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Archive for the ‘Toys - Tricks and Jokes’ Category

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Stink Bombs

Posted by Big Boo on June 23rd, 2010

stink bombsThere were (and still are) a number of fun practical jokes you can get, such as Snappy Gum and the good old Whoopee Cushion, but there were also some rather more unpleasant ones, such as the subject of today’s post – the Stink Bomb.

A Stink Bomb does exactly what it says it does. It makes a terrible smell. Usually coming as little glass tubes containing a yellowish liquid, to use them you simply dropped them on a hard floor so they smashed, releasing the liquid which would then react with the air to make an awful stench, normally either like bad eggs or perhaps like bodily functions…

This was the kind of prank you really didn’t want to have played on you! I’m happy to say I never was the victim, nor was anyone I know, but I have experienced there effect, or at least I believe I have.

When I was a kid my parents would often take us to a shopping centre in the nearest big town to where we lived – The Butts Centre in Reading (since renamed The Broad Street Mall). The Butts Centre still had a very late sixties/early seventies feel to it when I was young, with orange and brown signs and decor in the public areas.

The centre was on two levels, with most of the big, well known shops on the ground floor. The second floor was comprised of more local independent shops, and sadly didn’t see as much footfall, so it became a bit of a spot for bored older kids to hang out with their mates.

I distinctly remember one time we went up to this floor to look in a little arts and crafts type shop, but on riding the escalator up to the top level we found ourselves holding our noses as it truly did smell like rotten eggs. I think we ended up spending five minutes in the shop then heading straight back down the escalator!

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Fake Dog Poo

Posted by Big Boo on April 19th, 2010

fake dog pooWhen you’re a kid there’s something strangely funny about bodily functions, so whoever came up with the idea of making fake plastic dog poo was certainly on to a winner. It might be disgusting to us adults (although I’m sure a wry smile came over your face when you saw the picture) but every kid would simply go mad over their own piece of plastic dog doings.

If you happened to have a dog this cheap trick was a great way of getting your Mum all worked up with the dog. Simply place it somewhere in the house (carpet was always the best, as it would be the hardest to clean if it had been real dog poo) and wait for your Mum to discover it and start telling off the dog.

From a distance this toy was surprisingly realistic, and it even had that classic dog poo shape, all twisted round on itself like the dog had been wiggling its backside about whilst it did its business.

The good news is for all you childish pranksters out there, you can still get hold of this joke item. Once such place is the Stocking Fillers website.

And whilst were on the subject of dog poo (and sorry to be disgusting – I hope you’re not eating your tea) but has anybody noticed any of that white dog poo these days. I always remember seeing the odd piece of white dog poo in grass verges on the way to school, and wondered why it was it was white. To this day I don’t know what caused this phenomenon (maybe I imagined it) but I guess with people (quite rightly) expected to clean up after their dogs these days the chances of spotting any are slim – but maybe that’s a good thing…

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Trick Stick

Posted by Big Boo on March 1st, 2010

trick stickHere’s a nice obscure one for you. So obscure in fact that I ended up having to create my own image to go with this post!

The Trick Stick was a rod of yellow plastic, about 3 feet long, with a big red ball of plastic on each end. Attached to the middle of the rod was a length of thin plastic cord, which had a ring on the other end. Sound exciting, doesn’t it? You slipped the ring on your finger and voila, you became a master magician, able to make a plastic stick seemingly float in the air around you!

The idea was obviously based on the floating wand tricks performed by many stage magicians over the years, but being made of primary coloured plastic it never looked quite as cool as a magicians black cane. Couple that with the fact that getting the stick to do anything that looked remotely realistic was near impossible, and you end up with a toy that severely failed to deliver on the promises of the TV advert.

Yep, on TV the person demonstrating it could do more than just spin it round their arm. This guy made it float between his hands and whizz around his head, things which were really not a good idea to attempt in the comfort of your own home, unless you liked having a lot of broken ornaments and a smashed TV set, which is what you wanted to do with the Trick Stick the next time the advert came on.

In the end, after trying to look all mystical with it and failing miserably, my Trick Stick normally ended up being held in the middle and spun round and round as fast as I could get it to go, like a majorette twirling her baton in a carnival procession. It wasn’t even very good at that though, as you had to watch that you didn’t get whipped in the eye by the plastic cord and ring.

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Pop Up Toys

Posted by Big Boo on October 23rd, 2009

pop up toyHere’s another of those pocket money toys that I’m sure you had as a kid, but which you’ve since forgotten all about. Pop Up Toys!

The Pop Up Toy, for want of a better name, was a fun little toy packed with suspense! OK, maybe that makes it sound a bit too exciting but they were fun. They consisted of a round plastic base that had a shaft running vertically upwards. A spring was placed onto the shaft, and on top of that a rubber suction cup.

The whole thing was finished off with some weird and wacky plastic creation of some kind, which could literally be anything, although creatures that jump were always a good bet, such as insects or kangaroos, or perhaps Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout.

