any given time at recess. I wonder if it's because Hoppies zappers/slammers were better than the Pog ones, being thicker and even having grooves for your fingers. I recall everyone would have one of those thin Pog slammers for late game when there were only 1-2 hoppies left to flip, but otherwise you main'd the thick ones. Still have most of my zappers including some metal ones, though the current whereabouts of the latter remains uncertain.
>>11717618*yearAlso have a couple of the scorpion zappers, though I never used them for the game.
>>11717618So weird to hear people actually played the game. Nobody ever played it where I grew up. We only traded them.
>>11717131I had pogs, my friends I used to play with had pogs.Got a pog maker.Stopped playing pogs because we kept playing by street rules.Learned gambling is stupid the hard way.
>>11717131Grade school in the 90s. They were absolutely everything in 5th and 6th grades, so I think that puts them at 93-95ish. Right around slap bracelet times and the rise of Super S and Starter jackets.
>>11717690I don't remember much trading come to think of it, mostly trades like a few hoppies for a zapper, or zapper trades. I recall at least one time observing two kids playing the game but for a stack of zappers and thinking, dang these must be rich kids cuz you got one zapper per packet of hoppies and I was only allowed one or two at a time.
>>11717253I’m imagining a scenario where we are in the fallout(tm) universe, and gen X and millennials use this as one of their in group currencies to exchange for the most difficult to find rare items>>11717256These were based. Sometimes I get sad that I will probably never be as hyped about something as I was growing up when Pokémon was popping off. I also miss the sensation of there being a near universal hobby to get excited with strangers about and to make friends through. What the fuck do we have now? Sportsball? Even that isnt nearly as big.
>>11717333Sounds like those gay fidget spinner toys. I remember seeing those at the mall years back but also at places like flea markets and swap meets. My most fond mall kiosk memory is probably the mini r/c cars that were very popular sometime around 2002-2005. they would have a shitload of cars and you could just pick up a controller and use them. when my mom brought me to the mall I would just autistically do that for like 20 minutes or a half hour. got a shitload of them that year for Christmas. Wish those would come back. Similarly to logs any company could make them so they ranged in quality a lot but it was cool that you could find new ones anywhere and it was fun that they technically could be used together to race as long as the controller frequency’s didnt overlap
I bought some space jam tazos thinking they'd be worth somethin but they are shit and nobody wants them. Will probably start giving them away
I'm not too sure about American paper pogs but once we got Pokémon Tazos over here, it was madness. They were like water in the desert. People just wanted "more". So much so that kids would get their old warner bros tazos (also plastic) and would scratch off the paint from front and back, have them completely white and bare and say "yeah this was a charizard" or whatever. It got to be such a problem that those weren't allowed in "matches" anymore unless you could see the red and black pokeball print on the back.That also reminds me, since almost no one had a slammer, someone just came up with "yeah I'll just wedge my tazo underneath the pile and flick it to flip the pile." It was so overpowered that it became the only way to play. This must have happened around 2000 since I only remember it happening on my new school.
>>11718430They are called Tazos in Australia most prevalent to my knowledge
In 2002 my school friend showed me a treasure chest he had of pogs. I didn't know what they were. Then he closed the chest and we never spoke of them again.
The only fad from the 90's that was even more short lived than Pogs was these sticker albums. I had this Tom & Jerry one but there were many different albums based on cartoons, packs of stickers were sold separately and you would typically end up with a lot of dupes and an incomplete album unless you actively traded with someone else. Was this only a thing in Europe, because I don't recall burger bros mentioning these ever.
>>11718490
>>11718490Sticker collecting in the '80s was definitely a thing. I don't personally recall pic-related style, but I am familiar with the concept and think it may be a thing still.
>>11718490Aussie here. They are a fad that has never really gone away. I had a Return of the Jedi and a He-man one in the early 80s, and had the Star Wars Trilogy one in the mid 90s. I also might have had an AFL footy one at some point.They still make them, but their focus seems to be 100% on sport from the looks of it, and most of it is soccer.https://paninistore.com/shp_int_en/stickers-and-trading-cards/collections/sport/albums-stickers-and-cards.html
>>11718434In the UK, too
>>11718584IIRC Tazos were rival off-brand Pogs that started out as official licensed Taz-Mania off-brand Pogs, but just kept on being called Tazos even when they weren't Taz-related, and outlasted actual Pogs by years somehow.
