WEBVTT - How Did POGs Become a '90s Phenomenon? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.480 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, brain Stuff, 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:12.200 Lauren Vogel bomb here. Hollywood has cashed in pretty hard 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.600 on our nostalgia for the nineteen nineties. There's the new 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.360 Jurassic Park movies, the Space Jam sequel, the Crow remake, 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.880 and rewatch podcasts for everything from Full House to Friends. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.400 And that's not even getting into the video game remakes, 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.920 vinyl re releases, and near inexplicable return of extra wide 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:36.600 legged jeans. Less attention is now paid to another nineties 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:43.320 pop culture artifact, POGs. Remember those little paperboard circles and 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:45.880 the game you played with them. There's an episode of 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.680 The Simpsons from nineteen ninety five where Bart sells it 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.159 old Millhouse, who trades it away for a set of POGs. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.880 In Milhouse's defense, they did have the character Alf on them. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.240 But unlike the Simpsons and even Alf, POGs have pretty 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.160 much dropped off the radar since their nineteen nineties heyday. 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.760 If you weren't in grade school in the nineteen nineties, 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.560 there's a chance you've never even heard of POGs, despite 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:16.160 the phenomenon that they were so today, let's talk about them. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.800 By some accounts, the story of POGs began a long, 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.960 long time ago, not in a galaxy far far away, 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:27.440 but in Japan. There's a Japanese game called Minko, thought 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.759 to have originated during the Kamakura period, which lasted from 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:36.600 thirteen thirty three to eleven eighty five BCE. Minko operates 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.520 under a simple premise. First, one player lays down a card. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.920 This is the target. An opponent then tries to flip 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.440 over the target by throwing their own card at it. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.160 If that player succeeds, they get to claim both cards. 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.680 Amenko wasn't always played with cards. Originally, players used discs 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.160 of baked play with colorful designs like portraits of famous 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:03.000 people reel or painted on one side. These were small, 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.200 about two inches or five centimeters across, but by eighteen 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:12.600 sixty eight, paper cards had replaced them. Another thing that 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:14.919 happened in the latter half of the eighteen hundreds was 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.480 that there was an influx of Japanese immigrants to the 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.440 Hawaiian Islands. There. Amenko may or may not have inspired 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:27.440 a similar game called milk Caps, popular in the early 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.520 nineteen hundreds. This was a children's pastime that could be 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.919 enjoyed on the cheap kids would stack up bottle caps 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.280 in a vertical pile. Then that take turns tossing a 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.520 harder object known as aikini or slammer at the stack. 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.880 Any caps that landed face up would go to the thrower. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:46.920 Remaining caps would be restacked, and the next kid had 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:52.520 a chance to throw. We owe the word pog to 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.920 a beverage company originally called Halea Kila Dairy based on Maui. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.440 In the nineteen seventies, they debuted a new do mixed 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.639 juice drink called Passionfruit Orange Guava or POG for short. 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.760 Today the brand is owned by Meadow Gold and their 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.880 beverages are sold in paper cartons and plastic jugs and 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.520 bottles sealed with screw on plastic caps. But at first 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.400 Pog juice was distributed in bottles sealed with cardboard caps, 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.400 and these lids were the perfect fit for a new 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:27.160 spin on the milk caps game. The game had pretty 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.520 much gone extinct by the early nineteen nineties, that is 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:35.080 until along came One Blossom Gelbizo, a teacher and guidance 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:41.320 counselor who's lovingly remembered as the mother of Pog's In 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.400 nineteen ninety one, while working at Wyalua Elementary School on Oahuo, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:50.560 she reintroduced the old time waster to her students. Suddenly, 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.760 milk caps was all the rage again at Wyalua Elementary 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:58.640 and beyond, but a few changes were necessary. Milk bottles, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.440 like the ones older generation had gotten caps from to 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.680 play with, weren't as common in the nineteen nineties. In 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:10.280 their absence, children turned to Pog juice caps. Galbizo later 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.600 told the press, the beauty of it is that the 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.440 students stopped playing the real rough games in the playground. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.279 Both boys and girls can play, and it teaches rules. 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.839 A Galbizo may have been the mother of Pog's, but 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.240 it was one Alan Rapinsky who made them a global sensation. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.440 Helia Khila Dairy didn't actually print its own bottle caps. 