…And that word is “POG-a-licious.”
Before you say anything…yes, this set of Undertaker caps are already marked for shipment to a certain Mr. Chris Sims:
I mean, honestly, just look at it. It comes with a plastic coffin in which to store your caps. This is a beautiful thing.
Anyway, I did indeed return to the shop on Tuesday to find that the boxes from our shocking Sunday shipment had all been opened up and the contents sorted out, and I spent a few minutes picking through the entrails of this long-defunct POG store to see what caught my eye. I’m pretty sure I saw holographic foil robot unicorn POGs, but I’m going to have to go back and confirm before I admit to it here. Also, there are bags upon bags of Christian-themed caps, because why not.
I did pull a set of these McDonald’s cap sheets to throw on the eBay:
…and I’m pretty sure the Grimace cap alone sells the set:
There were a lot of Peanuts-related POGs as well, including a series of five sheets of POGs advertising the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park to which the Peanuts franchise has been tied for many a year:
I don’t know which is more disturbing: this POG from the above sheet featuring Snoopy actually speaking:
…or, from another sheet in this series, an actual licensed studio-produced drawing of Linus and Snoopy fighting over a POG:
Opening up the shipping cartons also revealed lots of sealed boxes of packs of caps, such as this one:
I should keep track (NOTE: no, I probably shouldn’t) of all the ways different manufacturers referred to their products without using the actual trademarked term of POG. Most used variations on the word “milkcap,” or just “cap,” like “coolcaps” on the above box. There were also multiple terms for the thicker and heavier “slammers,” used to throw down upon the caps during the course of what we will call a “game” for the lack of a better term. I’m pretty sure “slammahs” never caught on, despite Big Deal’s noble attempts, and the official POG term was apparently “kini,” as on this World POG Federation Micro Tournament Game Pack from Milton Bradley:
And by the way, remember that video I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post? Well, we did have volume one of that series, as well as this tape from another series (well, if there was a series of them):
If I remember the back of the package correctly, this 20-minute video promises music from “two different Southern California bands!” which really narrows things down a bit. I have no idea who the bands actually were, so I’m gonna pretend they were “Steve Garvey’s Hair” and “False Confession” just to amuse myself.
Speaking of that video from yesterday, longtime reader Old Bull Lee found Milk Cap Mania Vol. 2 online, uploaded by one of the people behind the project. Of note is that person’s brief text commentary about the genesis, and the death, of this series. (As I skimmed through the video, I did notice a few scenes filmed within a comic book store, and I had a nostalgic twinge upon seeing some of the promo posters on the wall. …Hello, ‘Breed poster, it’s been a while!)
So, yeah, I told you I’d be presenting more from this collection. If I gotta deal with it, so do you. Despite all my supposed despair and bemoaning of this fate, I think I’m distanced enough from the actual height of the fad and my retail part in it to look at these things for the cultural oddities that they are. To appreciate their absurdity, and to examine the exploitative Gold Rush that surrounded them.
In fact, there’s only one word to describe all these fascinating treasures…
I see what you did there…..
Timeloop!
That “Big Deal Cool Caps Package”:
Because a grey-bearded hat-wearing old guy, who looks like he plays in a crappy white-guy-blues-band at the white-guy-blues-bar (that’s probably a restaurant in the daytime) is who kids are going to trust to tell them what’s “cool.”
Respect for “Steve Harvey’s Hair”. I give that reference three billfishes and a neon baseball cap.
Mercifully, that image from the Peanuts Pog with Linus and Snoopy wasn’t created specifically for the pog, but lifted from a strip where Snoopy is holding Linus’ blanket to be swapped for a cookie!
Robert Pope – I don’t know if that’s better, that an actual Schulz panel was altered to include POG content!
Is there, like, one guy who made money on POGs? Surely somebody got in early enough to make a few bucks and was out before the collapse.
Two posts in a row about pogs!!!! (and more to come,I fear)
That’s the thing about pure evil,it can be very seductive.
Maybe Big Deal were just from Boston and thought slammer was spelled how it sounded.
Did anyone ever make Pogo pogs? If not, as I suspect, since this was before the wave of stuff like the Dark Horse collectible comics statues and so on, they missed a golden opportunity. “I go POG-oh for POGO!”
Say, looking at all these pogs gives me an idea. For old times sake, it seems like we should get together and play a… no. Never mind.
Don’t forget Todd McFarlane’s “Spogs”!
Why is Terry Pratchett trying to me Cool Caps?
“To appreciate their absurdity, and to examine the exploitative Gold Rush that surrounded them.”
It’s like pop culture archeology… and sometimes archeologists DO look through ancient GARBAGE DUMPS.