>>11718546It's weird those AFL footy ones, the special inserts with holo glitter and the teams symbol. I used to get them in the 90's but they not worth much, I'll never be able to recreate what it feels like to rip open the paper sleeve and get a shiny west coast eagles or St Kilda
Glow Zone have some the hardest to find rares to my knowledge, same company that did Odd Bodz. Had The Simpsons series 1 and 2 boxes but sold for about $800 AUD. Not seen them sinceLater found out same Aussie company did Casper, 101 Dalmations and Mickey Mouse. No idea what truly rare high valued or coveted pogs look like because its not readily available information.And nobody feels nostalgic about a specific tazo to merit grading them, although they have the same pack-fresh detractions: centering, wires going across the surface or even ink splotches. Saw some Jurassic Park SkyCaps going for $700-$1000 USD, box gets listed from time to time.Yu-Gi-Oh did something named "Metallix" they look really cool, but were printed on metal that ionizes over time you can see rust eating away at the edges.They'll say some Hawaiian milkcap is the rarest but that's completely boring and relatable to no one
I was born in '93 and had a good number of pogs, but that comes with the caveat that they were always hand-me-downs from my older cousins/garage sale pickups or random pack-ins with other toys I was actually trying to buy (the pokemon ones have been mentioned multiple times ITT)I also never actually played the game associated, outside of a simulation of it in some edutainment game my parents got me. They were just a neat collectible in my eyes.
>>11718657All I remember is tazos had those little slits cut into their perimeters, pogs were just cardboard milk bottle caps.
>>11717600you can still get it at the store, just look in the juice section. it has the little furry pog guy on it, very hard to miss.
>>11718682>the special inserts with holo glitter and the teams symbolThe reason I am vague about if I owned one was because I only remember the team symbol stickers, but the Holo glitter is also ringing a bell. I guess mine was early 90s. By high school, everyone was into collector cards, either Upper Deck/Fleer Ultra NBA cards or X-Men cards, except for that one year that Jurassic Park cards dominated.I've also suddenly remembered that o had a cricket sticker book as well that would have been around 83-84. I am pretty sure it is the one in picrel which is on eBay for $150 and it's not even complete. I wonder if they are still at my mum's place or if that's her eBay account. It's more likely she chucked them.
>>11718490My sisters managed to complete a Mulan sticker book. World Cup '94 was a major fad at school and thanks to some key trades I was able to finish mine.
>>11717131I remember Pogs being popular at my school for like a week or maybe even less than that in 1996 and then no one ever mentioned them again.
in like 2007 i bought a ton of pogs from an everything's a $1 store (not to be confused with the everything's $5 store next door) and it was the same shit i had originally 15 years earlier. got a michael jordan slammer. pretty sick find. i should dig em out before this thread dies.
>>11717131>I remember other 90s crazes like beanie babies and furbies, Lite-Brite, tomagachi and the cheaper giga-pet, not pogs. I have 0 recollection of pogs having any cultural presence.anyway all the shit you mentioned was post-pogs, zillennial
>>11717131Dear zoomers and zillennials, you guys were too young to remember pogs.
>>11719209I found some at a consignment place around that time frame, but most of them were pretty eh. Couldn't rightly say what happened to my childhood pog collection.
>>11717391I still have most of mine>pog mania hits my small sleepy town>always a few months/years behind on trends>local card shop has a big discount bin of pogs for $25 a piece while slammers were $1-$20 depending on material>bargain bin Mostly skulls, 8 balls, buzzsaws, evil clowns >sometimes better quality ones mixed in, skycaps, offical POGs, superheroes and sports themes>by the end of the year big lots was clearancing lots of spiderman pog setsOne came with a giant spiderman board I cant find any information about online. This is the only pic I could find online
>>11719860Yknoe, this makes me realize how anti gambling my school was back in the 80's. Nowadays kids can just get an app or game to do the same thing.
>>11720066children are the future and we are letting them down i_i
I would like to get some but everyone wants to turn it into a payday.Had some hard to get Lion King panini one but opened it, then realized the rare kini insert (Gold Foil) could just be felt through the booster pack so they sold me a dud. Still nice though kept the pack
>>11717352I had the MK pogs too lol they were sick
>>11717256That's what those were? I always they were like an info card thing. Anyway, contributing to the thread, I have these bootleg amiibo that I like to refer to as "Amiibo Pogs".
>tfw no Pog pogs
