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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 on 01/21/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 82 comments

Personics tapes were about a zillion dollars but they were AWESOME. I worked at Sam Goody’s and making those tapes was my favorite thing to do there.

Chestnuts roasted by metalchick666 @ 01/21/2004 3:00 PM

Pocket Rockers? Can’t say I knew they existed until I read the article. In any case…

Something Matt said made me think of myself. Yes, I know I’m conceited. But I digress. He said he was a "late bloomer" when it comes to music. I was too. I’m a junior in high school, and I got my first CD player two years ago. That’s right, when I turned 15. Talk about late bloomers…

By the way: Barenaked Ladies > j00

Chestnuts roasted by Paul @ 01/21/2004 3:02 PM

They actually have Pocket Rockers on eBay. Wow, you can find lots of crap on that site!

I first remember about ten years ago getting a Ren and Stimpy CD for Christmas. Now that was big for me.

Chestnuts roasted by mjf7583 @ 01/21/2004 3:11 PM

What’s strang about Pocket Rockers to me is that I remember the charm necklaces being a lot more popular than the Pocket Rockers themselves. Hmm…maybe it’s just me.

Chestnuts roasted by eyeless @ 01/21/2004 3:32 PM

Hungry Hungry Oprahs. When the first Burton Batman came out on video, my sister got it for Little Brother and myself that Christmas. We didn’t own a VCR at the time.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 01/21/2004 3:41 PM

I enjoyed the movie poll a lot. But it’s already impossible to keep up with all the blog comments! Oh well, I’ve got a lot more free time on my hands now anyway.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 01/21/2004 3:42 PM

hey havne’t posted anythign in the last few days, been busy.

I remember those hit clip things, but they weren’t too popular at my school.

What was more popular were those drum stick things that let you play drums in the air, i think they were called air styx or something like that.

They eventually got banned at my school because kids did hte obvious and started hitting other kids with the drumsticks. I beleive the company that made the air drumsticks also made versions for guitar and keyboard

Chestnuts roasted by Bright Noah @ 01/21/2004 3:58 PM

Just finished reading the Advent Calendar Matt, and that was trully impressive, and unexpected ending.
Kudos.
And not the candy bar (unlesss you like it, in which case Kudos squared).
Was the first onegoing to end violently like that? Were the Mares going to fight it out to the death? Was righteous punishment coming to them for worshipping the donkey?

Chestnuts roasted by TOP1214 @ 01/21/2004 4:11 PM

I became strangely fascinated with the stupid characters as the month progressed, mostly because I cursed myself to spending the entire month of December with ‘em. Think about that: most of us can remember aspects of virtually every Christmas season since childhood. My memories of the 2003 season involve plastic Playmobil figures. In tribute to that, I wanted to leave it off ambiguously: is Mare dead? It’s up to you to decide.

More honestly, I noticed the Rancor Monster toy nearby, and really wanted to take a picture of it. That’s the story.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/21/2004 4:14 PM

I honestly don’t remember much about these. Then again, when Pocket Rockers were introduced, I was a three-year-old too busy breaking my parents’ turntable to care. Since I’m at a loss, did these things play true, unadulterated songs or bastardized one- or two-minute clips?
Pretty snazzy graphics, though. I suppose I wouldn’t have minded blasting music from one back in the day.

Chestnuts roasted by Andrew T. @ 01/21/2004 4:25 PM

kingklash:

http://jm3.net/pxl/
"1.1 what is a pxl-2000?
A pxl2000 is a fischer price toy video camera that’s no longer for sale. it records video and audio onto a single audio cassette tape. No smoke, no mirrors, just plain old down-and-dirty eighties tech. The pxl uses similar technology to conventional video camcorders, yet it weighs scant ounces and runs on six AA batteries."

This movie was shot entirely in pixelvision:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0110620/

Chestnuts roasted by You know me! @ 01/21/2004 4:30 PM

You know me!, nice name. I have contacted my lawyers.

Matt, you brought up Ghostbusters being a song that everyone enjoyed. Everyone that is but Huey Lewis:
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/featuregen.asp?pid=1894

Ray is not done with Huey either:
http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1442127/03232001/lewis_huey.jhtml

Chestnuts roasted by ME that you do know @ 01/21/2004 4:42 PM

Matt, if you want to make daily polls, make it easier on US – put a gosh darn message board. ‘Bout time for one, no?

