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POGs: The 90s in a Bottle Cap · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant over there, and Jerry's
0:18
Speaker 1: lingering somewhere out there, and this is the stuff you
0:21
Speaker 1: should know. It's POGs. It's POGs. That's right. That's other
0:27
Speaker 1: theme song. Way. Actually, I think it's a little more
0:30
Speaker 1: extreme and in your face than that. Yeah. You know
0:34
Speaker 1: who is a big pog enthusiast is friend of the show,
0:39
Speaker 1: Jesse Thorne of the Maximum Fund Network. I did not
0:42
Speaker 1: know that. I've heard him talk about it. I mean
0:45
Speaker 1: he's he's the right age for that wheelhouse and uh,
0:49
Speaker 1: I've heard him talk about it on Judge John Hodgman
0:52
Speaker 1: and with great enthusiasm. And Mom always like, what are POGs?
0:57
Speaker 1: I've never even heard of these? Because I'm an old Yeah,
1:00
Speaker 1: I mean i'd heard the word before, but I had
1:03
Speaker 1: no idea what really they were, what you did with
1:06
Speaker 1: them or anything. Okay, so a little before your time too, then,
1:10
Speaker 1: oh yeah, a lot after my time. I mean you
1:13
Speaker 1: had to basically be ten eleven, maybe twelve, I'll give
1:18
Speaker 1: you thirteen between and nine four very specific niche window.
1:26
Speaker 1: But these things were so big that it's just like
1:28
Speaker 1: if you were a kid in the nineties kind of thing,
1:30
Speaker 1: like you played POGs, Like everybody was playing with POGs
1:34
Speaker 1: for like two years, and it was kind of like
1:37
Speaker 1: the definition of a flash in the Pan fad. Yeah,
1:40
Speaker 1: and we should think how stuffworks dot Com mental floss. Uh,
1:45
Speaker 1: first we feast dot com. That was a good article.
1:49
Speaker 1: It was pretty good. And then military dot Com for
1:52
Speaker 1: a little cherry on top at the end. That's great.
1:57
Speaker 1: We'd like to thank the military industrial Complex for the
2:00
Speaker 1: cherry on top as a whole. So, Um, you're a
2:05
Speaker 1: child of seventies. I'm a child the eighties. We had
2:07
Speaker 1: our own thing. But again, this is a thing of
2:09
Speaker 1: the nineties. And with POGs, um, it's like if you
2:14
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a fad that was like
2:17
Speaker 1: big when when we were young, and I really honestly
2:20
Speaker 1: can't think of anything, not nothing akin to this. I mean,
2:24
Speaker 1: like I want to say Nintendo maybe the original any yes,
2:27
Speaker 1: but I would hardly call that a flash in the Pan,
2:30
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, POGs to
2:33
Speaker 1: me represent something different because they were they had two functions.
2:37
Speaker 1: They functioned as kind of trading cards of sorts, but
2:41
Speaker 1: it was also a game. Uh. And if you're listening
2:45
Speaker 1: and frustrated already, we should say very quickly that POGs
2:49
Speaker 1: these little circular discs, and we'll get into, you know,
2:54
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of them, and this is our
2:57
Speaker 1: one shot at explaining it right here. And there was
2:59
Speaker 1: a played around them, which we will get into as well,
3:01
Speaker 1: but they also functioned as things that kids would were
3:04
Speaker 1: just obsessive about trading, like you have a a Pope
3:07
Speaker 1: John Paul Park and I really want it, so I'm
3:09
Speaker 1: gonna trade you my McDonald's pug and my I don't
3:13
Speaker 1: even know what was popular in the nineties, but yeah,
3:18
Speaker 1: that was probably be about it. There definitely were I've
3:21
Speaker 1: seen pictures of them on the internet. Sure that means
3:24
Speaker 1: it's real. I don't know if anybody went to the
3:27
Speaker 1: trouble of photos shopping that, but I guess it's possible.
3:30
Speaker 1: We should question everything we see on the internet, I guess.
3:33
Speaker 1: And this also crosses over with The Simpsons because very
3:38
Speaker 1: famously Millhouse traded Bart's soul away for a set of
3:42
Speaker 1: POGs in one episode. That's right, and it comes full circle, Chuck,
3:46
Speaker 1: because there were a lot of Simpsons POGs as well. Oh,
3:50
Speaker 1: I'm sure can you name the character of um that
3:54
Speaker 1: were on the POGs that Millhouse traded for? Do you know? Yes?
4:00
Speaker 1: What alf h there were Alpha's back and pog form.
4:06
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny. Yeah. So what I was trying to
4:10
Speaker 1: get out earlier was like there was like this, um
4:13
Speaker 1: the POGs were like a huge, huge flash in the
4:16
Speaker 1: pan fad that just burned white hot and then just
4:18
Speaker 1: went away very quickly. But the thing that makes them
4:22
Speaker 1: interesting is not so much that there were some you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: neat to year trend in the nineties, but that they
4:27
Speaker 1: were actually based on a much older game, and that
4:32
Speaker 1: that was actually based on a much older game as well,
4:34
Speaker 1: and that it was just almost like this the most
4:37
Speaker 1: recent iteration of this idea for a game that just
4:41
Speaker 1: keeps popping up every few hundred years and makes you
4:44
Speaker 1: wonder when it's going to pop up again in the future. Yeah,
4:47
Speaker 1: which I think make is a good distinction that makes
4:49
Speaker 1: it kind of cooler and more interesting then Definitely your
4:52
Speaker 1: average Furby or unless there were ancient Furbies that we
4:56
Speaker 1: don't know about, they've yet to be discovered. A kettle
4:59
Speaker 1: hy Yeah, that's a movie you have. Furbie was discovered
5:04
Speaker 1: ancient Furbies. Those things were kind of nineties too, right,
5:07
Speaker 1: They were after our time, I think, so. I don't
5:09
Speaker 1: know much about Furbies, but this is, you know, this
5:11
Speaker 1: is in a long line of our sort of pop
5:14
Speaker 1: culture toys Forgotten Toys episodes. Yeah, now that you mentioned it,
5:19
Speaker 1: we probably should have saved this one for Christmas. Yeah,
5:22
Speaker 1: we'll find something else. So we were talking about how POGs,
5:26
Speaker 1: this game, these little discs that you you play with,
5:29
Speaker 1: were based on a much older game. And uh, it
5:32
Speaker 1: turns out that there was a person, a woman who
5:36
Speaker 1: was a teacher and a guidance counselor in Hawaii at
5:40
Speaker 1: um Way, a Lua elementary school in Oahu who in
5:46
Speaker 1: to gather around children. I noticed that you guys are
5:49
Speaker 1: playing a little rough on the playground. That dodgeball has
5:52
Speaker 1: been coated with um tar and broken glass, and I'm
5:56
Speaker 1: not very happy about that. I want you guys to
5:58
Speaker 1: try something different. Let's try something that my grandparents used
6:02
Speaker 1: to play and that I played when I was a
6:04
Speaker 1: little kid your age, and it's called milk caps. I'm
6:07
Speaker 1: gonna show you how to do it. And she introduced
6:10
Speaker 1: these kids to this game of milk caps, and you
6:13
Speaker 1: would think it would be kind of snoozy, but I
6:15
Speaker 1: think this demonstrates just how engrossing but also simple the
6:20
Speaker 1: game of poggs actually is that this old timey game
6:24
Speaker 1: captured these school kids attention and then just spread like wildfires.
