These toys and games were our childhoods. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the games and toys that so many of us associate with our younger years - and some we might still play with today.
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00:00 Catch it up, catch it up, sorry!
00:01 Bye!
00:02 Coming through, sorry!
00:03 Sorry!
00:03 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the games and toys that
00:08 so many of us associate with our younger years, and some we might still play with today.
00:13 What's up Furby?
00:14 Ah, hee hee hee!
00:17 Number 10.
00:19 The Game of Life
00:20 [Music]
00:21 Be a winner at the game of life, find a job.
00:24 I'm a doctor!
00:26 Have money maybe.
00:27 The Milton Bradley Company got its start all the way back in 1860, and the first game they
00:32 ever made was the checkered game of life.
00:35 It was the precursor to the modern game of life that came out 100 years later.
00:39 First you start out with two thousand and a car.
00:42 I got a car!
00:43 You got a car!
00:44 The versions of that 1960 game are the ones we're all familiar with from game nights with
00:49 our family growing up.
00:50 As we've gotten older, moved out of our parents' house, and had to pay our own bills, we've
00:55 all been playing the real game of life.
00:57 But it's often a lot harder, and sometimes not as much fun as the board game version
01:02 we loved as a kid.
01:03 The game of life, the game of life.
01:04 Hey, I'll get revenge!
01:05 Number 9.
01:06 Tamagotchi
01:07 Well, if it isn't Tamagotchi, her new favorite pet.
01:08 Yes!
01:09 So what's that make me, fish sticks?
01:10 If your childhood years fall somewhere in the late 90s or early 2000s, then there's
01:20 a very good chance you raised your own Tamagotchi, or at least knew someone who did.
01:25 These digital pets were all the rage around the turn of the millennium.
01:29 She's been taking care of him 24/7.
01:31 And singing him lullabies every night!
01:33 No, no, no I haven't.
01:35 Kids everywhere were carrying around the little egg-shaped devices in order to potty train,
01:40 feed, and care for their pixelated pet.
01:42 And although many of us moved on from these toys long ago, the obsessive among us might
01:46 have proved pretty good caretakers of their egg buddies.
01:49 I have plenty of experience in biology.
01:52 I bought a Tamagotchi in 1998.
01:55 And it's still alive.
01:57 Let's do this!
01:59 Number 8.
02:00 Light Brite
02:01 Whether we were punching out an image of Mickey Mouse or Scooby-Doo, or creating our own design,
02:09 many of us spent hundreds of our childhood hours, as the slogan said, making things with
02:14 light.
02:15 The Light Brite might not have taught us how to spell either light or bright, but it did
02:18 help us explore and encourage our brain's creativity.
02:22 Hi, that work?
02:24 Yes!
02:25 Hi!
02:26 The younger members of our audience might have been lucky enough to play with some of
02:29 the more recent Light Brite varieties, like the flat screen one, the 3D Cube, or the FX
02:35 version that plays music and spins around.
02:37 You can direct the effects with color, lights, and music.
02:41 An endless universe of ever-changing designs.
02:44 Number 7.
02:45 Rubik's Cube
02:46 Invented in 1974, this toy was released internationally in 1980.
02:51 It felt like everyone had one of these things.
02:53 "Warning!
02:54 Once you get your hands on Rubik's Cube, you may never be able to put it down."
02:59 While other toys and games came and went in the public consciousness in the following
03:03 decades, the Rubik's Cube continued to intrigue and frustrate.
03:07 In fact, as we entered the 2000s, the cube's popularity went through a resurgence, probably
03:12 due in part to people sharing their cubing techniques on sites like YouTube.
03:16 "This is a road, and over here on the left, this is a road.
03:20 The middle is a median, which nothing can drive in.
03:23 So there's pretty much a road everywhere except for this median, and of course, the
03:27 house.
03:28 The goal is to get our cars parked around the house."
03:32 The multicolored toy has also been referenced in numerous movies and television shows.
03:37 There's even an entire Netflix documentary about the greatest speed cubers in the world.
03:41 "Thank you all for coming to the WCA World Championships 2019."
03:46 Number 6.
03:47 Slinky
03:48 "Is everyone present and accounted for?"
03:50 "Not quite everyone."
03:51 "Who's behind?"
03:52 "Mine."
03:53 2000s kids might have been introduced to the Slinky by the Slinky Dog in the Toy Story
04:02 movies, but children of the previous century spent hours playing with them.
04:06 And by playing, we mostly mean going to the top of the stairs, watching it walk all the
04:10 way down, then retrieving it and doing it all over again.
04:14 "It's Slinky, it's Slinky, for fun it's the best of the toys.
04:19 It's Slinky, it's Slinky, the favorite of girls and boys.
04:21 Everyone wants a Slinky."
04:23 It might not be the cultural phenomenon now that it was back then, but it's still around.
04:27 And today, there are those who take Slinky-ing to a whole new level with some amazing tricks.
04:32 "These more advanced tricks that I'm doing, the techniques I'm not gonna reveal here because
04:36 they're trade secrets, but they're all based off of those fundamental movements I showed
04:41 earlier, the basic energy beam and the basic bounce."
04:45 Number 5.
04:46 Sorry.
04:47 To those of you who thought this game would be higher on our list, we say...
04:51 "One, two, sorry!"
04:54 Based on the centuries-old game of Pachizi, Sorry was first trademarked in the UK in 1929.
05:00 By the following year, it had made its way across the pond to North America.
05:04 "Hot pursuit is the name of the game."
