Showing posts with label 80s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 80s. Show all posts
Thursday, March 30, 2017
80s and 90s Sugar High
80s and 90s Sugar High
Sometimes we all look back and cringe just a bit at the sugary garbage we ate as children. Though it may still hold some nostalgic appeal, it’s tough to defend some of the candy we so adored as kids. You would think we were all spent a significant portion of our youth drifting into diabetic shock--how else to explain the pure sugar our parents pushed down our throats? I can only assume they had no orange juice on hand and had to save our lives with the cunning use of Pixie Sticks. There’s just no other explanation for willingly serving your child the equivalent of the contents of your sugar bowl.
For those of us who now work with or have children of our own, we know the lure of bribery is one we cannot always ignore. Do your homework? Have some Nerds! Clean your room? Help yourself to the Fun Dip. Sure, it’s morally ambiguous, but it works. Sometimes, you’ve just got to give in and let the kids be kids. In this case, that means our parents allowed us to hype ourselves up on a diet of pure sugar only to crash later with unforeseen consequences of immeasurable crankiness. We loved them for that moment in which they relinquished the candy, though, and that’s what really counts.
We ate all sorts of processed sugar masquerading as innocent snacks, but here are a few of the sweetest culprits:
Pixy Stix
Possibly the worst offender, Pixy Stix were composed of little more than colored sugar. Apparently an acceptable snack consists of taking pure sugar and a dab of food coloring and calling it a kid-friendly nosh. The worst of the worst prize went to the giant-size straw version, which we can only imagine contained a full two-pound bag of refined sugar.Fun Dip
What better to dip candy in than candy? It’s a perfect solution to all your dipping needs. Simply take sugar molded into a solid mass and dip it into its granulated counterpart. Delicious.Nerds
Nerds may have been glorified color-coated rock candy, but we can award some credit where due for delicious flavor combinations. Nerds conveniently packaged two complementary flavors in a single box, allowing us to ingest our flavor sugar with a well-balanced palette. Jawbreakers
If you thought it was kind of gross simply to consume sugar-laden hard candy, imagine adding an element of extreme germ exposure to the mix. The problem with Jawbreakers lay in the fact that they were simply too large to be consumed in a single sitting. The result? Days of your giant candy hanging out in a bowl or similar open-air receptacle, collecting delicious dust mite seasoning mix.Pop Rocks
Pop Rocks have been available since the 70s, but their popularity saw a resurgence in the 80s following their restock on candy store shelves. The candy suffered briefly from the implications of an urban legend that claimed the candy could make your stomach explode when mixed with soda. It can’t, for the record, but it still does work to scare children as effectively as it did back then.Warheads/Cry Babies
Children have a naturally competitive nature, so it’s little surprise that they became the target market for discomfort-themed food. It may not sound especially pleasant to endure a painfully sour candy throughout the dissolution of its coating, which is because it’s not. At all. Not even a little bit. With children, though, the natural playground spirit of competition made candies like Warheads a huge hit--not to mention a major indicator of elementary school street credibility.Sour Patch Kids
Sour Patch Kids represent sour flavor in its slightly less repugnant form--as a sugar coating over a chewy fruit snack-type candy. It admittedly burns off a taste bud or two, but it’s a small price to pay for coolness in front of your pro-sour friends.Push Pops/Ring Pops
Of course, no discussion of sugary 90s candies would be complete without mention of two of the most traded and widely respected hard candies on the playground market: push pops and ring pops. Both caused unnecessarily sticky messes and had limited functionality outside of their general novelty appeal, but who cares? They were delicious in their own sugary way. Though, to be fair, they did give a generation of young girls very unrealistic expectations about the size of a rock they could be expecting on their engagement ring. It should go without saying that I just can’t discuss 90s-themed sugar highs without playing the eponymous song from Empire Records. All of the sugary sweetness, none of the calories. Enjoy!
Available link for download
Thursday, March 2, 2017
80s and 90s Back to School Checklist School Supply Trends
80s and 90s Back to School Checklist School Supply Trends
It’s that time of year again. You know the one: the time for back-to-school shopping and all the fresh-smelling new school supplies your child-sized heart can fathom. It’s tough as adults to deny the covetousness we feel when passing the mid-to-late August back-to-school displays at Target or OfficeMax. Even former low-performing students with an aversion to all things academic feel the allure of freshly sharpened pencils and shiny new folders; they symbolize an anticipation for a year that’s tough to match as a grown-up as the seasons blend together in ubiquitous office life.
