A product so easy, a five-year-old can demonstrate it on television!
This week’s theme are commercials typical of the stuff seen on Nickelodeon during commercial breaks in the late 1980s and 1990s. These are products we knew existed, but never knew anyone who actually owned them.
Let’s just say that for every Muzzy-type product (which still exists today), there was every toy advertised with an 800 number vying for the attention span of impressionable children. In other words, for the one valuable 800 number-advertised product advertised on Nickelodeon, there were so many plastic pieces of junk vying for your hard-earned money.
Whip out those credit cards to avoid COD’s, we’re going shopping!
Today’s product comes to us from the wonderful year 1990, and from a company called Kid Power Inc., which you can’t find any information on, even if you throw the product’s name into the Google search.
The product, simply called “String Racer,” boasts being easy for a child to operate, yet challenging for adults…
…and then shows it in action, gliding along like the plastic wonder it is!
You (allegedly) need it, you (I guess?) want it, you gotta have String Racer…after you watch the commercial, of course!
Like I said, I can’t find any information on Kid Power Inc., not even with String Racer attached to the Google search. I have early memories of watching these zip across the screen on a string, swooping in to save GI Joe action figures, with people in sweatsuits (so many sweatsuits, you’d think this is all we wore in the late 1980s and early 1990s) raising and lowering the string, sending the String Racer on its journey.
Did GI Joe have a String Racer-type vehicle to save the day? They do now!
YouTube user Trusts Liars demonstrated the product on his YouTube Channel in 2017, and well, it doesn’t appear to be as great as the commercial made it look, but the nostalgia is oozing from the demonstration!
Upload via Trusts Liars
I remember seeing this commercial at least twice a day during commercial breaks and between programs on Nickelodeon in the early 1990s. It always seemed so much fun to watch this being demonstrated, but as an adult, knowing the type of string used to operate the String Racer, I couldn’t imagine it being without its issues. That string just screams “I’m chintzy and get tangled up easily!”
As appealing as the commercial tries to make this product look, I don’t recall being interested in one enough to ask for it. Or maybe I was, and never mentioned it. I have no idea. The kid in me (oh heck, the adult I actually am) would have loved to try zip-lining a plastic neon submarine to see if it worked as well as a commercial with catchy music, extreme closeups, and kids my age in sweatsuits made it seem.
Now, is it really any surprise this doesn’t exist anymore, or is difficult to find? It probably never worked right, even when used exactly as the commercial advertises it!
But, as I said about the demonstration video, something like this just oozes with nostalgia. It really brings back great memories of watching Nickelodeon in the afternoon, and that my friends, is cooler than racing plastic submarines any day.
Tomorrow, another toy from the commercial breaks of our very Nickelodeon youth that you had no clue you needed in your life, and one people don’t exactly say “hey, I had that!”
Perhaps you just don’t know the right people?
Have a great Throwback Thursday!
One comment