What do you miss the most about the '80s and '90s?

Why are they still making guns for kids to play with now?

From what I can tell, most major toy companies no longer make realistic toy guns. Nerf guns and water guns are still being made but they now have outlandish and colorful designs.

BB guns and airsoft guns are still being made, though the manufacturers do not directly market to children anymore (as in no TV commercials).

As I mentioned, Hasbro (the makers of Transformers) have stopped making the Megatron gun transformer. Whenever they do make it, as part of a Anniversary or Collector's release in the US, they add a orange cap on the barrel.

Wouldn't it be considered PC (at the time) to impose restrictions on what toys children are allowed to play with?

I don't know too much about Transformers - the toys, cartoons, comics, etc. I wasn't a fan of the franchise and I never had any toys. Thank you for sharing what you shared with me.

I don't know if consumer advocates were even around back in the '80s and '90s. I know political correctness wasn't a thing until the late '80s.

They still do over here. I remember there being a big thing about toy guns in Northern Ireland during the troubles, but not anywhere else.

Consumer advocates have existed for years, usually campaigning for safer products or better factory standards.

There is a federal agency that exists to promote consumer safety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Consumer_Product_Safety_Commission

In regards to other children's products, lawn darts (which were popular in the 50s/60s/70s) were banned in the US in the 80s after several children were killed.
https://mashable.com/2018/05/16/lawn-darts-jarts-history/

Okay. What '90s toys were banned?

I remember clickers being a craze in the seventies before they were banned. They were two glass balls joined together with a bit of string and you just clicked them against each other.

The problem was they had a tendency to shatter.

I can't recall any major toys being banned .

I remember those Wonder Balls, which were chocolate spheres with a toy inside, getting banned. Apparently, kids were choking on the toys.

However, those, and competing variations, have returned to stores in recent years.

Over here we called them click clacks. Another thing which got them banned was when swinging them around they smacked into a few people's temples, rendering them dead.

Oddly, the similarly deadly ball-in-the-cup thing is still around. As is the annoying ping-pong paddle with the elastic string and ball.
Those could also smash into the eyes.


Found out that in the 90s there was a lively Cabbage Patch doll which chewed. It got axed when it started chomping away at the hair of its owner.

They may well have been called click clacks over here too.

I think Cup in ball is referenced in Blackadder 2nd, the Elizabethan one.

Did 16-bit video games exist in any form - console games, computer games, arcade games, etc. - in the '80s?

I saw images of video games that were shown on Commodore Amiga computers. The graphics looked very 16-bitish to me.

Commodore Amiga computers as far as I know were the most sophisticated computers around in the '80s and '90s.

16 bit started in 1987.

Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong. How come we didn't get any 16-bit gaming consoles till the early '90s?

It may have been just a matter of getting the technology right and without issues that would have created difficulties.

I've never participated in gaming, so, I am not sure what would be involved there.

According to Wikipedia, the 16 bit video game era began in 1987, with the release of the TurboGrafx-16. This is followed by 1988's Sega Genesis and 1990's Super NES.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_generation_of_video_game_consoles

Here is an example of a 16 bit game: Super Mario World for the Super NES (I picked this because I spend hours on this game).

I know about the SNES. I played Super Mario World on it. I know about 16-bit games.

I didn't know the Sega Genesis came out in 1988. I always assumed it was a '90s invention.

Commodore tried to release a 64 bit console, the Amiga CD32, in 1993, years before the release of the Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn (both 1995), and the Nintendo 64. (1996)

However, the game console was a major failure that killed the company. It was never released in the US.

Here is a video reviewing the Amiga CD32 games. (NOTE: there is vulgar language)

The Atari Lynx is a 8/16-bit handheld game console that was released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America.

But not too many people know about this console.

Not too many people know about the Atari Jaguar that was released in 1993 either.