Five Things – 6.17.13

1.  Pocket Rockers – In 1988, Fisher Price decided that there weren’t enough weird formats of media around and introduced yet another one, targeted at kids.  The toy was called Pocket Rockers, and it was basically a little mini stereo with a tiny tape that held two songs on it – kind of like cassette singles back then, but these would only play in a Pocket Rocker.  So you were basically doomed to having it sound terrible, and they had the license to produce tapes of terrible quality.

 The tracks were predictably “top of the charts”, too.  You had your Bangles, your Phil Collins, your Bon Jovi.  Tiffany herself had three releases! Ray Parker Jr. shared a cassette with The Monkees, who generously licensed the “Theme from The Monkees” to the cause. The tapes were marketed as fashion accessories, as well.

Who cares what songs are on the tapes? Just tell them what artists are available!  Pocket Rockers lasted a few years and died in the early ’90s.  Nobody noticed.

2.  Dreamfinder and Figment on TODAY – Disney had pretty high hopes for Figment when EPCOT launched.  He was basically positioned as the Mickey of EPCOT and showed up in most of the marketing materials.

When the park opened, Figment and his creator Dreamfinder were featured on a really awkward segment of the TODAY show.  Thankfully the Imagineer comes and saves the day, but it’s pretty weird.

The intro page with the space music and the sunrise is a pretty great shot, too.

 

3.  “You Will” – In which AT&T pretty much nails the future in 1993.

 

4.  We’re All in the Same Gang –  Here’s a 1990 track from the West Coast Rap All-Stars, featuring King Tee, Def Jef, Young MC, Ice-T, Dr. Dre and MC Ren, J.J. Fad, Digital Underground, and MC Hammer among others.

 

5. Wrestling Bars – I’ll just leave this here.

 

 

-ds