The Furby toy was the original children’s electronic pet. They talked in their own language and could be trained to learn English with enough patience. They required feeding, could dance and could also talk to each other. Every 90’s kid’s dream.

Let’s look back at where they all began and what made them the must have toy of the 90’s.

Furby History

The Furby toy was created by Dave Hampton, Caleb Chung and Richard C Levy who sold the design to Tiger Electronics before production. Furby toys were first introduced in 1998 at the American International Toy Fair and took the world by storm, selling 1.8 million in the first 12 months with over 40 million sold in the first three years of trading.

Furbies were the original robot/pet children’s toy with the main concept being that you could ‘teach’ the Furby the English language. Furbies arrived only speaking in ‘Furbish’ and with time were programmed to gradually ‘learn’ English. Furbies could interact with each other via infrared and if sat close to each other, would hold a conversation (in Furbish) with each other.

There was one main flaw of the original Furby which was the difficulty of keeping it ‘asleep’. Furbies sleep when put into a dark room and arise again with light or the sound of a loud noise. This lead to them being kept in wardrobes or cupboards overnight to avoid them rising too early.

In 2005 Hasbro took over the rights for Furbies and since then there has been two major revivals of the Furby, in 2005 and 2012, to keep up with the latest technologies.

Furbish Language

All Furbies start off speaking ‘Furbish’ and gradually over time they were programmed to forget the Furbish language and replace their words and phrases with English ones. A few of the common Furby phrases were:

• Wee-tah-kah-loo-loo – Tell me a joke.
• Wee-tah-kah-wee-loo – Tell me a story.
• Wee-tee-kah-wah-tee – Sing me a song.
• U-nye-loo-lay-doo? – Do you want to play?
• U-nye-ay-tay-doo? – Are you hungry?
• U-nye-boh-doo? – How are you?
• U-nye-way-loh-nee-way – Go to sleep now.
• U-nye-noh-lah – Show me a dance.

Furby Through the Years

There have been several new releases of Furbies over the years. With the main advances being introduced from 2005 when Hasbro took over. The first ‘new’ Furby released was named the ‘Emoto-Tronic Furby’ and was noticeably larger than the classic version and came with upgraded features including an improved voice recognition system and the removal of sensors that made the original Furbies come alive at the sound of noise or the sense of light.

A year later Hasbro introduced a Furby Babies range to attract a younger audience which came in a smaller format yet again and a lower level of features. The next main upgrade came in 2012 after a five-year quiet spell. This update included more features that you could ever imagine and included connection with iOS and Android Apps.

The new Furbies came in a wide variety of different colours and came with enhanced facial features and a larger range of motions. Along side the new physical toy there was the launch of the Furby App which allowed you to connect your Furby to the App to do a variety of actions including feeding them virtual food, play games and teach it new tricks.

Furbies are still available to buy today but not quite as easily as they used to be, and with the App being an integral part of enjoying the toy, the production of the classic Furby seems to have come to an end.

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Who would have thought that you could have so much fun with little cardboard disks. Pogs were a huge craze back in the early 90’s and were banned from numerous schools across the country. The cardboard disks had a variety of different patterns and logos on them and became collectable items.

If you have never heard of Pogs read on, you don’t know what you’re missing.

How do you Play Pogs?

To play the game you needed a selection of thin cardboard Pogs that you and your opponent would provide in equal numbers. You also needed what was called a ‘Slammer’, this is a thicker Pog that was usually made out of plastic or metal.

The cardboard Pogs were stacked up into a tower with the pattern side faced down and you would take it in turns to throw the slammer down onto the tower. If any cardboard Pogs landed pattern-side up, they were yours to keep. The ones that landed still faced down, were then re-built into a tower and the process was repeated until no Pogs were left.

History

The game of Pogs was originally called ‘Milk Caps’ and was based on a Japanese game called ‘Menko’ – which has been played since the 17^th Century. Menko was very similar to Pogs but was played with thick cards rather than disks. Milk Caps was originally played back in the 1920’s in Hawaii, with people using the caps of a fruit drink that was made by Haleakala Dairy and came in a glass.

Even after the drink bottles discontinued, they continued to just make the caps to keep the popularity of the game alive. In 1990’s a school teacher named Blosson Galbiso, who grew up playing the game, introduced it to her class and it was a hit and the game was soon popular again around Hawaii.

In the late 1990’s Milk Caps was re-named Pogs by the World Pog Federation who joined forces with the Canada Games Company and brought Pogs back on a larger scale. The name Pog originated from a juice brand made from passion fruit, orange and guava. Their popularity was huge and every brand under the sun were giving them away, including cereals and McDonalds!

Pogs made it to the UK in the 90’s and they were everywhere. They were so popular on the playground that they were even banned in many schools as it was seen as a form of gambling, with children paying for ‘keeps’ and then getting increasingly upset when they lost their favourites.

In the early 2000’s milk caps were used by the US military as a form of currency due to their lighter weight and therefore reducing the cost of distributing coins into war zones. The milk caps had 5,10 and 25 cent denominations and could be used in a variety of camps across the world.

Where are they now?

Pogs have disappeared from production and have not been seen in circulation for a number of years. They can still be bought on websites and some of the military milk caps are seen as collectables. You never know, one day they might make a comeback.

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