Chestnuts roasted by Frog @ 01/21/2004 5:15 PM

I was always more impressed by my pocket rocker than by any of the older kids’ walkmen, because mine had a speaker in the side and could play the music out loud, which was awesome if you were playing barbies with your friend, and wanted it to be their stereo.

As far as I remember, the cassettes had a full track on each side, which you flipped with a little switch. I wore out my Cutting Crew tape.

Chestnuts roasted by meenk @ 01/21/2004 5:46 PM

I can’t believe these things existed… well, I can, but geeze! I don’t remember these things (I remember the pxl-2000, tho). What I really remember, tho, was those mini movie viewers they sold in fad shops. They were about a inch cube big and you put these circular cartridges in that contained a small portion of film. The film would go in an endless loop as you pressed the button and looked through the tiny viewport (holding it up to the light, of course).
The most satisfiying part was the cinematic "click-click-click-click-click" sound as the film played.

Chestnuts roasted by AlphaCentaurian @ 01/21/2004 6:11 PM

I just remembered the dancing Muppet Babies commercial. They each had a classic pop song that played while they danced. What reminded me of it was that like the Pocket Rocker commercial, they also used a version of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song. This is why the great John Fogerty hates his old label and bandmates since he has no publishing rights to his hits with the band.

Chestnuts roasted by ME @ 01/21/2004 6:44 PM

Yay Matt you took a suggestion from me :) I think I had bugged you about reviewing Pocket Rockers before like last year or something. I have that ad on tape the short verson on an episode of Finders Keepers.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 01/21/2004 6:52 PM

you know it’s funny because I’m a youngin who was maybe 4 in the 80′s and so when i read this article I immediately thought of Hit Clips. They’re basically the newer version of Pocket rockers with just as crappy of music except switch in Tiffany for Britney Spears. My little cousins love em’ YOu should check them out sometime.

Chestnuts roasted by Ally @ 01/21/2004 7:57 PM

I do remember Pocket Rockers, although they weren’t big around here for the same reasons Kingklash gave in addition to they just weren’t that availble in the few toy stores in southern NJ. My sisters and I weren’t all that interested, anyway. Why did we need a tiny little Walkman with only 2 Tiffany songs when we all had our own cassettes with 10 tunes that Mom would play on her stereo, or on our ubquitious pink-and-silver tape player?

The charms strike far more memories. All of my sisters and I collected them like fiends throughout the 80s. In fact, they were among the few genuine 80s fads to not only make it down here, but do so in great numbers. I know my fantasy-crazy sister had that blue unicorn (she was a big fan of the unicorn craze of the early-mid 80s). My favorite charm was a fat, red, round strawberry. It was heavy and looked like the real thing. I wore it everywhere for years. My brother may still use my red chain to tie up his action figures.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 01/21/2004 9:12 PM

The ’80s hip designs on those Pocket Rockers (which I never had BTW,I was in junior high about this time) remind me of Swatches,which my older sister had. Just one of the reasons I love the eighties.

Chestnuts roasted by Overlord @ 01/21/2004 9:32 PM

Oh man. They had the Monkees theme? That’s greatness. Before I die, I’m want to own one of these contraptions with that particular tape.

And Hit Clips suck. You don’t even get a whole song. Basically just thirty seconds of one. Not cool, not cool at all.

Chestnuts roasted by Denise @ 01/21/2004 9:36 PM

dude, I may not remember the 80s as well as some (im only 18) but i collected those charm things! My collection was the same size as the one in the picture…i remember the baby bottle and bells well

Chestnuts roasted by Emily @ 01/21/2004 10:35 PM

Haha, I had a ton of those charms on that necklace!!! Dangit I really wish I could find them now. Hmm…Do they really sell for as much as 50$!! If so I REALLY wish I could find them! Thanks for that article, it was good reading!

Chestnuts roasted by Crissy @ 01/21/2004 10:35 PM

Ah,

I remember Pocket Rockers, my sister and I both had ones, and the same tape! I think it had Labamba on one side, and Tequila on the other!

Btw, do you have a copy of the first Pocket Rockers commercial? The one with the CCR song? Unfortunately to this day, when I hear it, I think of Pocket Rockers!

Chestnuts roasted by Magic_Amethys80 @ 01/22/2004 12:21 PM

Magic_Amethys80 I have a copy of the commerical I would make a copy of the tape and send it to mattif I had another VCR to copy it on or was more comp savy.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 01/22/2004 1:08 AM

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