6:31
Speaker 1: It's been put. Yeah, her name was She's got a
6:33
Speaker 1: great name. Her name was Blossom Galbiso, fantastic name. And
6:39
Speaker 1: this is like you said in and sadly she passed
6:42
Speaker 1: away in so she, I guess got to see some
6:47
Speaker 1: of the light, bright burning of kind of what she
6:51
Speaker 1: brought to the forefront of the children's She did playgrounds,
6:55
Speaker 1: she did. I've seen interviews with her, and um, there
6:57
Speaker 1: were plenty of photos of her, like people knew where
7:00
Speaker 1: this came from as it was going on to maybe
7:03
Speaker 1: she didn't see it die off, which would be kind
7:04
Speaker 1: of really nice. Oh, yes, last to live. It would
7:11
Speaker 1: be really nice, actually, it would be. Yeah, she burned
7:15
Speaker 1: bright and hot and short like her creation. Should we
7:20
Speaker 1: do we go back to Japan or should we talk
7:22
Speaker 1: more about this? And then? Yeah, I think we should
7:25
Speaker 1: talk more about milk caps and then take it back
7:27
Speaker 1: from there, because um, she used to play this as
7:30
Speaker 1: a kid, and I think she was born in nine
7:32
Speaker 1: and so say she was playing this in late fifties,
7:34
Speaker 1: early sixties. But like I said, her grandparents. I guess,
7:38
Speaker 1: like she said through me, her grandparents had played it
7:42
Speaker 1: as well. So this game of milk caps was just
7:45
Speaker 1: like POGs. They were, um, you would use these little
7:48
Speaker 1: cardboard discs, and they were called milk caps because they
7:50
Speaker 1: were actually the caps that you would get on a
7:54
Speaker 1: bottle of milk. They would use a cardboard cap to
7:58
Speaker 1: seal the bottle of milk, and and I think they
8:00
Speaker 1: would put like a rubber thing around it to hold
8:02
Speaker 1: the cardboard cap on. But for all intents and purposes,
8:06
Speaker 1: the cap was this little cardboard disc and it would
8:08
Speaker 1: have like the dairy's name on it and the information
8:11
Speaker 1: and probably like you know, the latest day. It could
8:14
Speaker 1: be sold by that kind of thing. Um. But when
8:17
Speaker 1: you took these things off and you stacked them up
8:19
Speaker 1: into a pile, you could make a pretty good game
8:22
Speaker 1: out of them, a game called milk caps, right, And
8:26
Speaker 1: we'll get to the exact game play in a second.
8:28
Speaker 1: But they were playing with milk caps mainly. Uh. They're
8:31
Speaker 1: on MAUI from or I'm sorry in a wahu from
8:34
Speaker 1: these milk caps from Maui, the Leia Khala Dairy who um,
8:40
Speaker 1: you know they were they were sending this milk all
8:42
Speaker 1: over the place. They were actually packaged by a or
8:46
Speaker 1: getting packaging from a Canadian company that were actually manufacturing
8:49
Speaker 1: these caps, and they were making the milk. It was
8:53
Speaker 1: just fine. Sure, they did a great business. But then
8:56
Speaker 1: they decided to make a new drink called Passion Orange
9:01
Speaker 1: Guaba or Passion Fruit orange guava p o G. And
9:05
Speaker 1: it was like, it sounds it's a little mixed juice drink.
9:09
Speaker 1: It sounds amazing. It does, doesn't it. Yeah, I can't
9:12
Speaker 1: wait to try it one day. I bet it's good.
9:15
Speaker 1: So those little caps, you know, that's where they got
9:18
Speaker 1: the name. It was Passion food orange guaba. So they
9:20
Speaker 1: became known as pog caps. And even though you know,
9:24
Speaker 1: as the years trickled on the very few years that
9:27
Speaker 1: it burned white hot, there were many other caps. It
9:32
Speaker 1: was sort of like the Kleenex, Like, everyone called him poggs,
9:34
Speaker 1: regardless of where they came from. Right, I'm sure there's
9:37
Speaker 1: plenty of people who played with POGs as kids and
9:39
Speaker 1: had no idea that it was an acronym for passion fruit,
9:42
Speaker 1: orange and guava. You know, I bet most kids didn't
9:45
Speaker 1: know that. But because it was that dairy, Um, what
9:48
Speaker 1: is it? Uh? I practiced saying it a bunch of
9:50
Speaker 1: times because we just screwed up so badly on our
9:53
Speaker 1: Hawaiian Overthrow episode. I would say cola, I think it is,
9:57
Speaker 1: but I think the accents actually on the last syllable. Yeah.
10:03
Speaker 1: But so this because it was a dairy, they were
10:06
Speaker 1: just using milk caps for their pog juice as well,
10:10
Speaker 1: because they're packaging it very similarly. But because people didn't
10:15
Speaker 1: really buy milk and bottles anymore, the pog caps were
10:19
Speaker 1: much easier to come by because everybody was drinking pog
10:22
Speaker 1: because ostensibly it was just this delicious drink, so so
10:27
Speaker 1: um exactly. So Blossom Galbiso and her Young Awards started
10:33
Speaker 1: like bringing these caps in from school and then eventually
10:35
Speaker 1: writing to Um the dairy and asking for them, and
10:38
Speaker 1: then eventually writing to stand pack like you were saying,
10:42
Speaker 1: and saying, do you have any more of these caps
10:44
Speaker 1: that we can get? Because we're we we could use them,
10:46
Speaker 1: and we don't. We drank so much pog we all
10:48
Speaker 1: have diabetes now, but um, we still want to play,
10:51
Speaker 1: but we just can't drink anymore. Pog that's right. And
10:54
Speaker 1: Stampac I don't think I named it. That was the
10:56
Speaker 1: Canadian packaging company, Yes, yeah, which is still around today.
11:00
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I looked him up. You can buy all
11:03
Speaker 1: sorts of lids. I cannot find those cardboard Paul inserts
11:07
Speaker 1: any longer. But if you want some um to go
11:10
Speaker 1: coffee lids, STAYM pack is your company to This episode,
11:14
Speaker 1: by the way, is brought to you by Stampa. Uh.
11:17
Speaker 1: Do they still have the pod juice? You can still
11:20
Speaker 1: get that, right? I think it's like in a carton now. Yes, Um,
11:23
Speaker 1: I could not find it anywhere. I don't know if
11:26
Speaker 1: you have to be on the West coast to find it,
11:28
Speaker 1: but you can make your own. It's just equal parts
11:31
Speaker 1: passion fruit, quava, and orange. I've also seen that's best
11:34
Speaker 1: served ice cold, and um, I bet it's good with
11:39
Speaker 1: the vodka. I saw a recipe with vodka, yes, and
11:44
Speaker 1: then also one with aquavite and rum, which sounds pretty great.
11:48
Speaker 1: It does, And now I'm seeing it's on a big
11:51
Speaker 1: box website that we dare not name. Okay, that is
11:56
Speaker 1: not I don't think that that is Jlakla Dairy's version.
12:01
Speaker 1: I think that's another company's because I saw that on
12:03
Speaker 1: the same big box website and they can call it
12:06
Speaker 1: pog Yes, and we'll get to y well, gosh, good point. Yes,
12:13
Speaker 1: we see it full circle on this big box website.
12:18
Speaker 1: All right, I think we should take a break. This
12:20
Speaker 1: is too much intrigue even for me to take. Uh.