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.320 Those were manufactured by stan Pack, a separate company based 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.680 in Canada. Thanks to Galbizo, stan Pack realized it could 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.480 make a killing in the Hawaiian toy market by selling 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.880 its juice lids as game pieces. There A Rapinsk, a 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.960 California business owner, somehow caught wind of this. In nineteen 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.760 ninety three, he purchased the Pog brand name from the 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:01.400 dairy and founded the World Pog Federation. That's when things 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.920 really got serious with relentless marketing. The Federation turned POGs 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.920 into a multimillion dollar industry and the American Mainland's newest 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:15.680 playground craze. So why did the game catch on? Partly 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.440 because the game pieces were inexpensive and collectible, and partly 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.480 because the game itself has super easy rules. To play, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.800 you need only some pog caps and a slammer. Pog 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.679 caps are paperboard discs about the size of a US 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.840 half dollar, around forty millimeters across that's one and a 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.280 half inches. Each cap has one side that's blank or 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.280 bears the Pog logo, and one side with an eye 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.640 catching illustration, printed photo, or other design, sometimes with fancy 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.440 features like holographic foil or glow in the dark ink. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:54.200 We call this second side the face. Slammers are slightly larger, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.039 thicker discs made of plastic, hard rubber, or metal. They're 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.320 about seven times heavier than pogcap and are often decorated 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:07.360 with engravings, anadized patterns, or bright stickers. Participants meet over 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.880 a flat surface where they can pile their caps into 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.120 a single stack, face down. Everyone has to chip in 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.560 the same number of caps. Player one chucks their slammer 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.760 at the top of the stack, they'll get to take 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.320 all of the caps that land face up. If you 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.080 miss the stack completely, that still counts as your turn. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.719 The players restack the remaining caps and the second player 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.440 gets a throw. The process repeats until all of the 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.040 caps are gone, at which point the game ends, the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:38.200 winner being whoever claimed the most caps. I'm merely saying 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.640 that POGs caught on feels like a severe understatement. In 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.960 February of nineteen ninety three, the Federation through the first 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.039 ever US National Pog Tournament. Within a year, the game 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.120 had made its way to the East Coast infiltrating playgrounds 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:58.640 from Maryland to California. Rapinsky realized that his core products, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:03.200 the Pog caps, were basically collectible business cards. The Federation 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.080 struck licensing deals with just about every brand you can 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.640 think of, McDonald's, Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles, Pega, Genesis, Bugs, Bunny, 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.360 the National Hockey League. Even the Catholic Church wanted a 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.200 piece of the action. In nineteen ninety five, the Diocey 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.480 of Camden, New Jersey ordered fifty thousand POGs with Pope 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:25.840 John Paul the Second's face on them. Other designs made 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:32.720 use of more generic nineties pop culture imagery like eight balls, flames, skulls, aliens, dinosaurs, skateboards, 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.840 and mildly rude or gross cartoons. If you remember the 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.640 vibe of Spencer's or gadzooks, think that if you don't, 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.280 try to imagine a uvy lit day glow wonderland of 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.239 what thirteen year olds thought was edgy at the time. 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.640 For a minute there, POGs were omnipresent. But the pog 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.280 bubble had to burst sometime. Rapinskiing Company may have oversaturated 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.760 their own market with too many variants, and by the 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:07.280 mid nineteen nineties parents were starting to complain. When kids 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.600 played POGs for keeps at recess or between classes, you 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.240 could easily lose your favorites to another student. That sometimes 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.800 caused fights. Many teachers considered the game and its pieces 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:22.120 disruptive and way too similar to gambling for comfort, so 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.880 POGs started getting banned in various schools around the country. 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.680 By the turn of the twenty first century, POGs were 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:34.320 decidedly out. The magazine Boy's Life was already dismissing POGs 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.439 as a bygone fad in nineteen ninety eight. The fads 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.880 can't last forever, and after all, people had beanie babies 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:50.440 to buy. Today's episode is based on the article You're 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.840 definitely a kid of the nineties if you played POGs 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.040 on housetuffworks dot com, written by Mark Mancini. A brain 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.679 stuff is production of Iyheart Radio in partnership with Houseifforks 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.280 dot Com and is produced by Time They're playing. Before 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.160 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.080 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.