Weird shit from an 80s childhood

[CandidFruit]

Reading through the retro sweets thread reminded me of some other random stuff from growing up in the early 80s.

Who else remembers the garbage pail kids? (I mean, Cabbage patch kids was bad enough!)
Now that is some seriously weird shit!

Mind you, I bet anything if you have the full set, you’ll probably be able to pay off your mortgage 😂

I see the pogo disco ball and raise you a skippet!
I miss having toys in cereal boxes too.

I loved Quincy md as a kid but can't watch it now. It's so creepy.

Very early 80's in the Christmas nativity at nursery. I was a sheep! No costume- just white underpants and a white vest top, bleating and prancing around like a sheep! I still remember it and my mum has the photos to prove it! 😱

I just remember scratch n sniff teeshirts (anything yellow just smelled of rotting bananas) and ra-ra skirts…

My kids still love the lollies from the chemist with the whistle. They didn't go away or if they did, they came back

Someone should bring Rainbow Brite back. Surely if ever we needed a strong female character who cared about the environment, it's now?

Early 80s here

Love is ...
MACOS
Mini films - the bear catches a salmon er al

Omg, forgot about fashion wheel, I loved it! Also something called something like spirograph, you fitted cog type plastic shapes in a circle and basically just whirled your pen round and round and round and make what was probably a pretty crap pattern... But entertained me for ages.

Why did chemists in the 80s/90s ALWAYS sell lollipops, like Chupa Chups and the whistle ones mentioned by PPs?

It's akin to the way that cobblers also cut keys and engrave trophies: deeply incongruous, but we just kind of... accept it as a thing.

I had a Boglin …and still do! I used to enjoy putting a baby bonnet and little knitted cardie on and taking it out a walk in my doll’s pram 👹

Our chemist also sold twigs that you chewed to brush your teeth. I badgered my Mum for one once and it tasted as good as it looked.

I had the glo worm with the glowing head, it was ace.

And yes to Round the Twist, it was excellent.

Going live once had a Smelly Vision episode. You had to get hold of a scratch and sniff card (maybe with Smash Hits?) and they went round some old house or something, like a medieval castle(?) and directed you which bits to sniff as they went.

I've also just remembered a music show that had a phone in competition every week. You had to answer a pop music question. I don't even think there was a prize, but I used to walk round to the phone box to call in anyway. Complete waste of time and money, but it seemed quite fun at the time.

Does anyone remember a weekly magazine that was for adults but had a kids colouring competition in it? I keep thinking of something like Readers Digest or Dairy Diary or something like that, but I don't think either are the right one. Used to be gutted every week to find I didn't win again.

We always used to go to the chemist for a melody pop after we'd been to the dentist!

Does anyone remember the chocolate cigarettes with the edible paper? (Well I think the paper was edible 😬)

Different shaped Rubik cubes circles and pyramids

Amelia Jane dolls

Collecting stickers and the sheer excitement of buying the packs from the newsagents

Playing marbles on outside drains

The sindy house, my friend had one and I loved the lights that worked, I was never allowed one as too pricey!

Mini chocolate vending machine

Lola ball, weird ball thing that you stood on and bounced, I got a second hand one I was chuffed.

Fruity smelling pens

Snoopy

Fuzzy felt

So many things mentioned here that I had, what a flood of memories! You guys are definitely my year at school.

Fashion wheel
Lights alive
Spirograph
My little ponies (loads)
Rainbow brite and her horse, plus a big green thingy (the things they held, whatever they were called... sprites?)
Care bear (friend bear)
Girls world head
Get in shape girl ribbon
A la carte kitchen
Mr frosty (it was rubbish)
Care bears sticker album, almost full
1x garbage pail kid I somehow acquired (the one with loads of holes in his body drinking water and it all spilling out)
My brother had a boglin

A few others i can think of:
Webster the spider (but the small ones with the playhouse)
Stick n lift
Big yellow teapot
Green treehouse playset thing (got that from a blue peter bring and buy sale)
Sylvanian families

Jeez I could go on

I went to an '80s party last night.

(For which I mostly used my own wardrobe, though obviously the late '80s end, because I wouldn't have fitted into the pedal pushers I had when I was 10.)

I'm not British, so I am missing some of the pop culture du hour references.

But

Does anyone remember having an easy bake oven? Slush puppy machine? Or a Lite Brite? Trolls?

Definitely grew up on the garbage can candies. The green ones were the best. We also had this weird excuse for a chocolate cigarette. They came in packs of 20. Weird hardened chocolate wanna be sludge, wrapped in sugared rice paper. If you blew on them, it looked like they were "smoking"

Cap guns, slap bands, the new kids on the block, neon stripped biker shorts, leg warmers, and Terry Alice bands.

I loved being a kid in the 80s/90s

I still can't get the 'Dogtanian and the Muskehounds' theme tune out of my head!!

I really wanted a typewriter from an ad, think it was Petite 990 or similar name. The ad was Dolly Partons 'working 9 to 5'. Anyone remember?

We used to hire a VHS player for Christmas and a birthday weekend and it was heaven. We rented Annie each time as far as I remember. We bought the soundtrack tape and were obsessed. When the local secondary school did a production, we gave them our tape to work from. My sis and i didn't even go to the school! Someone in our school had a sister and told the teacher they knew of a family that had one so it was requested of us. It all seems ridiculous now.

Edible cigarettes - already mentioned upthread. I told my kids recently about these and they couldn't believe it!!

The Flowers in the Attic book series 😮😮😳

I loved Fuzzy Felts, I remember having a hospital themed one.
And Big Yellow Teapot being my main Christmas present one year, I was ecstatic.
Also used to get Bunty delivered, loved The Four Mary's. I still have loads of old Mandy and Bunty annuals.

@LawrieForShepherdsBoy yes I loved them. Also a series called Heaven, think by the same author. A wealthy teenage runs away to be raised by hillbillies, she was pregnant by her step father. Then she had a lover called Logan or something like that? My parents were very strict on TV and movie ratings but they never thought of books. I was only about 11 reading them.

Cabbage Patch Kids! I spent ages choosing a red-haired girl with green eyes and green gingham dress. The name on her birth certificate was Brian Ignatius.

Christ I stacked on a turn.