12:22
Speaker 1: And then we'll come back after this and talk about
12:24
Speaker 1: it's more ancient traditions. Right after this. Boo, yeah, all right,
12:48
Speaker 1: so we're back. We got Bloss. It's early nineties. Blossom
12:51
Speaker 1: Galbiso is worried about violence on the playground, introduces these
12:57
Speaker 1: kids to this sort of antiquated silly game and they
13:01
Speaker 1: love it, they do. But how did this thing get
13:05
Speaker 1: to Hawaii to begin with? I can I can tell
13:08
Speaker 1: you how it got there. I can actually tell you
13:10
Speaker 1: the date, Chuck. Let's hear it. February a ship called
13:18
Speaker 1: the City of Tokyo spelled t ok Io arrived in
13:22
Speaker 1: Hawaii um with nine hundred Japanese immigrants aboard looking for
13:27
Speaker 1: work in the sugarcane fields of Hawaii. And that was
13:30
Speaker 1: the first Japanese immigrants in the modern age who showed
13:34
Speaker 1: up in the late nineteenth century and began this huge
13:37
Speaker 1: influx of Japanese immigrants. And you might say, well, what
13:40
Speaker 1: the heck does that have to do with milk caps?
13:41
Speaker 1: And I would say, calm down, subtle down, I can
13:44
Speaker 1: tell that, uh, And then I'd I'd wait a little
13:47
Speaker 1: while until I had gotten to the to the point
13:50
Speaker 1: where I feel like you have calmed down, and then
13:52
Speaker 1: I would proceed with It's actually based Milk Caps is
13:56
Speaker 1: based on a Japanese game that these Japanese immigrants presumably
14:01
Speaker 1: brought with them because it was that popular in Japan.
14:04
Speaker 1: That's right. It was called Manko, Emmy and Ko, and
14:07
Speaker 1: it was a card game in Japan that came about
14:11
Speaker 1: in the Kamakura period from about five three b c e.
14:17
Speaker 1: That's pretty old. And so what happens in that game
14:20
Speaker 1: as a player puts down a card and then their
14:23
Speaker 1: opponent tries to flip that card over by throwing their card.
14:27
Speaker 1: It sounds really difficult because it sounds like it's just
14:30
Speaker 1: one card that you're throwing it another single card. It's
14:34
Speaker 1: way harder than pog and if you flip the card over,
14:37
Speaker 1: you get both of those cards again. Not like POGs
14:42
Speaker 1: in in one way in the gameplayway, which we'll get to,
14:45
Speaker 1: but Minko was very much like Pog and that these
14:49
Speaker 1: little uh cards actually had symbols of cultural icons in Japan.
14:54
Speaker 1: They had warriors on there and wrestlers. They were not uh,
14:58
Speaker 1: they were cardboard later on by I think they were
15:00
Speaker 1: like wood or ceramic or clay earlier on. Yeah, and
15:04
Speaker 1: when they were a game called I think mang Ghetto, Uh,
15:08
Speaker 1: they were made of clay. And they actually more resembled
15:11
Speaker 1: pog chips um or disks before than they did than
15:15
Speaker 1: Manko did, because Manko turned them into like what looked
15:19
Speaker 1: like I think they are considered the predecessor of trading cards. Um,
15:23
Speaker 1: these Manko cards, right, So, but before that, when they
15:26
Speaker 1: were little clay tablets, they were little disc shapes and
15:29
Speaker 1: they had like pictures and everything on them, so they
15:32
Speaker 1: seemed more like POGs then than they did by the
15:34
Speaker 1: time they arrived in Hawaii. But again, just trying to
15:38
Speaker 1: flip over a disc by throwing another disc at it,
15:41
Speaker 1: it seems really difficult to accomplish to me. It definitely does. So.
15:46
Speaker 1: Um what the kids in Hawaii did with this game
15:48
Speaker 1: of Manko was they They turned it into this milk
15:52
Speaker 1: cap game using milk caps, which were widely available to them,
15:56
Speaker 1: and rather than one milk cap trying to overturned another
16:00
Speaker 1: old cap, you just stack a bunch of them together
16:02
Speaker 1: and try to overturn as many as you could. Blood easier,
16:06
Speaker 1: way easier, so much easier that like you could really
16:09
Speaker 1: get the interests of some like six twelve thirteen again
16:15
Speaker 1: is as high as I'm going to um year old
16:18
Speaker 1: kids attention, you know, Yeah, And it probably matters about
16:22
Speaker 1: your family and birth order, because if you're I could
16:25
Speaker 1: see maybe if you're a fourteen year old only child
16:27
Speaker 1: getting into it, But if you're fourteen and you've got
16:30
Speaker 1: a nine year old little brother or sister, you're gonna
16:34
Speaker 1: make fun of their POGs. Yeah, if you're a what
16:36
Speaker 1: was it a Juliet, right, you're allowed to play POGs
16:43
Speaker 1: at fourteen? No? No, no, that's what child, Poor little Juliet.
16:50
Speaker 1: So she's got this game going, Blossom has got this
16:53
Speaker 1: game going, or I guess they called her Miss Albiso.
16:58
Speaker 1: And there was a man named al In Rapinsky who
17:01
Speaker 1: saw dollar signs. It is crazy because, like we said,
17:06
Speaker 1: stand Pack was making these bottle caps in Canada and
17:10
Speaker 1: he said, you know what kids are really like in
17:13
Speaker 1: this game. I'm really curious how he had his fingers
17:15
Speaker 1: so on the pulse. That's what I'm saying. He was
17:17
Speaker 1: in California and this is just going on in Hawaii,
17:20
Speaker 1: and it's not like Hawaii and California don't communicate at all,
17:24
Speaker 1: or didn't in the eighties or early nine. Well, it's
17:26
Speaker 1: it started to come over. And when it did start
17:28
Speaker 1: to come over to the mainland, it definitely started in
17:30
Speaker 1: California first, so right, but I have the impression that
17:33
Speaker 1: he brought it over to the main land, that he
17:35
Speaker 1: found out about some hot trend that had just started
17:39
Speaker 1: in Hawaii and got in on it from California. That's
17:41
Speaker 1: my take on it. Well, you know, it doesn't help
17:44
Speaker 1: is every article I read says he somehow caught wind
17:48
Speaker 1: right exactly. He might have gone over their own business
17:50
Speaker 1: or something. Who knows, what's what all these kids doing
17:54
Speaker 1: throwing these bottle caps all around? That's yeah, either that
17:58
Speaker 1: or else somebody told them about it and he was like, wait,
18:01
Speaker 1: what are you what are you talking about? I want
18:02
Speaker 1: to know more about it. He was a guy who
18:04
Speaker 1: had a real nose for potential. Like he was the
18:07
Speaker 1: man who bought the patent for a little leather protectant
18:11
Speaker 1: um that was called trying on I think at the time,
18:15
Speaker 1: but he turned it into arm all. He was the
18:17
Speaker 1: guy that brought the world armor all. He didn't invent it,
18:19
Speaker 1: but he figured out how to market it and turn
18:21
Speaker 1: it into something huge. Um. Remember that non wrinkle spray
18:26
Speaker 1: you could spray your clothes and it would get the
18:27
Speaker 1: wrinkles out. I think it was called wrinkle Free or
18:30
Speaker 1: something like that in the eighties. He marketed that just
18:35
Speaker 1: a bunch of like interesting stuff. So he found out
18:37
Speaker 1: about POGs. He caught wind of it one way or another.
