These Incredibly Rare POGS from the 90’s Will Give You Serious Nostalgia
Pogs, AKA milk caps, easily the most popular game during the mid-90’s. Whether you were old or young you were playing this game whenever and wherever it was possible. To play pogs, you needed milk caps that are round, flat and made from cardboard. You also needed slammers that were made from plastic and are heavier than milk caps.
The Pog Phenomenon
In this game players put an equal amount of Pogs and form a stack. Then, they take turns throwing the slammer on the stack. Each Pog that lands face up belongs to the player who threw the slammer. After no milk caps are left in the stack the winner was the player with the most milk caps. Best gift ever? Hell yeah, purchase yours NOW!
If you’re a 90’s child, you probably remember your school playground covered with thin circular cardboards before they were suddenly banned from schools for causing fights and promoting gambling among minors.
It was during the late 80’s and early 90’s when the slap bracelet and GameBoy craze had taken over the gaming market, but there was a unique toy that every kid wanted – surprisingly, it was a milk bottle cap that was attracting the attention of the youngsters around the country.
Yes, for those of you who don’t remember, Pogs were actually colourful milk bottle caps that dominated school playgrounds in the 90’s, but surprisingly, their origin dates back to the Edo Period in the 1600s with the creation of a Japanese game called Menko which had a lot in common with the modern Pogs.
Menko
The classic game of Menko consisted of small circular cards, more or less of the same size as milk bottle caps, with colourful drawings of various cultural icons like famous Japanese warriors and wrestlers.
But unlike Pogs that were made from cardboard cut-outs, Menko cards were durable because they were either made out of clay or wood, although it later introduced paper cards which became popular in the Japanese gaming industry.
But no one outside of Japan knew about Menko until the 20th century when it was first introduced in Hawaii by Japanese immigrants who brought the classic game with them to America. The game started to evolve when kids started improvising and using milk bottle caps as playing pieces, since they were sturdy enough to be thrown.
It was actually a teacher named Blossom Galbiso who turns Pogs into one of the hottest phenomena in the early 90’s. Galbiso and her pupil collected milk bottle caps specifically from the Haleakala Dairy because it used special caps that resembled the Menko playing cards.
Schoolyard Battles
As the Pog trend started to pick up around mainland, the packaging company saw a sudden influx in demand for their milk bottles – not because the country wanted more dairy, but because it wanted to play Pogs!
No matter how inelegant the game might have looked during school lunchtime, there’s actually a technique to playing Pogs. The main aim of throwing a pog is to turn your opponent’s card, and if you flip their piece, you get to keep it.
In most schoolyard battles, players contributed an equal number of pieces to their stack and each of them would take turns to aim and shoot the slammer on the opponent’s stack. The player then calls dibs on the pog that lands face up on the ground. The players take turns until all the pogs have been claimed. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?
Pog-ularity
As the game gained pog-ularity (get it?), these unique milk bottle caps started being used as a vehicle for all sorts of advertisements, even celebrities and politicians got pogs with their faces on them and some charitable organizations even used them to advocate drug prevention and raise awareness for different causes.
Companies were eager to put their logos on bottle caps, and plenty of fast food giants like Taco Bell, Del Taco, McDonalds and Burger King joined in on the action with their own branded pogs. Even Disneyland, Nintendo and Kool-Aid used pogs for advertising, and for once, people didn’t even need any gameplays for entertainment.
More in Funhouse
-
`
From School Labs to Chalkboards, 90’s Experiences That Don’t Exist in Schools Anymore
For someone who attended high school in the 90s or the early 2000s, the idea of stepping into today’s modern day...
April 23, 2024 -
`
What People Get Wrong (And Right) About The Vikings
There are many famous theories about Viking like they were bearded and suppressed everyone around them. But according to Janina Ramirez, this...
April 23, 2024 -
`
We Are Not Trolling Around! Troll Dolls Are the Best Gift for 90’s Kids
There’s something about Troll dolls that enticed young kids from the 1990s – this strange-looking toy was generally not cute as...
April 23, 2024 -
`
Why Led Zeppelin Won’t Reunite
Back in the 1960’s, Led Zeppelin recorded their first album and after 8 albums and 12 years, the death of John Bonham –...
April 23, 2024 -
`
The BIGGEST Pop Culture Moments of 2008, Ranked Chronologically
With 2018 is almost over it’s hard to imagine that 2008 actually happened a decade ago. But before you ready your...
April 21, 2024 -
`
John Travolta Recreates Iconic Grease Dance for 40th Anniversary
Not all the stars are capable of keep shining after all the years they have remained on the big screen but...
April 21, 2024 -
`
Here Are the Best One-Hit Wonders of All Time
Other than songs, artists can also be one-hit wonders as they often contribute to the all-time hit songs. Take the example...
April 21, 2024 -
`
Remember The Other Member of Destiny’s Child? LeToya Luckett Went Through a Lot after Being Ousted
Destiny’s Child was the bomb – since the all-girl group came into the public’s consciousness, the members’ careers climbed to unimaginable...
April 21, 2024 -
`
Mind-Blowing Facts About Your Favorite Movies that You Probably Didn’t Know
Almost everyone loves watching movies, it is the one form of entertainment that will never get old. The film industry has...
April 21, 2024
You must be logged in to post a comment Login