Do you remember … pogs?

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By Ryan Rhodes

Think back a few years to that glorious fad involving mere circular pieces of cardboard that seemed to govern our level of happiness or disappointment in every recess period during middle school.

Looking back, you can’t help but think, “What an incredible waste of money.” With all the allowance money we spent on pogs we could’ve now bought a month’s worth of groceries or half an LSU football ticket.

But, holy crap, weren’t those things fun? You can’t deny it because I know right now you are thinking about going home this summer and pulling your pog collection out of the attic for nostalgia’s sake.

The origin of pogs can be traced back to Hawaii in the 1920s. Kids would use the caps from POG (passionfruit, orange and guava) brand juice to play a game where the caps were stacked and then slammed attempting to flip them over. The kid who flipped the most over won.

The game fizzled out until the early ‘90s, when a school teacher from Oahu decided to use milk caps to play pogs in order to supplement her math lessons. The fad spread across the world like a modern viral video of an awkward white kid dancing to techno.

What made pogs so addictive? It was probably because, for most of us, pogs were our first exposure to any form of gambling. Everyone who owned pogs played for keeps eventually, and never came down from that high of relieving their opponent of every pog they owned.

The key to winning with keeps was the slammer. Most suckers merely used a light plastic one and tried to throw it down with all their strength. I chose another route.

At a flea market, I bought a solid brass slammer that probably weighed about a pound. It had a picture of a pirate skeleton manning the wheel of his ship with a holographic background on it. Most. Badass. Thing. Ever.

All I had to do was drop that on a stack of pogs and they would crumble like the French in frontal assault. Eventually, I had to stop using it, though, because no one would play keeps anymore with me once they knew about my kickass slammer. Still, I can brag to this day that that slammer never lost a pog match.

I’m not the only one who had an invincible slammer. Shay LeSage, English junior from Baton Rouge, claims she had a slammer with divine powers.

“My slammer had pictures of the Precious Moments kids praying on it,” said LeSage. “God backed that slammer; that’s why it never lost.”

Then it started to get ugly. School principles started to get pissed off about pogs. They didn’t like the fact that it looked like gambling. It also started getting so distracting for some students that they would get held back a grade. To make matters worse, toy companies created machines that allowed you to put whatever picture from whatever source you wanted on a pog.

Little boys who met Mr. Puberty early started making pogs that made their pants fit a little tighter. Eventually, school administrators had enough and schools across the country started banning pogs, threatening to confiscate any found at school. To save our precious collections, we all settled for keeping pogs out of school.

After a while, not being to play at school led to a severe lack of opportunities to play pogs. This eventually led to a loss of interest for our generation, and the fad quickly died. But I still have my pog collection including my kick-ass slammer. I’ll play you for keeps, unless you’re chicken.

Originally Published: Issue 607 - May 6, 2008

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