Though we can’t go back to those simpler times in which colorful erasers could denote immeasurable promise and potential, we can at least reminisce about the items that gave us that rush of August or September excitement. I even give you full license to stop at that school supply display next time you’re out shopping and buy a 45 cent puppy folder or two--it’s a small price to pay to recapture the delight of back-to-school items like these.
Trapper Keepers
No back-to-school supply list would be complete without a big binder to hold it all together, and no binder proved more popular in the 80s and 90s than the Trapper Keeper. With its flashy licensed designs and velcro closure, it served as the perfect all-purpose paper holder for school-age children.
Lisa Frank Folders
We’ve talked about Lisa Frank merchandise a lot here at Children of the 90s, and with good reason: it was everywhere. You couldn’t open a girl’s backpack in the mid-90s without finding a store inventory-level variety of Lisa Frank paraphernalia. Most little girls have a natural inclination toward loving colorful kittens playfully canoodling with high top sneakers or bunny rabbits laced tightly into ballet slippers. Lisa Frank simply played into this scientifically proven fact with major financial results.Sanrio Erasers
All kids need to clean up after their mistakes, so what better way to do so than with an eraser printed with the whimsical Japanese Sanrio characters? Whether you were a Kerroppi fan or a Batz Maru fiend, these collectable erasers usually found their way into your pencil box.Yikes! Pencils
Yikes! Pencils were all the rage in the early-to-mid 90s. As the above commercial suggests, Yikes are the only pencils as unique as you. Even though everyone else had them. Aside from that minor detail, the commercial tagline says it all: “They write like other pencils, but they make you go, ‘Yikes!’”
Pencil Cases
Of course, you had to store all of these supplies somewhere: your cubby wasn’t going to organize itself. Selection of the perfect pencil case was always a good way to kick off a new year. It was important to set the tone with a colorful translucent plastic case textured with bumps or perhaps the more sensible opaque case bearing a picture of--you guessed it--pencils. There’s something to be said for taking things literally.
Gel Pens
Following the release of gel pens, it seemed all art supply and office stores immediately had the best colors placed on backorder. The reason? Young children purchased these writing utensils nearly as quickly as they were shelved. With fun metallic or signature “milky” colors, gel pens were a fairly certain way to render your eventual yearbook inscriptions both sparkly and indecipherable. Lunchables
Lunchables aren’t exactly a school supply per se, but they were a staple for earning some serious cafeteria clout. Parents concerned with nutrition and possessing general anti-junk food attitudes weren’t likely to be found of these lab-generated Oscar Meyer concoctions, but parents short on time seeking convenience surely appreciated their simplicity. They may not have borne especial resemblance to real food, but they were fun to assemble and devour. Plus, the fancier versions came complete with fun size candy bar and Capri Sun juice box. What more could you have asked for?
Pencil Toppers
For those of us who couldn’t decide between toys and school supplies, pencil toppers provided us an excellent middle ground. Teachers undoubtedly despised these unnecessary distractions for their complete lack of functionality, but kids adored the notion of their pencils wearing a little Troll doll hat. Adorable. Available link for download
Saturday, February 25, 2017
80s and 90s Kids Arts and Crafts Part II
80s and 90s Kids Arts and Crafts Part II
Welcome back to another edition of 80s and 90s’ kids’ arts and crafts. For those of you in the States, I hope you had a nice long holiday weekend. To my international readers, I’m sorry you have to continually endure the assumptions that you care about the United States’ independence. My condolences.
Before we get to the good stuff, a quick note: You may notice the posts here at Children of the 90s becoming a bit more intermittent over the next couple of weeks. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Well, actually the previous statement is completely false: I am going somewhere, though the move will take place in the real physical world instead of the virtual one. I’m in the midst of a housing to move to parts as of yet unknown and am thus fully consumed by the arduous task of hauling furniture and packing up boxes.
I’ve never been much for manual labor, so the inevitable strain on my delicate self is taking up valuable blogging time. For the next few weeks, I appreciate your understanding of our temporary on-again, off-again relationship. Believe you, it’s not you, it’s me. And my incredibly overstuffed apartment.