18:41
Speaker 1: I bet I know how it happened how. I bet
18:43
Speaker 1: he went to Hawaiian business is always kind of keen
18:47
Speaker 1: to his you know, goings on around him because he's
18:50
Speaker 1: always looking for that next million dollar idea. And he
18:53
Speaker 1: saw the first fist fight breakout with these kids over
18:57
Speaker 1: a set of POGs that they wanted to trade or
19:00
Speaker 1: or a winner take all game. And he saw this
19:03
Speaker 1: bloodthirst and was like, I can make money off of that. Yeah. That,
19:06
Speaker 1: And then he did the other thing he was well
19:08
Speaker 1: known for. He ran over and broke up the fight
19:10
Speaker 1: by spraying both of the combatants with armor all and
19:12
Speaker 1: they just slipped right off of one another and couldn't
19:15
Speaker 1: land a single punch, And when they got wrinkled up,
19:18
Speaker 1: he sprayed then with Wrinkle's great story. So, yeah, you're
19:23
Speaker 1: probably right, because that is kind of what the ultimate
19:25
Speaker 1: destiny of poggs was, and he was largely responsible for
19:28
Speaker 1: that because um if if blossom Galbiso was the mother
19:32
Speaker 1: of poggs. This guy was the father of pos. He
19:35
Speaker 1: was the guy who and as far as I know,
19:37
Speaker 1: you know, they were not in any way meritally related
19:40
Speaker 1: or anything like that. They were just related by POGs.
19:44
Speaker 1: But he took it and just introduced the world to it,
19:48
Speaker 1: um just as this marketing guy. And he actually formed
19:52
Speaker 1: a group called the World Pog Federation within I think
19:57
Speaker 1: a year of Blossom gal Beasts introducing this for the
20:01
Speaker 1: first time to her students in Hawaii. The World Pog
20:04
Speaker 1: Federation had been created by Alan Rapinski and his his company. Yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: and he did something very very key to this story
20:12
Speaker 1: or in this story, uh kind of when you mentioned
20:15
Speaker 1: about Jakala and the fact that they did not have
20:19
Speaker 1: great financial gain from this, it's because Rapinsky saw the
20:23
Speaker 1: writing on the wall and said, hey, why don't you
20:26
Speaker 1: sell me that brand name, that Pog brand name, because
20:29
Speaker 1: like who cares? Like you don't care, right, you're just
20:32
Speaker 1: pumping out this juice. You can still pump out that juice.
20:35
Speaker 1: And they said sure, and they sold them the Pog
20:38
Speaker 1: brand name, and that was it. They were sort of
20:42
Speaker 1: cut out of. Uh. I mean, I guess for a
20:45
Speaker 1: little while they still people were maybe buying their stuff
20:48
Speaker 1: a little more than usual to get these Pog caps,
20:51
Speaker 1: but that they weren't like getting juice. Uh No pun
20:55
Speaker 1: intended from you know, from like the rights to sell
20:58
Speaker 1: these things. They were as a matter of fact, from
21:01
Speaker 1: what I from what I can tell, I think I
21:03
Speaker 1: saw in like an l A Times article or something
21:06
Speaker 1: from the nineties that they got Yes, so it wasn't
21:14
Speaker 1: like entirely like you know, this l A businessman fleeced
21:17
Speaker 1: some Hawaiian dairy farmers entirely like they were cut in.
21:21
Speaker 1: But I think the big thing is like that as
21:25
Speaker 1: far as the dairy was concerned, they had no real
21:28
Speaker 1: role in this other than accepting, you know, some money
21:32
Speaker 1: and that for a few years. I guess, sure, yeah, sure,
21:36
Speaker 1: And that's a bit of a it was ultimately a
21:38
Speaker 1: misstep on their part. But Rapinsky, you know, he's very
21:42
Speaker 1: much credited with, you know, introducing this to the world,
21:45
Speaker 1: but he's also credited with making this thing burned so
21:49
Speaker 1: hot that it was just inevitable that it was going
21:52
Speaker 1: to last a very very short time. And a lot
21:54
Speaker 1: of people kind of say, you know, that was a
21:57
Speaker 1: screw up. He shouldn't have done it like that. But
21:59
Speaker 1: I also had the quesssion that he knew that this
22:01
Speaker 1: thing no matter what he did. It's not like POGs
22:03
Speaker 1: were always going to be around, that they were the
22:05
Speaker 1: new baseball cards or anything. So I think he came
22:08
Speaker 1: along I was like, we need to get as much
22:10
Speaker 1: money as we possibly came out of this because it's
22:12
Speaker 1: not going to last for very long. And he proceeded
22:15
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, So he created the pog man,
22:19
Speaker 1: the mascot. Like he said, they started having these tournaments everybody.
22:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I was not kidding about Pope John Paul.
22:26
Speaker 1: I think they bought like fifty thousand the Catholic Church
22:30
Speaker 1: POGs when the Pope came to New Jersey to give
22:33
Speaker 1: them out. Um Bill Clinton was on one. They had
22:38
Speaker 1: altruistic campaigns had that Dare the Dare Not to Do
22:41
Speaker 1: Drugs campaign started making POGs, and of course the major
22:46
Speaker 1: chain restaurants got involved in Del Taco and Taco Bell
22:48
Speaker 1: and McDonald's, Disneyland, everybody, anything that you could put on
22:53
Speaker 1: a pog because you know, these kids are holding these
22:56
Speaker 1: things and tradeings these these things. It was like liquid
22:58
Speaker 1: gold to an advertiser because they were everywhere and kids
23:03
Speaker 1: were fighting, like literally fighting over them. So anyone and
23:06
Speaker 1: everyone tried to get an image on a pog cap,
23:10
Speaker 1: even if it wasn't the official, like licensed one. Yeah.
23:13
Speaker 1: I mean like if you released a movie during the
23:15
Speaker 1: pog era, you probably made POGs for especially if I
23:19
Speaker 1: was a alph. Yeah. Um, there's there's a set of
23:23
Speaker 1: pulp fiction ones that are pretty cool. Yes, there are.
23:27
Speaker 1: I would think that would be just on a bubble.
23:29
Speaker 1: I would think so too, but nope, it was they.
23:32
Speaker 1: I've seen it with my own eyes. Well that somebody
23:35
Speaker 1: could have photoshopped him, but um, Jurassic Park had a
23:39
Speaker 1: set of hologram ones that were pretty cool. I think
23:43
Speaker 1: somebody tried to sell them for a million million dollars
23:46
Speaker 1: on EVA, and I don't believe they actually got a
23:49
Speaker 1: million dollars for him people. I think that's probably about
23:54
Speaker 1: how it went, because you know, people want POGs to
23:57
Speaker 1: be worth a lot more than they are, and they're
23:59
Speaker 1: just not. I mean, it's too recent, there's too many
24:01
Speaker 1: of them. Um. When I saw that seemed legitimately like
24:05
Speaker 1: about a hundred dollars was a Stucy one, which was
24:08
Speaker 1: super cool. It's like silver shine, Yeah, and then it's
24:14
Speaker 1: got like the reggae colors on it and everything. It's
24:16
Speaker 1: a pretty cool pog, to tell you the truth. Yeah,
24:19
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I would have been in
24:21
Speaker 1: the wheelhouse. Like I think a lot of this depends
24:23
Speaker 1: on and we'll get to this in a second, like
24:26
Speaker 1: you're you're playing at school some but then the schools
24:28
Speaker 1: try and shut it down because it's very disruptive. So
24:30
Speaker 1: then you have to live in one of those great
24:33
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where there's thousands of houses and kids are just
24:36
Speaker 1: all over the place. And you know, as I've said before,
24:38
Speaker 1: I grew up in the woods on two acres of
24:41
Speaker 1: land with nary another child in sight except for my brother.
