Date: Fri 07-Jul-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: AMYD

Quick Words:

A7-Pogs-game-toy-fad

Full Text:

THE POGS ARE COMING, with cut (A7)

B Y A MY D'O RIO

Children today just turn on a television button and become a fighter jet pilot

flying after an evil army of robots.

Or, they flip on the computer and try and solve the mystery of Where In The

World is Carmen Sandiego?

Their games are high-tech, inst-o-matic, inter-active fantasies in full color

with sound effects. To play them, all they have to do is flip a switch.

It is therefore hard to believe that with the latest toy craze, there is no ON

button.

POG, a game reminiscent of the Our Gang era, has caught on with the electronic

highway generation. It started in Hawaii, spread to California about two years

ago, and hit here during the late winter, early spring.

Toy stores, convenience markets, ice-cream shops, even coin dealers are

selling them.

Toy Works in Newtown sells out of its stock of POGS not long after it gets

them on the shelves.

Kids buy collectible milk caps that have cool designs on one side, and are

blank on the other. The game involves stacking milk caps and slamming larger

discs at them in an attempt to flip the milk caps on their blank sides.

If you flip it, you get to keep it, unless a mother or school principal says

you can't.

Outside of the gambling element, parents seem to like POG. It is a social game

and is not violent.

Flipping milk caps, the cardboard disk on the inside of the cap, is not new,

of course. It has been played for years, but the revival started in Hawaii

when a teacher there introduced the game to her students. She used the milk

caps of POG, a Hawaiian fruit drink mix.

The game spread, and the POG manufacturer let a company use its POG name to

market the game. Hence, the start up of World POG Federation, which makes game

gear.

However, the game itself can not be copyrighted or patented, so many other

companies manufacture game gear, including TROV USA, which credits itself with

bringing the game to California from Hawaii.

TROV USA President Bill Hodson said the game got so hot in that state, police

used to have to do milk cap sweeps because too many kids would be blocking

sidewalks and roadways playing the game.

He said toy stores were selling $1,000 to $3,000 worth of milk cap gear a day.

Considering children can buy a few milkcaps for around $1, that is a lot of

volume, he said.

Newtown parents, however, doubt POG will reach such a level of popularity with

their children.

Janice Fields said her children will play with them for a while, but by are

not crazed over it.

Mr Hodson agrees that POG has not hit as heavily in the East; however, his

company has plans to change that. He said they are coming to the New York area

in July to promote the game for at least a month. Plus, he said it plans to

focus most of its energies here in the future, possibly starting competitive

tournaments.

Newtown Middle Schooler Christina Herron would be the first to sign up. She is

thrilled with the game and is getting good at it too. Her tip for POG

beginners is to slam the edge of the stack, not the middle.

½If you hit the middle, it is not going to do much,¾ she said.