For now, though, let’s resume our stroll down memory lane into the world of 80s and 90s arts and crafts. Believe me, I would rather be doing any of these things--no matter how ultimately tedious--than packing up a few years worth of accumulated stuff. If I had a velvet poster to color in or a spin-art wheel to operate, you’d bet my progress would be slowed significantly. Not to mention my belongings would be far more paint-splattered, though be fair it would be in an artfully random pattern.
Based on your much-appreciated write-in suggestions, here are a few more of the vaguely arts and crafts-related activities that held our attention as children. There’s still a part 3 likely coming your way, so feel free to add additional suggestions to the comments section or by email at childrenofthe90s@gmail.com.
Scratch Art
For those of us lucky enough to have parents willing to spring $4.99 or so for a packet of pre-made scratch sheets, we enjoyed the hassle free scraping of surprisingly colorful designs from a black background. Others among us didn’t fare quite as well, opting to create our own scratch boards from, well, scratch.
Doing so involved the arduous task of filling a full page with random colored patches and using an entire black Crayola crayon to do you color-cover bidding. Your hand and arm would be incredibly exhausted from the whole ordeal, but at least you were able to reap the reward of some sweet vibrant etching.
Velvet Coloring Posters
I passed one of these at CVS the other day and found myself fighting the urge to purchase it and customize my very own velvet portrait of a unicorn galloping whimsically across a full arch rainbow. Despite my knowledge as a grownup that these posters are extremely tacky, there’s something so tempting about embarking on an endless and time-consuming velvet poster coloring project. Plus they’re velvet. Velvet! That stuff comes across as pretty classy to a seven-year old.
Ironable Perler Beads
We spent many, many hours in my house tediously placing plastic beads a millimeter in diameter each onto flat bumpy molds. Whoever thought these up was either a genius or incredibly sadistic, depending on your views on occupying a child with a mindless task for multiple hours at a time.
The molds came in different shapes and could produce different designs using the multicolored beads. Simply cover, iron, and ta-da! A piece of useless junk. But hey, it was your piece of useless junk. There’s a difference.
Spin Art
Just in case you were looking for a way to make painting messier and more airborne, you’re in luck: someone else has already come up with it and mass-marketed it. There actually used to be a professional Spin-Art center at our local mall, but I’m guessing the availability of allegedly easy-to-use at-home kits put them out of business.
The process was simple but undeniably attractive to mess-hungry children. You put a piece of paper on the spinner, activated the motion, and squirted various paint colors in its general vicinity as it spun. It was like a maxed-out version of the Spirograph: no skill required, guaranteed to create interesting artful symmetry.
Friendship Bracelets
I recently caught an episode of How It’s Made featuring the hammock-making process that led me to believe I could someday take on a lucrative career as a hammock craftswoman. The reason? The countless hours I spent weaving embroidery floss into masterfully crafted bracelets and anklets. How else can we children of the 90s put to use our skill at creating patterns like tornado, chevron, and candy stripe?If you have a solution, feel free to let me know--I’m actually in the market for a new career. I don’t have Friendship Bracelet Making as its own category on my resume, but I’m willing to work it in for the right professional macrame post. Really, let me know.
Available link for download
Thursday, February 23, 2017
80s and 90s Kids’ Arts and Crafts Part III
80s and 90s Kids’ Arts and Crafts Part III
Welcome to the final installment of 80s and 90s Kids’ Arts and Crafts. For parts I and II, check here and here. Thanks again to everyone for your understanding on the intermittent posting over the next few weeks or so during my much-dreaded moving time. A psychology class once taught me that intermittent reinforcement is the most effective variety, so maybe my readership will consequently explode. All this time, I’ve been ringing my little Pavlovian nostalgia bell and bringing you to salivate for post reinforcement daily, when apparently you could have been twice as drooly had I only fed you memories a few times a week. Who knew?
This batch of crafts was especially contingent on reader suggestions, so thank you to everyone who contributed their misty water-and/or-crayon-colored memories of complicated kits and toys our parents used to shut us up for an hour or two. We may not have been creating great masterpieces, but they were at least enough to inspire temporary pride for minimal effort--the preferred combination for children with creative energy but little hopes of a professional future in the fine arts.
Lite Brite
I hadn’t previously considered this to be much of a craft, but after so many write-ins, it was clear it fits the bill. After all, if Magnadoodle and Etch-a-Sketch made the cut, there’s no reason to exclude the Lite-Brite on account of its transient nature. They weren’t lasting works of art, but they were sparkly ones.