24:45
Speaker 1: So I think it kind of depended on that kind
24:47
Speaker 1: of after school trading in the cul De sact thing
24:50
Speaker 1: that I never got a piece of. No, you had
24:53
Speaker 1: to play POGs with dirt friend, the pile of dirt
24:55
Speaker 1: you named your friend. I did have dirt friends. Funny.
25:02
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to be funny. Okay, there is nothing
25:04
Speaker 1: funny about that, chuck um mighty more from power rangements
25:08
Speaker 1: were another big one. Oh of course, I'm sure those. Yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: that was a big deal at the time, very huge.
25:14
Speaker 1: And then like so yeah, if you if you wanted
25:16
Speaker 1: to brand the kids, this was a great opportunity to
25:18
Speaker 1: do it. Now, legitimately you had to go through the
25:21
Speaker 1: World Pog Federation because all these things were supposedly POGs,
25:26
Speaker 1: and if you wanted to print your own pog it
25:28
Speaker 1: didn't matter who you were. You had to go license
25:30
Speaker 1: the ability to do this from Alan Rapinski and the
25:34
Speaker 1: World Pog Federation. The problem is if you own the
25:38
Speaker 1: license the trademark to a little cardboard disc that anybody
25:43
Speaker 1: could make if they wanted to. Like, the technology is
25:47
Speaker 1: really easy and low hanging to make these kind of
25:50
Speaker 1: things that yes, it's going to be like a large
25:53
Speaker 1: business like Taco Bell, who's just not going to be
25:56
Speaker 1: bothered with a major lawsuit that will cost them more
25:59
Speaker 1: than it would to license the rights to make POGs
26:02
Speaker 1: and give them out as like, you know, some promotional tool. Um.
26:05
Speaker 1: But any like, anybody who's even remotely interested in the
26:09
Speaker 1: knockoff market just doving head first into POGs, and the
26:14
Speaker 1: market became saturated really fast, not just with Rapinski's officially
26:18
Speaker 1: licensed POGs, there are plenty of those, but also just
26:20
Speaker 1: knockoffs galore. Yeah. There there's a couple of staggering statistics here. Uh.
26:26
Speaker 1: It says here in California alone, at one point, POGs
26:30
Speaker 1: we're selling ten million dollars a week in one state
26:34
Speaker 1: and then uh and of course Jesse thorns from California,
26:37
Speaker 1: so it may have been I mean, I know they
26:39
Speaker 1: were nationwide and then worldwide, but I get the feeling
26:41
Speaker 1: that California was a real pog hot spot. That's my
26:44
Speaker 1: impression as well. But in nineteen well, I guess there
26:48
Speaker 1: is pulp fiction year, um, three hundred and fifty million
26:52
Speaker 1: POGs sold, so it was yeah, it was still going strong.
26:56
Speaker 1: And ninety four yeah, yeah, so kids were trading gimp
27:00
Speaker 1: uh gift boggs. That's exactly one that say like I'm
27:07
Speaker 1: about to give medieval on. Yeah. So we we can
27:11
Speaker 1: conclude then, Chuck. Since they were still going strong in Blossom,
27:15
Speaker 1: Galbiso died. She did not have to see the end
27:19
Speaker 1: of the pog trend. She she went out on top,
27:21
Speaker 1: look at that detective work. Isn't that great? And they
27:24
Speaker 1: buried her with a pog of the back of thing
27:28
Speaker 1: Raimes's head. That's right, with a band aid on it.
27:33
Speaker 1: You want to take another break, sure quickly, that one
27:36
Speaker 1: of plug. Since we're talking pulp fiction, I had Jack
27:38
Speaker 1: O'Briens e guist on and we talked to pulp fiction
27:41
Speaker 1: and it's out in the world and it was a
27:43
Speaker 1: great discussion. So if you like pulp fiction and movie conversations,
27:47
Speaker 1: check it out. And Jack O'Brien too. Jack's the best.
27:51
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Okay, so we're back. POGs have
28:11
Speaker 1: burned bright. They've started to kind of fizzle though, right yeah,
28:17
Speaker 1: And you know I kind of hinted at it. One
28:20
Speaker 1: of the reasons was that schools they had to clamp
28:24
Speaker 1: down on the scene because there were fights over POGs.
28:26
Speaker 1: Because if you play, uh, if you played playing for keeps,
28:32
Speaker 1: that meant and we'll go over the full I guess
28:34
Speaker 1: we kind of went over the game play. But should
28:36
Speaker 1: we Yeah, you want to now? Yeah, I guess. So
28:39
Speaker 1: the first thing you decide is are you playing for
28:41
Speaker 1: keeps or not? Playing for keeps means that you go
28:45
Speaker 1: home with the POGs that you collect from your friends
28:48
Speaker 1: and you don't there's no gives these back ses, uh,
28:51
Speaker 1: and those are those are serious games if you're ten
28:53
Speaker 1: years old. You know, you know what's funny is you
28:55
Speaker 1: just used two terms used for marbles, which bears a
28:58
Speaker 1: striking resemblance to POGs as well, or at least the
29:00
Speaker 1: way you play marbles and some of the rules involved. Yeah,
29:03
Speaker 1: because you collect these things as a kid, and you
29:05
Speaker 1: really if you have to give up that gimpo, Yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: you're really upset that you've you've lost that thing. So
29:12
Speaker 1: fights would break out and schools start to have to
29:14
Speaker 1: clamp down and literally banned it in quite a few
29:17
Speaker 1: countries at one point. Yeah, because I mean, also, this
29:20
Speaker 1: is a game of chance. We're going to tell you
29:22
Speaker 1: how to play. In a second, it will become very
29:24
Speaker 1: clear that's almost entirely luck. Um. And so it's gambling.
29:30
Speaker 1: There's you know, if you're playing for chips and these things,
29:32
Speaker 1: are you're playing for POGs? I mean, and these things
29:34
Speaker 1: are coveted. Um. Yeah, little little kids don't necessarily deal
29:39
Speaker 1: with loss like that, especially sudden, unexpected loss that they
29:44
Speaker 1: hadn't really anticipated the consequences of. Um. And yeah, you
29:47
Speaker 1: can get and fight to accuse people of stealing. It's
29:50
Speaker 1: it was. POGs became problematic very quickly. But this was
29:54
Speaker 1: also during the same era where Bart Simpson, you know,
29:58
Speaker 1: touting that he was an under achiever, got t shirts
30:02
Speaker 1: of Bart Simpson banned in schools. So schools were seemingly
30:06
Speaker 1: a little stricter back then in the early nineties than
30:09
Speaker 1: they are today, although I can't say that they are today.
