The Monchhichis

Monchhichi is a line of Japanese stuffed toy monkeys from the Sekiguchi Corporation. They are licensed by Mattel in the United States. Two television series were produced based on the characters, the Japanese anime series Monchhichi Twins in 1980, and the American cartoon series Monchhichis in 1983. Click here to see the intro »

Handheld Electronic Games

Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose screen made up of a grid of small pixels, they usually have custom displays designed to play one game. This simplicity means they can be made as small as a digital watch, and sometimes are. The visual output of these games can range from a few small light bulbs or LED lights to calculator-like alphanumerical screens; later these were mostly displaced by liquid crystal and Vacuum fluorescent display screens with detailed images and in the case of VFD games, color. Handhelds were at their most popular from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. They are both the precursors to and inexpensive alternatives to the handheld game console. Click here to see a commercial »

Shark Bites

Shark Bites is a fruit snack product produced by Betty Crocker. The product consists of several individual gummy candies, all of which are in the shape of a shark. Each gummy shark is colored to replicate the appearance of its corresponding fruit flavor. The Sharks come in the colors Red, Orange, Yellow, Purple, and White. Each color represents a fruit flavor.

It is unknown whether the White Shark is supposed to taste like one of the other flavors each time, or if it is a flavor of its own. Popular belief leans towards the latter. Leading tasteologists at Vanderbilt University have recently debated the flavor of the white shark with much enthusiasm. Their experimentation has been inconclusive as of November, 2010. Also interesting, the yellow shark is not the expected lemon flavor; oddly enough the yellow shark is strawberry.

The White Shark is typically spotted only once in any given pouch. Individuals should consider themselves to be very lucky if they find multiple White Sharks when opening a pouch of Shark Bites. The rarest occurrence is a pouch of all opaque Sharks. These pouches can contain up to three White Sharks in addition to the opaque yellow and opaque purple Sharks.

Wild & Crazy Kids

Wild and Crazy Kids is an American television game show in which large teams, usually consisting entirely of children, participated in head-to-head physical challenges on Nickelodeon, that aired from 1990 until 1992. It was hosted by Omar Gooding, Donnie Jeffcoat, and Jessica Gaynes. Gaynes replaced Annette Chavez, now Annette M. Lesure, in the second season. Click here to see the intro »

Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin is a children’s toy talking bear. The bear would move his mouth and eyes while ‘reading’ stories which were played on an audio tape cassette deck built into his back. It was created by Ken Forsse with later assistance by Larry Larsen and John Davies. Later versions would use a digital cartridge in place of a cassette. At the peak of his popularity, Teddy Ruxpin became the best-selling toy of 1985 and 1986, and the newest version was awarded the 2006 Animated Interactive Plush Toy of the Year by Creative Child Magazine. A cartoon based on the characters debuted in 1987. Click here to see a commercial »