The television commercials always showed children just like us creating elaborate patterns with the tiny bulbs, leading us to believe they held great artistic potential. When we got our very own Lite-Brite, however, it became clear most of them were working from the pre-made pattern punch-out sheets.
In case you haven’t yet gotten over the thrill of tediously placing tiny bulbs in pre-cut sockets, Hasbro online has a Lite Brite Simulator. Amazing, right? It’s just as painstakingly laborious as I remember, only in this version you have the option to print your works of virtual art. If you’ll please excuse me, I’m off to spend three hours clicking faux-lit dots into simulated slots.
Fantastic Flowers
As someone who owned this toy, allow me to attest to the fact it was exactly as fun as the commercial suggests. Using little-to-no artistic effort, you could punch out perfectly formed flowers, affix them to premade stems, and voila! Art. The paper it came with was scented, so your result were flowers that smelled like, well, scented paper. Pretty impressive nonetheless.
Craft Loops
In retrospect, these seem like a suspiciously-motivated ploy by parents to set up little potholder sweatshop operations in their very own homes. “Oh, here you go, Susie. Just take these loops and this little loom and weave Mommy some pot-holders. Unless you want to burn your fragile little hands on the tuna casserole dish next time. I know how you hated the blistering. So, you know, it’s pretty important you craft an 8 by 10 square from these little circles."Bedazzlers
If this was still available through a simple TV offer in three easy payments of $9.99, you can bet I’d be dialing that 800-number and reciting my check or money order information. That commercial is incredibly convincing. Blouses! Belts! Boots! Denim jackets! If only I could find that denim baseball cap I bedazzled in my youth, my life could be complete. And sparkly!
This device was relatively simple to use, meaning that in the hands of the wrong person it could lead to some very dangerous non-industry regulated rhinestoning. While a mass-producing manufacturer of clothing realizes that 200 rhinestones on a single collar is a bit much, a bedazzler-crazed regular Josephina may think it’s a grand idea. Heavy, but grand. And, you know. Sparkly.
Shrinky Dinks
You cut ‘em, you bake ‘em, they shrink. Exciting, no?
Lanyards
Any of us who ever went to summer camp are more than familiar with lanyard craftsmanship. Literally the poor man’s friendship bracelet, these useless neon-colored heaps of flexible plastic served as keychains and nametag necklace holders. We would take great pride in crafting a lanyard for a family member and then wonder why their grateful reaction seemed so strained. As adults, it’s clear to us now that it was because they knew that had to wear around this ugly piece of junk for at least a few weeks until we forgot we’d woven the eyesore.
Stained Glass/Suncatcher Kits
These things always seemed much cooler while still in their original packaging. The sample shown on the package was impeccable: a beautiful, uniformly sun-catching colored glass with excellent use of color. Our own work, however, was usually not quite so dazzling. It may have caught the sun, sure, but it blinded us with streaky, watered-down colored patches overflowing and bleeding into other areas on the suncatcher. Available link for download
Thursday, February 16, 2017
80s and 90s Celebrity Endorsements
80s and 90s Celebrity Endorsements
What impels us to buy something? Is it the quality of the item? The masterful craftsmanship? Maybe our deep sense of brand loyalty? Or, possibly, is it just because we saw someone famous using the product? Theyre cool and they use it, so my exceptional powers of deductive reasoning would lead me to believe that I too have the potential for coolness if only I would shell out the $19.99 plus shipping and handling for this incredibly handy and definitely not useless item.
The 90s would have most of us believing our reason to buy stems from the latter. Celebrity endorsements were everywhere, with actors, musicians, sports stars, and television personalities picking up side gigs hawking for every imaginable product. We couldnt turn on the TV or flip open a magazine without seeing our favorite stars testimonials to some product or other that they were certain we had to have. Granted, our voyeurism had not yet reached Perez Hilton 24hour celebrity watchdog level, so its possible these stars didnt have quite the level of influence and sway over us. That sounds suspiciously like a defensive excuse, though, from someone who bought a piece of junk because a celebrity told her to. Hey, Im not saying it was me, but...okay, it was me. Im still kicking myself for drinking milk just because those Got Milk? ads drew me in their catchy celebrity mustachioed photos with accompanying blurbs. I knew I should have listened to Fred Savage and had a Pepsi instead.
