What Happened to POGs?

pogs-featured

Do you remember being in 8th or 9th grade and feeling a sense of dread when a friend of yours challenged you for your favorite flat little cardboard disc? Well I do. I never wanted to give up my favorite POGs but that was the name of the game and I feared losing every time I placed my stack down.

POG was a phenomena that I’m sure many of you remember but don’t talk about all that often. The name POG actually came from a brand of juice made in Hawaii that contained passionfruit, orange and guava that had a top resembling the POGs we all know and love. The very original POGs were flimsy cardboard discs with staples punched into them. Once the craze caught, gone were the days of those stapled discs. We soon began to see discs with sparkling eyeballs, famous cartoon characters, and 3D Magic Eye imagery plastered on them. It was the dawning of a new gaming era.

pog-containerThe artwork alone speaks for the generation.

It was such an obsession for about 3 years. The way you played, or at least the way my friends and I played was this:

  • 2 players
  • equal number of POGs contributed to 1 stack
  • stack POGs face down
  • slam said stack with the “SLAMMER”
  • player who slams keeps POGs that are face up
  • re-stack
  • next player’s turn
  • repeat till all POGs are gone from stack
  • player with most POGs wins the entire stack that was played with
  • cry in corner for loss of favorite POG

Ok well maybe I didn’t cry but it definitely sucked when you lost one of those POGs that you treasured. Not only that but your friends just loved to keep that one on the top of their stack inside their little tube holder thing so you could see it. I also remember being upset if one of my friends was one of those “power slammers” who just smashed the heck out of your POGs with his metal or really hard plastic slammer. I’d be stoked about winning only to be disappointed later when I found that some of the POGs I gained were indented or even creased due to un-restrained slamming. (see below)

pog-slammerThis = destroyer of POGs.

It was a fun game and was probably an extreme waste of my money or better yet, my parents money. I don’t have an exact number of how many I had, but I know that I had two tubes of POGs at any given time with a handful of favorite slammers that I used. I can remember going to fairs and even gift shops on school field trips and they would have POGs for sale. Life was great for POGs for a span of 3 to 4 years then schools started to ban them because they were seen as a form of gambling.

Writing this post makes me want to go to my parent’s house and raid the attic to try and find my POG collection. I can remember that I had a few I never wanted to play with, most of them being X-Men related probably. (the X-Men cartoon from back in the day) Come to find out, some of the actual collectible POGs out there are ones of Bart Simpson, the Power Rangers and “No Fear” brand. I know I had some Simpson ones, but I doubt I had Bart.

Do any of you recall POG? Do you have a collection stashed away somewhere? Feel free to post a picture via some picture sharing social hub of some kind and let us see them! If I get a chance and find my POGs I’ll make sure to post a pic or two for all to see!

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Hey guys & gals, my name is Lucas Tetrault and if you like this post or any of the others I’ve done – please feel free to venture over to my Blog and take a gander at some other stuff I write about. I promise I don’t intend to waste your time.

I work as a Creative Director and spend time away from my job with my wife and son, writing for Unreality, and trying to be creative with my own personal projects.

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