Let's Do The Time Warp

Yesterday morning Princess G was doodling T-Shirt designs on a piece of scratch paper. She's been doing this since she watched the Oscars last week- drawing outfits on scrap paper. She's our creative one, for sure. Mr. C was encouraging her along, giving her "graphics" advice and I, perhaps, was feeling a tiny bit left out. I mean, come on, Red Carpet designs? Isn't this a mother's territory? So, I felt inclined to pipe in with "When I was a girl I had this toy called Fashion Plates." Then I proceeded to try to describe it using my old, mushy memory. But when I heard myself describe the plate parts as "kinda like graham crackers" (you know, because they broke into thirds and you could mix and match the maroon leather boots with the 80's styling cowl neck sweater dress), I realized that I needed a visual aid.

And that's when I found this gold mine: http://www.retroland.com/retroblog/

Princess G and her creative designs were left in the dust as Mr. C and I got completely sucked into the 70's/80's time warp that is Retroland. If you are ever feeling nostalgic, I suggest you go there. It's good for the soul. (Or maybe it was because Big Mama reminded me that I was ready for it ever since I saw the tribute to John Hughes on Oscar Night.)

In any case, tonight I thought I'd take a little walk down memory lane and reminisce about some of my favorite 80's toys. Grab your velcro high tops and come along.

1. I have to start with the Fashion Plates, for obvious reasons.

Yep, there's my "graham crackers". Just like I remember them.

2. I know this is still around, but Princess G has the Dora The Explorer version of Candyland, and it's not the same. I love looking at the old school version. And I KNOW I'm not the only kid who actually licked the game board to see if the pictures tasted as good as they looked.

Am I?

3. Okay, the picture on this one does not do it justice. What I need here is a certain polaroid I have in mind. It's of my sisters geared up in the Get In Shape Girl legwarmers, headbands, and barbells. They're lunging and jogging to the electronic synthesized beat of Get In Shape, Girl! There may have been some pastel colored gymnastic ribbons involved too.

4. Intellivision. My sisters and I begged and pleaded for Atari, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. My parents said that Intellivision would have to be good enough for us. Astrosmash was no PacMan, but in hindsight it wasn't too bad.

5. I was totally retarded in math. Totally. Retarded. For Christmas one year my parents got me this Speak N Say. I still sucked at math, but I did kind of like the monotone droid voice telling me "wrong! try again." It was strangely addicting. It also drove my parents nuts, so that was a plus too.




There's a start. I hate to be so unprofessional, but Mr. C and I are in the middle of "17 Again" and it's way better than I thought it would be. Sooooooo, I'm going to cut this post short while I channel all my nostalgia onto a very grown up Zac Effron. When did he get so handsome? Those stylists at Disney obviously didn't do him justice.

Anyway, I'll continue tomorrow with some memories from the 80's toy box.

Later dudes. (that's an 80's reference, for those of you who may have thought I've just had too much wine.)