This strategy, like any marketing style, has its pitfalls. Recently weve seen companies pull the plug on celebrity spokespeople following some form of public relations debacle, such as in the cases of Kate Mosss cocaine allegations and Tiger Woods insatiable appetite for questionable women. Having a celebrity as your spokesperson can undoubtedly lend some credibility and clout to your product, but theres no guarantee your chosen celebrity will conduct himself in a manner aligned with your companys public image.
The list below is by no means exhaustive; countless celebrities signed on to promotional deals during the decade. It does highlight some of the more interesting backstories, though:
George Foreman Grill
Reclaiming the heavyweight championship at the overripe age of 45 is pretty impressive, but that feat has since been nearly eclipsed by George Foremans later success as a fat-busting grilling entrepreneur. Even though most of us knew Foreman as a tough guy boxer, he seemed almost cuddly in these commercial spots. Its tough to say exactly what impelled all of us to purchase these allegedly diet-supporting device from a man whose career was dependent on his maintenance of a heavy weight, but it was pretty fun to watch all of that fat drain off of our burgers.
Kathy Lee Gifford for Wal-Mart
When your PR firm tries to foresee potential damage control situations for a celebrity-endorsed product, its unlikely theyd come up with something quite as damaging as this one. Kathy Lee Gifford, then famous for her co-hosting gig on Regis and Kathy Lee, teamed up with Wal-Mart in the mid-90s to produce a clothing line. The line seemed to be a mutually beneficial deal until evidence surfaced that the Kathy Lee clothing was being produced at a Honduras sweatshop by young teenage girls. Even worse, the girls received around 31 cents an hour for up to 75 hours of weekly work. When the news broke, it was nothing short of a devastating scandal for both parties.
Paula Abdul for LA Gear
I have to say, these commercials were pretty convincing. Celebrities have endorsed flashy products for years, but perhaps never so literally as the LA Lights sneakers. As Paula says in the commercial, "Nobody tells me what to wear." This probably could have used an amendment like "...except the good people at LA Gear, who are telling me to wear these shoes in exchange for financial gain."
Michael Jordan for Nike
This one is pretty much a no-brainer: find the most successful and talented sports player of your time, and get him to shill for your sports-themed product. Even the least prestigious products can afford a sellout like, say, Shaq, but it takes a special type of product to draw in a Michael Jordan. I loved watching him on the Bulls, but I admit that Space Jam sealed the deal for me. To this day whenever Im in the market for Hanes tagless t-shirts, I reassure myself of the purchase with a heartfelt, "Its what Michael Jordan would want me to do."
Michael Jordan and Larry Bird for McDonalds
If you take nothing else away from this commercial, consider Jordans example of bringing a Big Mac along to the gym. Its like smoking a cigarette while jogging. Sure, youre working out, but the second variable is bringing you right back down to health baseline. This was shown in two parts during the Superbowl, culminating in a basketball shooting contest with the ultimate prize: a Big Mac. Im sure that these professional athletes gain no greater satisfaction from their sport than the thrill of earning their very own two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, on a sesame seed bun.
Madonna for Pepsi
You know youre in trouble when the Vatican is condemning your commercial. Madonna debuted her "Like a Prayer" single in a Pepsi ad, soon after releasing
Bill Cosby for Jello
Anyone who has ever attempted a Bill Cosby impression knows the most immediately recognizable elements to incorporate are invariably a vibrantly hued thick-knit sweater and a solid (gelatinous?) command of his classic Jell-O commercials. Theyre easily mockable, sure, but they are ultimately memorable, so it seems like the jokes on us: the advertising stuck.
Eric Clapton for Anhauser-Busch
If you want to split hairs, this ad series debuted in 1988, but its just too juicy to leave off the list. Clapton appeared in the ads shilling for Micheloeb with a version of "After Midnight." Unfortunately for the people at Anhauser-Busch, by the time these ads came out Clapton had admitted himself to a rehab facility and admitted to struggling with alcoholism. Yikes. Not exactly the implied message you want attached to your product. "Drink our beer....until you need professional intervention to stop."
Countless Celebrities for Got Milk?
These print ads were hugely popular throughout the 90s and beyond, with innumerable celebrities signing on to be a part of the mustachioed fun. The list of celebrity endorsers would elongate this post to about four times its legal limit, but suffice it to say most celebrities felt confident and secure aligning themselves with the generally non-controversial dairy industry.
