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01/21/2004: New Article: Fisher Price’s POCKET ROCKERS!

Okay, first of all, that thread about the worst movies you’ve seen in theaters down below is awesome, and proves that there’s a lot more lurkers here than I originally thought. Maybe we should make these kinds of polls and surveys a daily thing? At least it’d let you talk about more than whatever new article there is on a particular day — in this case, Fisher Price’s Pocket Rockers, the miniature tape players from the 80’s that let kids listen to Debbie Gibson in super style. You could wear the players, you could wear the tapes — you could wear pretty much everything contained in the collection, and for my money, that was a much more poignant selling point than hearing two tracks from Tiffany. Some of you will probably remember these…


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 82 comments

Hey Bright Noah, those drum sticks you were refering to we called Hit Stix. I never owned them but was insanely jealous of my friend who had them. I mean, who doesn’t dream of banging on air and makin noise? I remember that feature not working too well… As for Pocket Rockers I remember ‘em but what it made me think of(and this has no REAL connection) were those dolls that came in Disney and Muppet Babies varieties where you would put the casette in their back and they would "dance" to the music you played. I can’t remember the name of those for the life of me…….

Ghosted by phunqsauce @ 01/22/2004 1:48 AM EST


Let’s see if anyone can ID this toy for me: it was a similarly cassette tape-shaped series, but instead of playing music, the tapes actually folded out into miniature board games. They included a little game board, magnetic pieces, spinners, the works. I think one may’ve been Mall Madness, and I vaguely remember a really cool dungeon adventure kinda game. Anyone have any idea what these were? I guess they must’ve been around in the late 80s or maybe very early 90s.

Ghosted by thatsasin @ 01/22/2004 1:57 AM EST


thatsasin, I have faint memories of something like that but all I can think of are the teeny little games you can get on keychains these days. We’ve got several kicking around here.

Ghosted by Killer Duck @ 01/22/2004 2:06 AM EST


The only cassette thing I remember were those transformers ones. Maybe you are thinking of polly pocket or something? Those toys didn’t dance when you put a tape in them you had to play music and really LOUD too. I have one of those Boppers they weren’t all that great.

Ghosted by pikachulover @ 01/22/2004 2:52 AM EST


hooray! I got my laptop up and running. I have returned to the internet! long live X-E!

Ghosted by heeloyd @ 01/22/2004 4:38 AM EST


I remember them transformers casettes too, Pikachu lover. I had the stegasaurus and the tyrannosaurus ones. Even had the blue and gray radio looking dude they went in. Sadly mine got lost when we moved or something or maybe they’re sitting on the bottom of some closet somewhere. Who knows that was many years and many beers ago.

As for the Pocket Rockers I don’t really recall seeing them around too much. I’d imagine it’d be cool as hell to get to listen to them songs while in class. I don’t know I guess they really didn’t catch on too well here in western, PA.

Ghosted by The Adamantium Elbow @ 01/22/2004 7:24 AM EST


hey phunqsauce, they were called baby boppers i believe. my sister had miss piggy.

Ghosted by nick @ 01/22/2004 11:35 AM EST


My Pocket Rocker Collection is one of the only things that survived my childhood in tact. I’ve got the player, 26 tapes and display case. They did put out an interesting variety of music. In addition to the standard teen idols there was Tom Petty, Bon Jovi, Boston, Cutting Crew, Lavert, Breakfast Club, even Chuck Berry to name a few. The tapes that included some of the bigger names of that era were not sung by the original artist. Bruce Springsteen and Madonna are the two I recall. They were Cheesy renditions kind of like the adult singers on those Kid’s Bop Cd’s.

Ghosted by Kel @ 01/22/2004 6:19 PM EST


All I have to say is that Soundwave was a pimp-daddy mack diggity dogg G masta….or something. I always get a kick out of him saying "LAZERBEAK….EJECT"

Ghosted by phunqsauce @ 01/23/2004 9:30 AM EST


The funny thing about transformers is that I sold my collection off piecemeal on Ebay a year ago for about $300….pretty good for old, played with, beat-up 80’s toys.

Ghosted by TIKIBOB @ 01/25/2004 1:56 AM EST


haha I still have my pocket rocker (black and hot pink) and a few of the tapes w/ clips! I also still have my charm necklace….wonder where to sell that for fifty bucks…

oh and btw…the tape looking things that opened up to be a small gameboard with pieces and all were called "flip-siders" i have a couple of those around here somewhere too….damn i never throw anything away lol

Ghosted by Mty @ 01/26/2004 3:44 AM EST


I remember a friend of mine had them. If I recall right, most of the songs where somewhat cut due to the size of the tape. As for me, my grandfather saved up about 3 billion prize tickets from one of the arcades in Seaside Park, so I had a walkman with a tapeplayer.

Ghosted by Beaker Mike @ 01/26/2004 5:22 AM EST


This has made me start a thread about these things on 80s.com. I remember those. I never had a Pocket Rocker but I knew a few people who did. Anyone remember Flipsiders? They were cassettes that had a self-contained board game inside. Those were neat. You should do an article on those next for X-E.

Ghosted by Bert Raccoon @ 01/26/2004 8:35 PM EST


Down on the corner, out in the street.
Pocket Rockers are rockin’, hear the music, feel the beat.

Ghosted by toast @ 01/30/2004 7:14 AM EST


I had one of those. lol

Ghosted by Devin @ 01/31/2004 2:34 AM EST


I totally remember that school store… and those stupid charm necklaces and bracelets. At my school I don’t know that the bracelets were limited to girls, so long as boys would intertwine theirs and call it a "chain" rather than a necklace.

