Back in the days of butterfly clips, mini backpacks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another fad took the world by storm: Pogs. Yes, you remember those little round cardboard circles that were decorated with all kinds of foil and famous faces — these things were everywhere in the early to mid 90s! McDonald’s, Taco Bell, even Blockbuster Video had their own versions of Pogs available for any Pog lover. But where did they come from, and what made them burn out so bright and fast?
The origin of Pogs actually dates way back to the Edo period of Japan, which was between the years 1603 and 1867, and a game called Menko. In this game, players would attempt to flip the pieces of their opponents to win the game in a very similar method to Pogs. And much like the Pog pieces of the ‘90s, the players often used pieces roughly the size of milk caps which featured popular Japanese cultural figures. Eventually, Japanese immigrants brought this game over to Hawaii in the early 20th century, and in the 1920s kids started using the caps from glass milk bottles to wield in their take on the game.
When those milk bottles became obsolete with the introduction of new packaging in the 1950s, Haleakala Dairy in Maui would sometimes use their old milk caps as promotional tools for their milk. But it was in the 1970s that things would start to take a turn with the Haleakala Dairy’s introduction of a new fruit drink: POG, which stands for the three juices it’s made from — passionfruit, orange, and guava. When the drink was introduced in 1971, the company used the old cardboard milk caps as a promotion for the drink, which led to a small surge on the island of Maui in new milk cap collecting.
But, it wasn’t until the ‘90s that Pogs would become ultra popular, and for that we have Oahu elementary school teacher and guidance counselor Blossom Galbiso to thank. In 1991, Galbiso introduced the old milk caps game she used to play in her youth to her students as a less violent alternative to playground activities like dodgeball, using those new cardboard Pog caps as the pieces for the game. Soon enough, the Canadian packaging company that was printing the caps for the Pog drink was inundated with requests for extras just for playing the game. It was around this time that a Southern California businessman named Alan Rypinski took interest and came calling at Haleakala Dairy. He bought the Pog trademark, and shortly after created the World POG Federation.
Rypinski decided to start licensing the POG trademark to everyone under the sun, which quickly removed its association from the juice it was originally connected to. The game spread like wildfire across the United States, and soon enough almost every kid had their own Pog collection that they’d take to school and play with friends. In case you don’t remember, the game itself was pretty simple — each player would bring out the same number of Pogs and stack them all up in one stack. From there, each person would take a turn and “slam” the stack with their Slammer, a larger, thicker piece that would scatter the Pogs across the ground. Whatever Pog pieces landed face up when you were the one slamming, you kept, and whoever had the most at the end, won the game. It was often a decision amongst players whether you would play “for keeps,” which meant that whatever Pogs you ended up with you kept, and meant you had the chance to lose some of your own Pogs as well.
Because the World POG Federation let pretty much anyone license the brand, and because Pogs were so cheap and easy to make, they became oversaturated in the market, and just as quickly as they rose to popularity, they began to fade away. You have to wonder what would have happened to POG juice had they kept their trademark and really tried to connect the toy Pogs with their drink. Would POG juice be a ubiquitous brand today? Sadly, we’ll have to be left in wonder on that front. But, we can always dig out that old plastic tube of Pogs our parents have stashed away in a closet somewhere and play another game to remember the mid-90s fad!
Did you play Pogs, and did you play “for keeps”? What were some of your favorite Pogs? Let us know in the comments, but first watch this Pogs commercial to get your dose of nostalgia:
- By 1994 alone, 350 million Pogs were sold in the US nationwide. In just the state of California, Pog sales generated $10 million a week.
- Many schools around the world began banning Pogs when kids would bring them to school and get distracted from their schoolwork. Hmmm, sounds familiar to another ‘90s fad: the Tamagotchi (click to read our article on that one!).
- Alan Rypinski is also known for patenting, rebottling, and renaming Armor All, which had previously been called Trid-On. He bought the marketing rights to the polish for $5000 in the 1960s, and ended up selling the rights in 1979 for $49.6 million.
- Pog slammers were often made from metal, rubber, or plastic. Bigger slammers, particularly the ones made of metal, were often considered cheating, and besides, those big metal ones would often damage the cardboard Pogs — the horror!
- Original Pogs often had a staple in them as they did when they were first introduced with the POG drink.
- By 1994 alone, 350 million Pogs were sold in the US nationwide. In just the state of California, Pog sales generated $10 million a week.
- Many schools around the world began banning Pogs when kids would bring them to school and get distracted from their schoolwork. Hmmm, sounds familiar to another ‘90s fad: the Tamagotchi (click to read our article on that one!).
- Alan Rypinski is also known for patenting, rebottling, and renaming Armor All, which had previously been called Trid-On. He bought the marketing rights to the polish for $5000 in the 1960s, and ended up selling the rights in 1979 for $49.6 million.
- Pog slammers were often made from metal, rubber, or plastic. Bigger slammers, particularly the ones made of metal, were often considered cheating, and besides, those big metal ones would often damage the cardboard Pogs — the horror!
- Original Pogs often had a staple in them as they did when they were first introduced with the POG drink.