30:11
Speaker 1: It just seems strict now in retrospect. Yeah, I think
30:16
Speaker 1: that's right. Um, And I'm gonna stop the people from
30:18
Speaker 1: emailing you right now. Do you a favor, my friend,
30:22
Speaker 1: because you said that it's basically luck and I guarantee
30:25
Speaker 1: you there are some thirty something to early forty something
30:30
Speaker 1: Paul enthusiasts they're really mad at you right now that
30:34
Speaker 1: had their POG technique down that they claim was like
30:38
Speaker 1: superior to their friends and that there was skill involved. Well,
30:43
Speaker 1: I appreciate emails. You're saving me a bunch of time
30:47
Speaker 1: replying to all those emails saying you are wrong, wrong, wrong,
30:51
Speaker 1: because yeah, it is luck. So yeah, so let's talk
30:53
Speaker 1: about how to play this right. So, um, when you
30:56
Speaker 1: play pog, you need basically a flat surface and a
30:58
Speaker 1: bunch of POGs. You need at least one other person,
31:02
Speaker 1: and from what I was reading on the internet, it
31:04
Speaker 1: seemed that that was usually how many people were in
31:07
Speaker 1: a pog match. There's two on one right, each person
31:12
Speaker 1: puts up the same number of POGs, and apparently the
31:15
Speaker 1: ideal stack of POGs is twelve. So each person is
31:19
Speaker 1: ponying up six POGs. Whether you coveted or not, I
31:23
Speaker 1: don't know. That's only if you want to follow the
31:25
Speaker 1: unofficial Pog and Cat Player's Handbook written by Jason Page exactly,
31:29
Speaker 1: who probably knows what he's talking about, at least more
31:31
Speaker 1: than I do. So I'm going with his number. So
31:34
Speaker 1: you form a stack of POGs and um, you get
31:39
Speaker 1: what your hands on. What's called a slammer up. You
31:42
Speaker 1: got to say that part? Oh thanks man. So yeah,
31:45
Speaker 1: if you look at a pog on one side, is
31:47
Speaker 1: basically what you like is the design on the other
31:49
Speaker 1: side through the blank or there's minimal design on it.
31:52
Speaker 1: It's very clear that there's one side that's like the
31:54
Speaker 1: face and you said their face up or down. You
31:58
Speaker 1: put him face up. So you've got your stack with
32:01
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton on top and the other stack with the
32:03
Speaker 1: gamp on top, going head to head, and that is
32:07
Speaker 1: how you start the game. Oh is it okay? So
32:09
Speaker 1: my understanding was that they were all in one stack.
32:12
Speaker 1: Oh no, no no, no, yeah, yeah, sorry chee okay, okay,
32:14
Speaker 1: people are so mad at me right now. So then
32:16
Speaker 1: so they put them up against each other. Then you'd
32:18
Speaker 1: stack them on like all all on one. Yeah, okay,
32:21
Speaker 1: so you've got a stack of twelve POGs. We should
32:23
Speaker 1: probably edit and reduce this whole thing. I think this
32:26
Speaker 1: is good. And then you take a slammer, and slammer
32:29
Speaker 1: is basically a pog shaped object that it's almost like
32:32
Speaker 1: a mini hockey puck. It's made of um, heavier material
32:36
Speaker 1: than pog than like cardboard, so it's like um like glass,
32:41
Speaker 1: like a heavy glass kind of thing, or rubber or
32:44
Speaker 1: metal or something like that. I wonder if there are
32:46
Speaker 1: restrictions on that. No, this is a free f all.
32:50
Speaker 1: Man Pog was a free fall, which is why the
32:51
Speaker 1: parents just didn't get it. You know why they couldn't
32:54
Speaker 1: stand it. You could so you could bring in like
32:56
Speaker 1: an iron slammer. I think so I saw that somewhere
32:59
Speaker 1: that that it was frowned upon among players because the
33:02
Speaker 1: metal would often dent at least the top pog, and
33:06
Speaker 1: if that was your pog, you might be like, man,
33:07
Speaker 1: that was what you do in my po right. Other
33:10
Speaker 1: than that, I don't think that there were restrictions on
33:13
Speaker 1: although you know, I'm sure informally there were a N
33:16
Speaker 1: and zipper. But you you would take the slammer and
33:20
Speaker 1: you would toss it down. Now here's the part where
33:22
Speaker 1: you're referring to earlier that people were going to email
33:25
Speaker 1: in about, because it does take some technique to slam
33:28
Speaker 1: this thing down. Because if you miss, or if you
33:32
Speaker 1: if you actually don't move the stack at all, that's
33:35
Speaker 1: your turn. The other person gets their turn next. Um,
33:38
Speaker 1: So it does take some technique to hit the stack
33:40
Speaker 1: in the first place, but then also to scatter him
33:42
Speaker 1: in a certain way, right, And it's the scattering that's
33:45
Speaker 1: the most important part of playing pog. Yeah, and you
33:48
Speaker 1: know what, I know we're gonna get emails. I guarantee you.
33:50
Speaker 1: This is a game that had regional variations. It's just
33:54
Speaker 1: got to be. It's one of those kids games where
33:57
Speaker 1: one playground might play it slightly different than another their
34:00
Speaker 1: playground as far as the rules go, absolutely, and that's
34:04
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stand by that because I know we're gonna
34:06
Speaker 1: get people that are going to contradict one another and
34:08
Speaker 1: say that their version was like how they played it
34:10
Speaker 1: was the right way. But until I read that book
34:13
Speaker 1: by Jason Page, which I'm never gonna do. Oh, I
34:17
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe somebody will mail it to you. So, yeah,
34:20
Speaker 1: you slam this thing down and these, uh, this stack
34:23
Speaker 1: of POGs, if you hit it right, is gonna kind
34:26
Speaker 1: of scatter everywhere, like you said, And then some of
34:31
Speaker 1: them will have flipped over with the face side down.
34:34
Speaker 1: Some will remain face side up, and that is sort
34:37
Speaker 1: of the key to the whole game. Yes, So the
34:40
Speaker 1: ones you've the ones that have landed face side up,
34:43
Speaker 1: you get to keep. If it was your turn. Now,
34:46
Speaker 1: those might be your buddies POGs, they might be your POGs,
34:49
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Then you take the ones that are
34:51
Speaker 1: still face side however they were stacked up, I think
34:55
Speaker 1: you're saying, and then you put them back into another stack,
34:57
Speaker 1: and now it's the other player's turn, and you keep
34:59
Speaker 1: going back and forth until all of the POGs have
35:03
Speaker 1: been turned over and kept. And however many POGs you
35:07
Speaker 1: turned over, that's how many you get to keep. And
35:10
Speaker 1: you know, again whether it's your POGs or the other
35:12
Speaker 1: person's POGs. Ideally it's everybody's pots. And then there was
35:15
Speaker 1: another there's another variation I saw that seems to have
35:18
Speaker 1: been pretty widespread. It was the poison pog. And these
35:22
Speaker 1: were usually like kind of a Memento moriy kind of thing,
35:26
Speaker 1: like scary skulls on fire and you know, like an
35:30
Speaker 1: eight ball kind of thing um, and it would say
35:32
Speaker 1: poison pog and the poison pog if you put one
35:35
Speaker 1: of those in the stack, if you flip that one over,
35:38
Speaker 1: then you got all the all the POGs in that
35:40
Speaker 1: stack on that one turn. Okay, I didn't see that.
35:44
Speaker 1: And this is another frustration, because I went to some
35:47
Speaker 1: YouTube videos of like gameplay videos, and I saw several
35:52
Speaker 1: that had described the game played differently than the others,
35:56
Speaker 1: which leads me to think that there were variations. Because
35:59
Speaker 1: I saw one person say that you get to keep
36:01
Speaker 1: the POGs that are faced down, and that flies in
36:04
Speaker 1: the face of everything I had heard from everyone else, right, Yeah,
36:07
Speaker 1: and I think it just it's flipping it over from
36:10
Speaker 1: the way it was before. I don't think it actually matters,
36:13
Speaker 1: but but yes, you would want to you keep the
36:16
Speaker 1: ones that you flip over, whether now they're face up
36:18
Speaker 1: or down. Who cares, right? And then I saw another
36:22
Speaker 1: where they said that you stack them every other one
36:25
Speaker 1: is face up or down. But I didn't see that
36:28
Speaker 1: verified anywhere else either, So yeah, I didn't run into
36:31
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, I just you know, people should say
36:33
Speaker 1: like these were Michigan rules, you know, or something, right,
36:37
Speaker 1: So you know that slammer the heavier object that you
36:40
Speaker 1: throw onto the pog stack. Um, you can make them
36:45
Speaker 1: out of all sorts of things, and they have different
36:47
Speaker 1: They often had different like imagery on them as well.
