01/21/2004 Entry: "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...

Chestnuts roasted by Slacker @ 01/21/2004 01:44 PM EST

Wait a sec. The Hungry Hungry Hippos I remember went something like:

"Who will win? No one knows! Feed the hungry hip-hip-hoes"

Must be one o' dem revamps. Carry on.

Chestnuts roasted by Slacker @ 01/21/2004 01:47 PM EST

so I remember those charms really well... probably too well since I'm a dude, but I had an older cousin, who I believe was in love with the things. I seem to remember them having a distinct smell, when looking at the picture, I can almost smell it... I remember her having the baby bottle, only I think her's had a blue top

Chestnuts roasted by chad @ 01/21/2004 01:48 PM EST

Hey! I have a VideoNow player!

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 01/21/2004 01:57 PM EST

I used to make fun of the people who had these =) Nice.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/21/2004 01:59 PM EST

Ahhh! How deep does the rabbit hole go? Not-So-Secret, indeed.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt (#2?) @ 01/21/2004 01:59 PM EST

Slacker, yea they had several Hungry Hippos songs. The first I remember was "Hungry Hungry hippos...Hungry Hungry Hippos" (try to imagine it). They also had the "cha cha" sounding one with all the Hippos dancing "We love to feed our face, we're in an eating race". I also remember the one you're talking about. I think it was somewhere in between.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/21/2004 02:02 PM EST

I didn't have the Pocket Rockers but I still have a giant plastic chain full of little plastic charms. I must have been a sick little kid 'cause there's a whole section on there dedicated to liqour bottles. =)

Chestnuts roasted by metalchick666 @ 01/21/2004 02:24 PM EST

Anyone see the Oprah-themed one on The Man Show?

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 01/21/2004 02:25 PM EST

DONT THEY HAVE SOMETHING OUT NOW OR AT LEAST IN THE PAST YEAR CALLED "HIP CLIPS" WHICH WERE LITTLE TAPES WITH A COUPLE OF SONGS FOR KIDS. THATS LIKE THE SAME THING.

Chestnuts roasted by MIKEY @ 01/21/2004 02:39 PM EST

Holy shit, I rocked the shit out of those terrible things. Err.... I mean, my sister did.

Chestnuts roasted by Bryan @ 01/21/2004 02:42 PM EST

damn lunch break, I was about to post something really awsome, then I realiezed it was 11:30, and I had to go pick up my daughter from school....man am I old. Anyway, I remember pining for these things every time I saw the comercial. Nobody at my school ever had them, but I wanted it anyway. I still feel the pain any time I see the little minni cassette recorders.

Chestnuts roasted by brandon @ 01/21/2004 02:44 PM EST

HEY MIKEY, THE ALSO HAVE SOMETHING OUT NOW CALLED THE CAPS LOCK KEY, THAT YOU CAN PRESS BEFORE SAYING SOMETHING.

Chestnuts roasted by chad @ 01/21/2004 02:50 PM EST

All of this brings to mind my beloved Personics custom made tapes from Sam Goody's.

Chestnuts roasted by Chris @ 01/21/2004 02:51 PM EST

Hehe, I actually don't remember these, and probably wouldn't have wanted one even if I knew they existed at the time. I had one of those REAL Sesame Street tape players on which I blared MC Hammer. I also seriously went through the sound test in Castlevania 3 and recorded all the tracks onto tape.

Chestnuts roasted by Abob Lyndsae @ 01/21/2004 02:56 PM EST

I have never even heard of these. Guess I was too young in '88. But I never fell prey to many fads, either; I was always the outsider.

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron @ 01/21/2004 02:57 PM EST

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 03:00 PM EST

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 03:02 PM EST

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 03:11 PM EST

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 03:32 PM EST

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 03:41 PM EST

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 03:42 PM EST

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 03:58 PM EST

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 04:11 PM EST

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 04:14 PM EST

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 04:25 PM EST

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 04:30 PM EST

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 04:42 PM EST

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 05:15 PM EST

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 05:46 PM EST

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 06:11 PM EST

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 06:44 PM EST

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 06:52 PM EST

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 07:57 PM EST

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 09:12 PM EST

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 09:32 PM EST

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 09:36 PM EST

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 EST

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 EST

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 AM EST

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 01:08 AM EST

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.......

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 01/22/2004 01:48 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.

Chestnuts roasted by thatsasin @ 01/22/2004 01:57 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/22/2004 02:06 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.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 01/22/2004 02:52 AM EST

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

Chestnuts roasted by heeloyd @ 01/22/2004 04:38 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.

Chestnuts roasted by The Adamantium Elbow @ 01/22/2004 07:24 AM EST

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

Chestnuts roasted 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Kel @ 01/22/2004 06:19 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"

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 01/23/2004 09:30 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.

Chestnuts roasted by TIKIBOB @ 01/25/2004 01:56 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

Chestnuts roasted by Mty @ 01/26/2004 03:44 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Beaker Mike @ 01/26/2004 05:22 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Bert Raccoon @ 01/26/2004 08:35 PM EST

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

Chestnuts roasted by toast @ 01/30/2004 07:14 AM EST

I had one of those. lol

Chestnuts roasted by Devin @ 01/31/2004 02:34 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.

Chestnuts roasted by The Return of Long Duck Dong @ 01/31/2004 04:40 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.

Chestnuts roasted by mimi @ 01/31/2004 07:02 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.

Chestnuts roasted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 02:23 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.

Chestnuts roasted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 02:23 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.

Chestnuts roasted by thoroughly charmed @ 02/05/2004 02:24 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.

Chestnuts roasted by thouroghly charmed @ 02/05/2004 02:27 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.

Chestnuts roasted by John @ 02/07/2004 07:54 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Greg @ 02/08/2004 02:51 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Mara @ 02/22/2004 05:20 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.

Chestnuts roasted by Barbie J @ 05/01/2004 11:18 AM EST

spongebob rocks he th coolest

Chestnuts roasted by Zoe @ 05/02/2004 03:43 AM EST

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

Chestnuts roasted by Jesse Thompson @ 05/12/2004 04:35 AM EST

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

Chestnuts roasted by Emily Barker @ 05/21/2004 01:18 AM EST

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 :)

Chestnuts roasted by Jesse Thompson @ 06/03/2004 02:37 AM EST

love the Pocket Rockers! wippay.

Chestnuts roasted by Alexander Kaiser @ 10/01/2004 09:31 AM EST