Slap Bracelets

Violence as fashion. It's a novel concept, or at least it was in the early nineties. Imagine, never again having to deal with the insurmountable challenges of securing a traditional bracelet to your wrist! Despite the fact that slap bracelets served no practical purpose and actually caused a moderately tragic number of injuries, we consumed them all the same. Slap bracelets were beloved by children and teenagers not just for their fashion credentials but also for the perceived danger we were warned of by parents and teachers. Slap bracelets may have seemed like the most minor type of rebellion, but they possessed the unmatchable allure of the forbidden fruit.

School principals sent strongly-worded letters home with students, urging parents to restrain their children from coming to school armed with these spring-loaded metal-lined deathtraps. The cheap cloth cover often strained under the force of the metal beneath it, poking out in an admittedly dangerous fashion. However, we weren't about to side with The Man and agree to the ban. We were passionate about our right to wear our day-glo green and zebra-striped wrist weapons, regardless of rampant urban legend-based rumors warning of slit wrists and burst arteries.

Slap bracelets were so much more than tacky arm candy. They worked as catapults, slingshots, and all-purpose weapons. And how cool to slap on a bracelet with a satisfying smack! There were endless ways to work these babies. Four at a time! Long-distance slapping! We just couldn't resist. Sitting there in class, how could you just leave this mind-bogglingly entertaining device to lay dormant? So it would be crack (flatten), smack! (slap on), over and over again until you'd earned yourself a trip to the time-out corner.

Slap bracelets have made a few minor comebacks in the last decade, but nothing on par with their original popularity. Stripping these delightful devices of their contraband qualities, slap bracelets became plastic-spring laden, pvc coated advertising devices. Sure, we were willing to acquiesce a bit in our day...give us a dinosaur slap bracelet with ruler markings down the side and we'll concede to its minor educational value. These days, slap bracelets are being used as cheap ploys to encourage kids to wear some company's logo around like a walking (gesturing?) wrist billboard. There's even been word of physics teachers using slap bracelets to teach functions of potential energy curves and states of stability, but it's almost too frightening to verify.

So let us remember slap bracelets as they were, before the world insisted on infusing some sort of subliminality to their existence: violent, neon-hued, and pure wrist-smacking fun.

Check it out:
The dark side of a slap-happy fad
US consumer panel warns of injury from slap bracelets

Nick in the Afternoon

From 1993 to 1998, there was one name that kids recognized as the leading children's television host of the era. He wasn't particularly handsome or suave. He wasn't even human.

He was a popsicle stick.



Stick Stickly, the iconic host of Nickelodeon's summertime "Nick in the Afternoon" programming block, was emblematic of a generation of latchkey kids whose parents left them to be raised by hypnotically engaging television personalities. Not only were our favorite shows on all afternoon, but we could actually write to celebrated TV personality Stick Stickly himself with feedback. Stick's jingle is forever burned in the 8-year-old region of my cerebral cortex:

"Write to me, Stick Stickly, PO Box 963. New York City, New York state, 10108!"

Sure, he was just a popsicle stick, but he provided us with endless hours of inter-show programming that was at least as entertaining as the programs themselves. Stick Stickly brought with him a cast of lovable anthropomorphic popsicle stick peers: love interest Holly B. Wood, high-flying alter-ego SuperStick, bizarro-esque aptly named Evil Stick, and long-lost identical twin stick Woodknot Stickly. The best part about using unconventional forms (i.e. popsicle sticks) was that these characters needed not be believable or relatable. They were pure, noneducational entertainment, which we blindly consumed with gusto.

Stick Stickly lived in his own popsicle stick universe, "Stickopolis", a miniature neighboring subsidiary of the legendary Nickelodeon studios. In their Stickopolis-based studio, Stick and his gang participated in a variety of segments. Holly B. Wood became a celebrity interviewer and news presenter. Stick was frequently shamed for his lack of obscure trivial knowledge and/or riddle answers and was subsequently forced to wear a miniature dunce cap. Then of course, there was "Dip Stick", a mildly terrifying segment where Stick Stickly was blindfolded and required to guess the disgusting substance in which the puppeteers chose to submerge him.

I so clearly remember watching the segments where Stick was strapped to a giant wheel-of-fortune type contraption and spun to determine which show was up next. Of course, it rarely ever landed on my top picks, but I did occasionally get to watch as-of-then already retired classic episodes of "You Can't Do that on Television." And thanks to that catchy address jingle, I could write Stick Stickly letters letting him know what I'd like to see on Nick in the Afternoon.

This was the height of democratic television for children of the era. Not only did we get to write in our requests (hey, they could get our shows on in 2-3 business days standard US mail!) but we also got to see a sturdy mix of live action and cartoon programming. Hey Dude strikes your fancy? Love watching Clarissa explain it all? Nick in the Afternoon had it. Enjoy the talking babies of Rugrats? Able to endure the frightening claymation stylings of Gumby and his pals? All in an afternoon's time.

Stick Stickly represented everything quirky and fun about the 90s. He would ask us to mail his rubber bands for his birthday, to complete his giant rubber band ball. His catchphrase "Simmer Down," though a bit ironic for a popsicle remnant, was instantly recognizable. And of course, he always gave us invaluable little pieces of Stickly wisdom like "You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friends' nose."

If this isn't enough to jog your memories, the band Lemon Demon has an amazing song devoted to Mr. Stickly himself. I present to you an unauthorized video of Lemon Demon's "Stick Stickly:"






Link to "Bring Back Stick Stickly" Petition

Scholastic Book Orders

There was no day like book-order day. It's crazy to imagine that book-order forms really drove the kids wild, but the love of these flimsy little pamphlets was irrepressible. Despite the fact that these books were available at local retailers everywhere, the idea that something would come to us in the mail at school and we could spend weeks anticipating it was almost too much to bear.

The best thing about book orders was not the order forms themselves, but rather the accompanying excitement of the purchase. Imagine, as a child, being able to select and buy something all on your own! Sure, your parents would have to fill out the form, write the check, and seal the envelope, but you brought it to school. The books arrived with a post-it with your name on it! Let's face it, as children we weren't big decision makers. We couldn't choose what we were going to eat for dinner or what time we would go to bed, but dammit we could pick our books and that was that.

Never mind that these books were educational. We usually found ways around that. There were always special "just for fun" books with no educational value whatsoever, and we hungrily devoured them. I specifically remember ordering a Full House Uncle Jesse's personal photo album. Just imagine! I, a mere third grader, could own Uncle Jesse's personal collection of photographs! In the days before I possessed the mental capacity to realize these "albums" were mass-produced, I actually believed that I owned a piece of history. Through my own good luck, book orders had allowed me to stumble upon a collection of pictures that Uncle Jesse had decided to mail to me and me alone! Take that, third grade peers!

Now of course we can look past our childhood frenzied enthusiasm to realize that at its core, Scholastic was really just a master of marketing to children. By distributing these in schools allowing the children to see these forms first, they put the kids in control. It was like programming children to pester and torment their parents until they finally gave in and wrote the check.

But in those days, we didn't see it that way. Aside from the obvious gratification of Christmas-morning-esque book-order deliveries, bringing in your book-order with all the right books checked off was a measure of your playground street cred. These book orders were ours, and we called the shots. As children, our level of autonomy was pretty limited, so we took it where we could get it.

And if where we could get it also threw in a boxed-set of Judy Blume books, it just made it all the sweeter.


Book-Orders in the news:
Book Orders Under Fire

Browse online Scholastic book-orders:
Book Orders Online