36:50
Speaker 1: But I saw one. I saw this in multiple places.
36:53
Speaker 1: There was an O. J. Simpson one where it had
36:55
Speaker 1: a picture of Jimpson's behind behind bars, so he was
36:59
Speaker 1: in the slam so he was on the slammer as well.
37:02
Speaker 1: That must have been a legendary slammer, because I did.
37:05
Speaker 1: I saw that in a couple of plays. Slammer. I
37:10
Speaker 1: wonder if he got a piece of that. I don't
37:12
Speaker 1: think so, man, And I don't think he's legally allowed
37:14
Speaker 1: to keep it even if he did. And then one
37:18
Speaker 1: day he would break into a hotel room and steal
37:20
Speaker 1: those slammers. That's where I'd give you the slammers. Get
37:22
Speaker 1: him back, man. I saw a documentary on that robbery.
37:25
Speaker 1: It was nuts. Oh really, yeah, I guess it was no, no, no,
37:30
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it was that. Um what was that like
37:34
Speaker 1: five part series on O J and the murders and
37:37
Speaker 1: everything that did it? I don't remember. I know it
37:42
Speaker 1: was just a documentary, I think, yeah, but the documentary series,
37:45
Speaker 1: but yeah, they covered that robbery too, and it was
37:48
Speaker 1: just just so casual and dumb and so casually dumb too,
37:53
Speaker 1: you know, it really wasn't. So let's see. I think
38:00
Speaker 1: we've explained how to play POGs about as thoroughly as
38:03
Speaker 1: you possibly can, don't you think, So let's talk about
38:06
Speaker 1: how they finally fizzled out. Well, you know, like I
38:10
Speaker 1: said earlier that I think the banning on the playgrounds
38:12
Speaker 1: and then the banning or or at school, and then um,
38:16
Speaker 1: I think the US, Canada, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, the UK
38:19
Speaker 1: and Australia all banned these pieces in schools, and so
38:25
Speaker 1: that's gonna put a damper on something. If you're stuck
38:28
Speaker 1: at dumb school all day and you can't have your
38:30
Speaker 1: POGs and you're just limited to the hours between three
38:34
Speaker 1: and six when mom and dad call you back to
38:36
Speaker 1: eat dinner. Okay, on the one hand, but I also
38:39
Speaker 1: saw a contemporary piece of journalism in the interviewed the
38:44
Speaker 1: founder of um Trove USA, which was a big pog
38:48
Speaker 1: maker at the time, and uh, he speculated that those
38:52
Speaker 1: school bands actually increased pog sales and pro that, but
38:58
Speaker 1: also probably prolonged interest because if kids have been free
39:01
Speaker 1: to play these all the time, they would have lost
39:04
Speaker 1: interest that much, that much faster. I mean, I think
39:07
Speaker 1: ultimately that's what happened. It's it's like any or It's
39:11
Speaker 1: like many kid fads that it just it becomes not cool.
39:15
Speaker 1: You age out of it a little bit, and maybe
39:17
Speaker 1: the kids below you weren't interested, and it just goes away.
39:21
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't think there's a smoking
39:23
Speaker 1: gun here to you besides o j um. Uh. Yeah,
39:30
Speaker 1: I would say, oh j is probably the culprit for
39:32
Speaker 1: why bogs went away. Yeah, I think they said in
39:38
Speaker 1: Boys Life Magazine. In the issue of Boys Life Magazine,
39:45
Speaker 1: they basically said it was it was done and not
39:48
Speaker 1: cool anymore. So, yeah, they compared it to things like, um,
39:52
Speaker 1: what's that one where you chase a hoop with a stick? Yeah,
39:57
Speaker 1: like that, and playing marbles and all these old time
39:59
Speaker 1: he's fads. They included pog among them already. Boys I said,
40:05
Speaker 1: then it probably meant it went out by exactly, it
40:09
Speaker 1: was super out by then. So we kind of mentioned
40:12
Speaker 1: Chuck that Holla Kala dairy um did not really benefit
40:17
Speaker 1: from this, and they did financially, I'm sure cut of
40:20
Speaker 1: all of that hundreds of millions of dollars that was
40:23
Speaker 1: flowing to the World Pog Federation for a couple of
40:25
Speaker 1: years definitely boosted their annual revenue, I'm sure. But if you,
40:32
Speaker 1: you know, talk to most people and say what does
40:34
Speaker 1: what does paug actually mean, they probably couldn't tell you.
40:38
Speaker 1: And so in that respect, a lot of the articles
40:40
Speaker 1: that I think both of us have seen about this
40:42
Speaker 1: have pointed out quite rightly that you know that the
40:45
Speaker 1: dairy really missed an opportunity to become like legendary or
40:49
Speaker 1: become a part of the trend, and they were very
40:52
Speaker 1: quickly separated. Poggs became their own thing in isolation with
40:57
Speaker 1: with no boost whatsoever to the dairy. Now there's kind
41:01
Speaker 1: of like this kind of retro nod to it that
41:03
Speaker 1: that enough time has passed, enough people have written and
41:05
Speaker 1: talked about it, that the dairy has been identified as
41:08
Speaker 1: the source of of POGs originally, but it didn't happen
41:12
Speaker 1: at the time, and in this kind of retrospective about
41:15
Speaker 1: it is not really probably going to help the dairy
41:17
Speaker 1: very much. It was just sad, yeah, and you know
41:20
Speaker 1: why because they were a dairy, right, Like in this
41:24
Speaker 1: one article that they spoke with this creative director at
41:27
Speaker 1: a New York ad agency that was like, you know,
41:29
Speaker 1: this is why you really need to pay attention to
41:31
Speaker 1: what your consumers doing with your brand, Like if they
41:34
Speaker 1: have off brand uses going on, you need to know
41:36
Speaker 1: about to capitalize on it. And look at McDonald's and
41:39
Speaker 1: like they're the perfect company with this stuff. And it's
41:42
Speaker 1: just like, man, they were a dairy that in Hawaii.
41:44
Speaker 1: It didn't they didn't. They weren't paying attention to that,
41:46
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't have been expected to. I don't think sure, no, no,
41:49
Speaker 1: and certainly not. And I think also it's one of
41:51
Speaker 1: those things where the only way that they possibly could
41:54
Speaker 1: have capitalized as if they had taken the gamble that
41:58
Speaker 1: this is going to be an enormous bad which would
42:00
Speaker 1: take a tremendous amount of foresight, and then also would
42:03
Speaker 1: have had to have hired like a publicist like the
42:05
Speaker 1: guy that was um interviewed or quoted in that article.
