Child Of The 1980's

Captain Caveman (or Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels to give it its full title) was another in the long list of Hanna Barbera’s “group of teenagers and their comedy sidekick solve mysteries” style of cartoon, and whilst nothing will ever top good old Scooby Doo in my book, Captain Caveman was certainly not the worst of the bunch, and his great gutteral cry of “Captain Caaaaaavvemaaaaan!” brings back happy memories of pretending to fly around the school playground pretending to be him.

Captain Caveman, or Cavey Wavey as his female teenage companions would call him whenever they wanted him to do something, was a neanderthal super hero, covered in what one presumes was incredibly long brown hair, and equipped with a massive wooden club and wearing a little leopard skin cape (or the prehistoric equivalent of a leopard anyway). He had super strength and the ability to fly, although these powers had a tendancy to pack in at the most inopportune moments, such as when flying across a massive ravine or holding a really big boulder in the air.

His club was not just a great weapon but was also laden with Flintstone style prehistoric gadgets, such as a torch which was a little bird clutching a candle, or a “guard dog” dinosaur. Incidentally, speaking of the Flintstones, it was on one of the many Flintstone comedy show cartoons that Captain Caveman first appeared, then he later appeared with the Teen Angels of Scooby’s All Star Laff-A-Lympics before finally getting his own show. Personally I don’t remember ever seeing him on the Flintstones, and I only have very vague memories of Laff-A-Lympics, but I certainly remember him from his own cartoon.

Read more…

Earlier this week I presented my Mum’s recipe for homemade Play Dough. In the post I talked about both Play Dough, which tended to be a little softer to mould but didn’t stick together as well, and Plasticene, which required some effort to get moulding but was easier to blend together. Who remembers playing with the plasticene at school that had had several colours all merged together so you ended up with a psychedelic marbled effect?

This weeks survey is to find out which of these two modelling materials people preferred playing with. Were you happy to just squidge Play Dough through your fingers or through one of those machines that turned it into wormy spaghetti, or did you prefer the more intricate modelling abilities of Plasticene?

The Rubik’s Cube was one of the top toys from the 1980’s, and indeed is still made and sold today, and is just as infuriating to solve as it ever was. Nowadays however there is a new edition to the Rubik’s Cube family, but instead of being a puzzle this one is a little more useful. Introducing the Rubik Cube Clock, which is available from Gobaz. UPDATE! Gobaz have closed and I have been unable to find another source for this!

It may actually be slightly larger than a real Rubik’s Cube, but it certainly looks the part. The middle row of one of the faces has been replaced with an LCD display, with the bottom row being buttons that allow you to adjust the time. The best bit though is that the top slice rotates just like a real Rubik’s Cube, and this allows you to switch between the different functions provided.

Obviously the clock mode is the most common feature you’ll use, after all why else would you buy a clock? The Cube Clock can also display the current date, the time its alarm has been set for and even the current room temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.

All in all I reckon this would make an excellent gift for any Child of the 1980’s, so long as they don’t get confused and try to cheat by pulling off the stickers or prising it apart with a screwdriver.