Suggestions for Future Articles:
Pens that had like 12 colors in them, depending on which one you wanted to press down.
Mech. Warriors.
Snap-Bracelets — fully a piece of metal until you snapped it on your wrist, and it would take shape.
Reebok-Pump shoes.
The Rise and Fall of Lunchboxes in society today.

Thanks for listening.

Ghosted by The Return of Long Duck Dong @ 01/31/2004 4:40 PM EST


FINALLY! Thank you for bringing up those damn plastic charm clips! I don’t think Pocket Rockers ever made it to Australia, but I definitely remember the charms. I went to a private school, so jewellry was taboo. However, we used to attach them to our keychains that held our locker keys. I built up quite an impressive collection of about a dozen (well, *I* thought it was impressive), but I was never popular or rich enough to afford the charm where, at point of purchase, you’d pick out little platsic letters to adorn it with your name.

Ghosted by mimi @ 01/31/2004 7:02 PM EST


I never had a pocket rocker, I remember the commercials, but I guess they were not a major trend where I lived. The charms however were huge. They sold them at the nearby party supply junk store that also sold whoopie cushions in a handy 24 pack. I don’t remember them being from a particular company they were loose and you just picked out the ones you wanted. (I know I had the tennis racket one and the phone one, I think I had one that was a mini shopping cart or something else pointless.)
I also remember wearing them with my blister-iffic jelly shoes and matching jelly tote.

Ghosted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 2:23 AM EST


I never had a pocket rocker, I remember the commercials, but I guess they were not a major trend where I lived. The charms however were huge. They sold them at the nearby party supply junk store that also sold whoopie cushions in a handy 24 pack. I don’t remember them being from a particular company they were loose and you just picked out the ones you wanted. (I know I had the tennis racket one and the phone one, I think I had one that was a mini shopping cart or something else pointless.)
I also remember wearing them with my blister-iffic jelly shoes and matching jelly tote.

Ghosted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 2:23 AM EST


I never had a pocket rocker, I remember the commercials, but I guess they were not a major trend where I lived. The charms however were huge. They sold them at the nearby party supply junk store that also sold whoopie cushions in a handy 24 pack. I don’t remember them being from a particular company they were loose and you just picked out the ones you wanted. (I know I had the tennis racket one and the phone one, I think I had one that was a mini shopping cart or something else pointless.)
I also remember wearing them with my blister-iffic jelly shoes and matching jelly tote.

Ghosted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 2:24 AM EST


okay you probably don’t care but I did not mean to post 3 times. I hit post yer comment once waited forever and a half and when it did post-bam 3 times.

Ghosted by thouroghly charmed @ 02/05/2004 2:27 AM EST


I had two flipsiders games when I was young, somewhere aroung 1990-1991.

One was Mall Madness and the other was a dungeon game board. I went to Milton Bradley’s (now Hasbro’s) website, and they had an instruction manual for the Mall Maddess, but not the dungeon game.

This would be a cool article to write.

Ghosted by John @ 02/07/2004 7:54 PM EST


Our school was somewhat like how mimi mentioned above, but we worked out a method where both the boys and the girls could have those plastic crap charms.

Basically, the girls wore them on their necklaces, but guys could wear them on their keychains. Of course, we were all grade schoolers and didn’t actually have keys, so they existed solely to fulfill our need to accumulate worthless junk. Plus, you were relegated to using only guy-stuff.

Ghosted by Greg @ 02/08/2004 2:51 AM EST


Yet another toy dredged up by Matt that I was sure I’d dreamed up. I can not, to this day, hear "Down on the Corner" without thinking of the commercial for Pocket Rockers on Nickelodeon. I blame society for allowing such things to happen.

Ghosted by Mara @ 02/22/2004 5:20 AM EST


I totally remember flipsiders and pocket rockers. I was looking to buy one of them, guess I can’t now, Oh Well. Now I know for the future when I have kids I won’t let them throw any of their toys away.

Ghosted by Barbie J @ 05/01/2004 11:18 AM EDT


spongebob rocks he th coolest

Ghosted by Zoe @ 05/02/2004 3:43 AM EDT


Just an insert, anyone interested in Flipsiders and such should visit my yahoo group: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mbflipsiders/
Just an uberenthusiast :)

Ghosted by Jesse Thompson @ 05/12/2004 4:35 AM EDT


Hey Jesse and Barbie J,

I just found a Flipsiders auction on ebay and thought I’d pass it along. Enjoy!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3194597061

Ghosted by Emily Barker @ 05/21/2004 1:18 AM EDT


Heh, I search for flipsiders, find this page again, find your helpful post Emily (thanks for the thought :) click through, see a picture for a flipsiders game, and look over and see the exact same object sitting next to my laptop. Came in the mail 2 days ago no doubt ;)
2 people just put up "Rock Tour" for sale on Ebay too; and I just won the first of those auctions.

All your flipsiders are belong to us :)

Ghosted by Jesse Thompson @ 06/03/2004 2:37 AM EDT


love the Pocket Rockers! wippay.

Ghosted by Alexander Kaiser @ 10/01/2004 9:31 AM EDT


I remember Pocket Rockers. I had the Deluxe Black/Pink one back in ‘89. Had a carrying sleeve and came with a Bangles and a Fat Boys tape. They were radio edit style versions timing in at about 3 minutes a song. Iv’e seen the players selling on Ebay now for $50 and the cassettes for about $5 to $10 each.

Ghosted by Angela @ 11/15/2006 4:47 AM EST


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