42:09
Speaker 1: Like they would have had to have figured it out,
42:11
Speaker 1: and then they could have possibly bungled it. It It would
42:13
Speaker 1: have been a big, a big deal. But also, yeah,
42:16
Speaker 1: they're they're like you said, they're just they're a dairy
42:19
Speaker 1: and and that's not the way that they're thinking. But yeah,
42:22
Speaker 1: and in hindsight, it's very easy to blame him. But regardless,
42:26
Speaker 1: I mean it is it is a little sad that
42:27
Speaker 1: they got kind of left behind, but I don't think
42:30
Speaker 1: that they were any like worse for the wear from
42:32
Speaker 1: not having been on the pog crest along with the
42:35
Speaker 1: little caps a little mill. Uh, should we go to
42:39
Speaker 1: our cherry on top here at the end. Yeah, thanks
42:41
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Military for this cherry on top. Again. Yeah,
42:45
Speaker 1: this is interesting because I had no idea about this,
42:47
Speaker 1: and uh, I should talk to my brother in law
42:50
Speaker 1: because he's certainly been stationed overseas. But um, so, the
42:54
Speaker 1: Army and Air Force exchange service stores. These are you know,
42:58
Speaker 1: let's say, if the military is a seas in the
43:00
Speaker 1: Middle East or whatever, they're in Afghanistan and they set
43:03
Speaker 1: up these sort of temporary on base stores. They started
43:08
Speaker 1: issuing POGs, these little cardboard coins in November two thousand one.
43:13
Speaker 1: Because they were lighter than metal coins, you could ship
43:16
Speaker 1: them a lot cheaper overseas, and it was supposed to
43:19
Speaker 1: be like a temporary thing, and you know, it said
43:22
Speaker 1: how much it was worth, basically, but then they started
43:25
Speaker 1: having uh, pictures on it and and comic book characters
43:29
Speaker 1: and NASCAR drivers and stuff like that. People just can't resist. No,
43:34
Speaker 1: But they were essentially POGs, and you know, I don't
43:36
Speaker 1: see anything that they actually played the game, but they
43:38
Speaker 1: functioned as currency for American service people in Afghanistan since
43:43
Speaker 1: two thousand one until just recently. Yeah, and then this
43:47
Speaker 1: um was it military dot com article, Yeah, where they
43:51
Speaker 1: were basically you know, they interviewed a few people who
43:54
Speaker 1: seemed a little like ver Clemp that these things are
43:56
Speaker 1: phased out, because they were like this kind of weird
43:59
Speaker 1: little part of their their tour that had that you
44:02
Speaker 1: just wouldn't find anywhere else in the world. And the
44:05
Speaker 1: whole reason the military adopted POGs overseas, at least an Afghanistan,
44:09
Speaker 1: is because it's just so much easier to chip um
44:12
Speaker 1: to ship them and to chip in. Using them requires
44:17
Speaker 1: less effort to toss them into the pot. But the
44:20
Speaker 1: like if you I think a hundred dollars and quarters,
44:22
Speaker 1: I saw ways almost six pounds and a hundred dollars
44:26
Speaker 1: in these little POGs. Ways, you know, a fraction of that.
44:30
Speaker 1: So just in shipping costs alone, it made sense. But
44:33
Speaker 1: apparently these these pog coins worm their ways into the
44:38
Speaker 1: hearts of the U. S. Soldiers in Afghanistan. I love it. Yeah, well,
44:43
Speaker 1: so long POGs, and so long the to the military
44:47
Speaker 1: reincarnation of POGs. There are no POGs anywhere now in
44:51
Speaker 1: the world at all. If you want to know more
44:55
Speaker 1: about POGs, just start looking them up on the internet
44:57
Speaker 1: and see what you think. And since I said that's
45:00
Speaker 1: for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this slime Mold enthusiasts.
45:07
Speaker 1: And it's not from you. I know there's a fellow
45:10
Speaker 1: slime Old Enthusiasts I'm one of them. Do now, Hey, guys,
45:14
Speaker 1: loved your slime Old episode. To figure it, I should
45:16
Speaker 1: crawl out from under the leaf litter and get in touch. Uh.
45:20
Speaker 1: It's pretty good, Huh. I got slime Olds about ten
45:23
Speaker 1: years ago for a kid's lecture and started giving it
45:25
Speaker 1: away so other people could play with these funky, chilled
45:28
Speaker 1: out beings without having to fork over hard to earn cash.
45:32
Speaker 1: You can drive them out on paper, cut them into
45:33
Speaker 1: portions and pop them in the post, which makes things
45:37
Speaker 1: very easy. Things kind of snowball quickly. I've now posted
45:41
Speaker 1: it to this means mailed for our American listeners. Very nice.
45:46
Speaker 1: I've now posted it to around twenty five countries. RAND
45:49
Speaker 1: stands at the UK's biggest science fair, giving out thousands
45:52
Speaker 1: of cultures, and I've gotten and I've got three thousand
45:56
Speaker 1: about to go to Milan for an art exhibition. I
45:59
Speaker 1: am been selectively breeding them. That's very awesome. He calls
46:04
Speaker 1: them his pets. He said they're they're much better travel
46:07
Speaker 1: than I am. He said, they're fantastic things for children
46:09
Speaker 1: and adults to play with. Giving it a selection of
46:12
Speaker 1: different foods, seeing what will go for as as a
46:15
Speaker 1: firm favorite with school classes of all ages. Would you
46:18
Speaker 1: like some guys? Yes, please, they're easy to keep the
46:22
Speaker 1: same deal as everyone else. It's free and uh there's
46:26
Speaker 1: a there's a website here. I don't know if this
46:29
Speaker 1: is just for us or if it's for everyone. Well
46:32
Speaker 1: let's say it and then um we can edit it
46:35
Speaker 1: out if if he's like, no, please don't really say that. Okay,
46:40
Speaker 1: it's either you're either gonna hear a long beep. Okay,
46:45
Speaker 1: that censorship www dot tiny u r l dot com
46:49
Speaker 1: slash slime manifesto and this has instructions in the backstory.
46:54
Speaker 1: I bet that's for everyone. The only thing you got wrong,
46:57
Speaker 1: Chuck is that it's www period. Oh yeah, that's right,
47:04
Speaker 1: and we get mad at pet ants. Are you taking
47:08
Speaker 1: a passive aggressive shot at me right now? No, it's
47:10
Speaker 1: it's fully aggressive. Thanks to everyone on your team for
47:14
Speaker 1: your brilliant episodes. My job as a microscopist means I'm
47:19
Speaker 1: usually alone in the dark. Your podcast goes along way
47:21
Speaker 1: to keeping me sane ish cheers. That is from Ian
47:25
Speaker 1: hands Portman, and then he adds this little PostScript. I've
47:28
Speaker 1: accidentally tasted uh fist a room several times. It's easy
47:32
Speaker 1: to do when a half square meter of it is
47:35
Speaker 1: hungry and gets loose in your bag. It tastes like
47:38
Speaker 1: a compost heap smells, but with the added bonus of
47:41
Speaker 1: being incredibly bitter. Wow, this is a great email, Ian,
47:45
Speaker 1: Thank you for this. Yeah, and this is one of
47:47
Speaker 1: the tops of all time. Frankly, has it all? It
47:51
Speaker 1: hasn't something that we're already interested in as an offer
47:55
Speaker 1: to give us something we're already interested for free. It's
47:59
Speaker 1: British and includes accidentally tasting a live organism. Yeah. That
48:05
Speaker 1: that could you know, creepily take over your household? Yeah,
48:08
Speaker 1: or your body now that you've eaten it. That's right. Well, um.
48:13
Speaker 1: Good luck to Ian surviving the slime Old tasting encounter.
48:17
Speaker 1: I hope that you live long enough to send us
48:19
Speaker 1: some free slime old because I will definitely take you
48:21
Speaker 1: upon that for sure, for sure. Thanks again, Ian, And
48:24
Speaker 1: if you want to be like Ian and be super cool,
48:26
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to send it off
48:29
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you
48:35
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
48:37
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
48:40
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,