05:08 The game has been defining childhoods for decades, but appears to have peaked in popularity
05:12 in the 1980s.
05:14 It ranked among Games Magazine's Top 100 Games three years straight from 1980 to '82.
05:19 For those looking to relive some childhood memories with an added bit of adult fun, Hasbro
05:24 released a Sorry, Not Sorry version of the game, which incorporates "Have you ever?"
05:28 questions.
05:29 "You can definitely make this game G-rated with something like that.
05:32 Or you can go as inappropriate as you like, depending on who you're playing with."
05:36 Number 4.
05:37 Viewmaster
05:38 The first Viewmaster was released way back in 1939, but it wasn't until the mid-2010s
05:44 that Mattel and Google gave us a VR version.
05:46 "Look up, down, all around, everywhere you turn there's something to see because you
05:50 are virtually standing in that world."
05:52 "I'm looking at the solar system and visiting each planet.
05:56 It's like I'm floating in space."
05:58 Most of us grew up with the plastic Model G, introduced in 1962, or one of its many
06:03 iterations that came out in the '70s through the '90s.
06:06 There was even a talking version.
06:07 "Just snap in a cartridge.
06:09 Ah, humbug!
06:10 And the characters look and sound so real.
06:12 Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge!
06:14 You think you could reach in and touch 'em."
06:17 Back in the day, you could pop in a reel and be transported around the world one click
06:21 at a time.
06:22 Who needs streaming movies on your phone when you can enjoy static stereoscopic images of
06:27 the Grand Canyon?
06:28 "I hope that my next new reel has the weirdest thing I've ever seen in it."
06:31 Number 3.
06:32 Etch-A-Sketch
06:33 "Draw!
06:34 Boom!
06:35 Got me again!
06:36 Etch, you've been working on that draw!"
06:39 The childhoods of '70s, '80s, and '90s kids weren't just defined by one plastic-framed
06:45 gray screen drawing toy.
06:46 We had two of them.
06:47 The most popular one was the Etch-A-Sketch, with its two white knobs and the joy and frustration
06:52 of trying to draw an image using a single connected line.
06:56 For some of us, the most fun part was going Taylor Swift on our drawings and shaking it
06:59 off.
07:00 The other toy in question was Magna Doodle, which we have to assume experienced a boost
07:04 in popularity in the '90s due to its almost weekly appearance on the door of Joey and
07:09 Chandler's apartment on Friends.
07:11 "I don't know what to say."
07:13 "Well, you might say, 'Congratulations!
07:16 I saw the board, I went to the audition, I got the part!'"
07:19 Number 2.
07:20 Barbie Dolls
07:21 "I'm tour guide Barbie!
07:22 Please keep your hands, arms, and accessories inside the car and no flash photography!
07:28 Thank you!"
07:29 Barbie was launched in 1959, and every decade since has seen children obsessed with the
07:34 doll, as the line has expanded to include more and more friends and family members and
07:39 accessories galore.
07:40 Every generation's Barbie experience has been unique, and sure, we might all be a little
07:45 partial to the specific Barbies we had when we were kids, but that's what's so great
07:49 about Barbie.
07:50 She has something to offer everyone.
07:53 "Anything you want, you can be anything you want.
07:58 No dream's impossible, 'cause you're unstoppable!"
08:01 With over a billion dolls sold all around the world, and countless appearances in movies
08:05 and TV, there's no denying the impact Barbie has had on so many lives.
08:10 "Barbie is a doctor and a lawyer and a senator and a Nobel Prize winner."
08:14 "You're a Nobel Prize winner?"
08:16 "Oh, no, not me, but Barbie is."
08:19 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
08:23 Hungry Hungry Hippos
08:24 They were hungry hungry, and we kept feeding feeding them.
08:37 Skip It
08:38 Only cats have had more fun with a ball on a string than we did with Skip It.
08:41 "But the very best thing of all, there's a counter on this ball.
08:45 So try to beat your very best score, see if you can jump a whole lot more!"
08:50 Furby Sure, it looks creepy now, but we all wanted
08:53 one.
08:54 "She keeps to say her name.
08:55 Me?
08:56 Noodle!
08:57 Play a game?
08:58 Peek-a-boo!
08:59 And love you, babe.
09:00 Uh-oh!
09:01 Achoo!
09:02 Your Furby sneezed!
09:03 Achoo!
09:04 And gave mine a call!"
09:05 Spirograph It made us all feel like amazing artists.
09:07 "Change wheels, change colors, make a million multicolored designs, each so beautiful your
09:12 eyes won't believe what your hands have done."
09:15 Spiral This game is the reason we know a lot of words
09:17 that start with Q.
09:18 "It's Coco and it's kids, old stories and friends.
09:19 It's rainy weekend, you hope will never end.
09:20 It's Spiral, America's Good Time Game."
09:21 The Game Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to
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09:46 Number 1.
09:47 Monopoly What family hasn't been torn apart by a heated
09:50 game of Monopoly at some point?
10:02 With over 275 million units sold, it's one of the best-selling board games of all time.
10:08 Whether playing the original or one of the many different editions out there, we've
10:12 all been passing Go and collecting $200 for as long as we can remember.
10:16 Every household seemed to have its own unique set of rules, making the game even more nostalgic.
10:32 Did you know that in the official rules there's no reward for landing on free parking?
10:37 No matter how you play it, you can't think of childhood without thinking of Monopoly.
10:47 Which items on our list were a staple of your childhood?
10:50 Let us know in the comments.
11:07 [music]