To set the toy you push down on the top so the suction cup came into contact with the plastic base and held the whole thing together. The spring would cause the suction cup to slowly come unstuck, until suddenly the whole thing leapt into the air, ably demonstrating Newton’s Third Law.

I thought these little toys had all but disappeared but you can still get one with a bright yellow smiley face on top for the just fifty pence from Stocking Fillers. Funnily enough, they make quite good stocking fillers!

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Stocking Fillers - Suppliers to Father Christmas
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Whoopee Cushions

Posted by Big Boo on January 6th, 2009

whoopee cushionHere’s another classic from the old jokes and tricks rotatey display thingy that toy shops and newsagents often used to have. The humble Whoopee Cushion was always to be found somewhere within the selection of snappy gum, hot boiled sweets and fake plastic vomit.

The Whoopee Cushion was very simply intended to raise laughs from that comedy basic – human flatulence.  Resembling a balloon (but made from thicker rubber that always looked like it was covered in a fine powder for some reason) you simply inflated it and placed it on a chair for some unwitting victim to sit down on.

Somehow the end of the Whoopee Cushion stayed sealed, keeping the air inside, until pressure was applied to the main balloon part.  This caused the air to escape through the neck, which vibrated to make the distinctive sound of air escaping from down below, although thankfully not the smell which this process also often involves.

A simple prank, the most amusing thing to me was the picture of the fat lady sitting down in the chair, with a little speech bubble coming out of it saying “poo!”.  I’m pleased to say some things do stay the same, as you can still get Whoopee Cushions with the same image adorning them from Stocking Fillers!

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Paul Daniels’ Magic Tricks

Posted by Big Boo on September 18th, 2008

paul-daniels-magic-tricksAs a kid I really enjoyed performing magic tricks for my family and friends. I was never really that good at it, but I had fun and was fascinated by how confused people could be when you performed some apparently magical act in front of their very eyes.

Most people in the UK will probably be familiar with Paul Daniels, the TV magician (he’s currently on an advert for Tesco’s insurance comparison website). During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s he had a very popular television magic show, sadly not the sort of thing you see on TV these days. Mr. Daniels was one of my childhood heroes, and I was a big fan of his show.

I was particularly excited therefore when I first came across his range of magic tricks in a toy shop. The tricks were all packaged in little curvy shaped cardboard boxes with a little cellophane window on the front allowing you to look inside at the magical props it contained. The colour of the packaging dictated the difficulty level of the trick, from blue being easy, through purple and red to black, the latter being dubbed for “Master Magicians”.

Read more…

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Snappy Gum

Posted by Big Boo on June 26th, 2008

Snappy GumDo you remember visiting your local toy shop and looking at one of those rotating display stands that was brimming with tricks and jokes? From whoopee cushions to nails through fingers the stand was loaded with little toys at pocket money prices. You don’t seem to see these as often as you did, but they are still around if you look hard enough.

One of the toy jokes I distinctly remember was the Snappy Chewing Gum. This consisted of a piece of cardboard decorated to look like an ordinary stick of chewing gum when it was inserted into a standard packet of gum. The difference was that it had a sprung loaded piece of wire with a loop on one end stuck to it, something along the lines of the dangerous part of a mouse trap.

Approaching your victim you would nonchalantly ask if they wanted a stick of chewing gum. When they attempted to take the gum out of the packet the trap would be triggered, with the metal wire snapping forward onto their finger with a surprisingly loud whacking sound. If you got it just right then it could actually be quite painful.

This joke could only be spoiled in two ways. First, your victim refused the gum in the first place, but that wasn’t so bad because you could just seek out another person to surprise. The real spoiler was when the person took the stick of gun by using two fingers either side of the stick of gum, rather than one on top and one underneath.

This and a range of other chewing gum related pranks are still available today from SillyJokes.

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Devil Bangers / Fun Snaps

Posted by Big Boo on April 14th, 2008

Fun SnapsIf you wanted to scare the living daylights out of your younger siblings then there was nothing better than the Devil Banger. I’m amazed that they are still available and haven’t been banned by Health and Safety years ago. These days they appear to be known as Fun Snaps, but they’re basically the same as I remember them.

The Devil Banger was basically a little piece of thin white paper filled with some kind of explosive material – maybe you can see now why I’m surprised they haven’t been banned! When thrown with force at a hard surface or stepped upon the material ignited with a loud snapping sound, blasting the paper surrounding the explosive contents apart in the process. If thrown at the right time you could scare the wits out of any passer by, which was lots of fun. Of course, if you did this within earshot of a parent or teacher you’d likely find your supply of them confiscated.

They came in boxes of around 50 bangers packed in a plastic bag full of shavings to keep them dry, because they became useless when wet. I presume that the active ingredient must be something similar to that used in the snaps for Christmas Crackers, but I have no idea what it is, or how potent it could potentially be!

If you fancy getting hold of a pack or two they are available from Silly Jokes for just 89 pence per pack, but please be responsible when throwing them around the office to scare your boss!

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