Alyssa Milano, Mr. T, Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Arquette, Michael Jordan, Ed ONeill, and many, many more for various collect calling services
Services like 1-800-Collect and 10-10-220 (and other various random number combinations repeated daily to us via celebrity spokespeople) were everywhere in the 90s. With the widespread use of cell phones, these functions have slid into obscurity, but back in the 90s they were a legitimate necessity for some callers. To attract callers to use their respective services, companies enlisted the help of many, many different celebrities to urge us to dial their code so they could get paid already. I mean, so we could have cheaper long distance rates. Something like that.
Whether or not we like to admit it, the rich and famous have influence over our daily decisions. Their endorsement of a product or service may not convince us to buy it, but it certainly couldnt hurt. Unless, you know, it erupts in a huge public scandal like some of these did. In those cases, it probably hurt. I retract my previous statement.
Available link for download
Friday, February 3, 2017
80s and 90s Kids’ Arts and Crafts Part 1
80s and 90s Kids’ Arts and Crafts Part 1
Upon further examination, it seems like I should have titled this feature “Craft Aids for the Talent-Impaired Child Artist.” Parents of young children in the 80s and 90s were coming around to the self-esteem movement--meaning they had to pretend everything we did was pure gold in in an effort to not damage our allegedly fragile child egos. It’s the reason we all think we’re so good at everything. Gen Xers may have been better off with their cynicism--by the time Gen Y rolled around, our every breath was an action worthy of praise.
Whatever the reason, an overwhelming number of art-themed items from our 80s and 90s childhoods required relatively little skill or talent of any kind. Whether through creativity-eliminating drawing guides or mistake-erasable drawing tablets, these crafts held very low expectations for our artistic ability. That’s either very kind or very depressing, depending on how you look at it.
There’s no chance I could sum up all of the nostalgic arts and crafts items I’ve come up with--I just spent about forty minutes oohing and aahing over memory-jogging Google images. This is destined to be a multi-part series, so feel free to reminisce about your own favorites in the comments section. If your memories are convincing enough, who knows? They might just end up in Part II. You can only hope.
Fashion Plates/Light-Up Tracing Desk
Here is the ultimate in talent-free artistic expression: simply rub over or, as technology improves, trace some mix-and-match designs onto your very own piece of paper. You could switch out the different plates to change outfits, faces, and shoes. Inspired by the plates used by actual fashion designers, these more primitive versions were marketed to children. I had the later update light-up desk, which yielded a similar result with the added bonus of some technology: a little lightbulb.
Spirograph
Introduced in the mid-60s, the Spirograph has long been a favorite of geometrically-minded children. Using some mysterious principle described by lengthy equations and assorted Greek letters in the Spirograph Wikipedia entry, the circular gears produce various patterns and symmetrical shapes when poked with a pen or pencil. Growing up, our local science museum had a giant Spirograph that held some half-hearted intention to teach us some math, but unsurprisingly most child patrons were only interested in taking home their personal tear-sheet drawing.
Etch-a-Sketch/Magnadoodle/Magic Memo Pad
These devices seem lumpable into a single category on the basis of their underlying theme of immediately disposable, mess-free art. It’s clear why these toys appealed to our parents--no muss, no fuss, no ugly pictures they felt obligated to display on the fridge with forced pride. Simply swipe, shake, or peel, and start again--endless renewable art fun.
Kid Pix
For the tech-savvy among us, the computer became a veritable playground of virtual painting. I was not actually lucky enough to own Kid Pix, but I did occasionally have the chance to observe its awesomeness with its stamping and sound effects at a friend’s house. On my own, I was relegated to playing with the gradient function on our ClarisWorks, but I spent most of my allotted computer time fuming about my lack of Kid Pix.Paint by Numbers/Paint With Water
Paint-by-number sets were a popular and highly tedious exercise in futility. It took great resolve and concentration--attributes children do not generally possess--to get through one of these pictures. Once you get all the way up to matching all of the tiny little 14 spots to the number 14 color, several hours have elapsed. Bummer.
The Paint With Water Sets were far simpler, though they held a much greater novelty factor. Simply wet the colored part of the paper and it becomes drippy and messy and allegedly paintable. I actually had a several minutes-long discussion with my boyfriend regarding whether these mysterious sets actually existed or if I pulled the notion from the far expanses of my overactive imagination. Grueling Google searches conclude that they do in fact exist and thus I did not dream up a Muppet Babies-themed wonder featuring built in paper paint. Score one, me.
Available link for download
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