Pogs
Encyclopedia
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
that was popularized during the early 1990s. The word "pog" also refers to the discs used to play the game. The name originates from POG
POG (drink)
POG is a tropical style juice drink created in 1971 by a food product consultant named Mary Soon who worked for Haleakala Dairy on Maui, Hawaii that consists of a blend of juices from passionfruit, orange, and guava fruits...
, a brand of juice made from passionfruit, orange
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
and guava
Guava
Guavas are plants in the myrtle family genus Psidium , which contains about 100 species of tropical shrubs and small trees. They are native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America...
; the use of the POG bottle caps to play the game pre-dated the game's commercialization. The game of pogs possibly originated in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
(Maui, Hawaii) in the 1920s or 1930s, or possibly with origins in a game from much earlier: Menko
Menko
Menko is a Japanese card game played by two or more players. It is also the name of the type of cards used to play this game. Each player uses Menko cards made from thick paper or cardboard, with one or both side printed with images from anime, manga, etc...
, a Japanese card game very similar to pogs, has been in existence since the 17th century
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
.
Pogs returned to popularity when the World POG Federation and the Canada Games Company
Canada Games Company
Canada Games was a Canadian games manufacturing company, originally based in Brampton, Ontario, before moving to nearby Concord. Its slogan was "The Best in Fun from Canada Games."...
reintroduced them to the public in the 1990s. The pog fad
FAD
In biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...
soared, and peaked in the mid 1990s before rapidly fading out.
Gameplay
Rules may vary among players, but the game variants generally have common gameplay features. Each player has their own collection of pogs and a slammer, a heavier game piece often made of metal or a thick plastic. However, metal pogs were not allowed in some games because they were too heavy and knocked too many pogs over too quickly, thus giving the player with the first turn an unfair advantage. Before the game, players decide whether to play 'for keeps', or not. 'For keeps' implies that the players keep the POGs that they win and forfeit those that have been won by other players. The game can then begin as follows:- The players each contribute an equal number of pogs to build a stack with the pieces facing down, which will be used during the game.
- The players take turns throwing their slammer (heavy rubber, metal or plastic cylinder shaped piece, with different textures and colors) down onto the top of the stack, causing it to spring up and the pogs to scatter. Each player keeps any pogs that land 'face up' after their throw.
- After each throw, the pogs which have landed 'face down' are then re-stacked for the next player.
- When no pogs remain in the stack, the player with the most pogs is the 'winner'.
Popularity
Although the game of pogs was played on the Hawaiian island of MauiMaui
The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
as early as 1927, the 1990s revival is credited to Blossom Galbiso, a teacher and guidance counselor who taught at Waialua Elementary School
Waialua, Hawai'i
Waialua is a census-designated place and North Shore community in the Waialua District on the Island of Oahu, City & County of Honolulu. As of the 2000 Census, the CDP had a total population of 3,761....
in Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
. In 1991, Galbiso introduced the game she had played as a little girl to a new generation of students, soon incorporating pogs into her fifth grade curriculum as a way of teaching math, and as a nonviolent alternative to other popular schoolyard games, one of which involved throwing a ball at one's opponent as hard as possible. The game quickly spread from Oahu's North Shore
North Shore (Oahu)
The North Shore, in the context of geography of the Island of Oahu, refers to the north-facing coastal area of Oahu between Kaena Point and Kahuku Point...
, and by early 1992, STANPAC Inc., the small Canadian packaging company that had been manufacturing the milk caps distributed by Haleakala Dairy on Maui (the same caps that were collected by Galbiso for her class), was printing millions of pogs every week for shipment to the Hawaiian island chain. The game soon spread to the mainland, first surfacing in California, Texas, Oregon, and Washington before spreading to the rest of the country. By 1993, the previously obscure game of pogs, which had almost been forgotten, was now played throughout the world.
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and U.S President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. Public awareness messages concerning topics such as first aid, safety, wildfire prevention, and drug use were also featured on pogs, and they were also used for fund raising for charities and organizations such as the Red Cross and cancer research organizations. The popularity of the game spawned pog prizes at major fast-food chains (see below), as well as knockoffs, such as "Slammer Whammers
Slammer Whammers
Slammer Whammers were a brand of pogs made by the Los Angeles-based company Imperial Toy Corporation, in the 1990s. They were one of the leading brands of pogs during the milk cap craze that swept the United States and the United Kingdom in 1994-5.- Product :The standard Slammer Whammers product...
", a similar game released under a different brand name. Pogs can sometimes still be found on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
and in game and card stores. During the early 1990s, a US national pog tournament was held every February 7 in honor of the game's inventor's birthday.
School banning
Because many children would keep the pogs they won in games from other players, many school districts considered pogs a form of gambling. Pogs proved to be major distractions from classes and the source of various playground arguments. These elements eventually led to the banning of pogs from various schools across North America and many western European Countries such as Sweden, Germany and the U.K. Other bannings occurred across Australia.Also capitalizing on the success of pogs were corporations and governments. Fast food
Fast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
chains such as McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
, Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, Taco Bell
Taco Bell
Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
, Del Taco
Del Taco
Del Taco is a North American fast food restaurant chain which specializes in American-style Mexican cuisine as well as American foods such as burgers, fries, and shakes...
, Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr. is an American fast-food restaurant chain located mostly in the Western and Southwestern United States. The first store has opened in Canada in Kelowna, BC. They are in the process of expanding to Mexico, Malaysia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam,...
/Hardee's
Hardee's
Hardee's is a restaurant chain, located mostly in the Southeast and Midwestern regions of the United States. It has evolved through several corporate ownerships since its establishment in 1960. It is currently owned and operated by CKE Restaurants. Along with its sibling restaurant chain, Carl's...
and Checkers/Rallys
Checkers (fast food)
Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc. is the largest chain of double drive-thru restaurants in the United States. In June 2006, the Company went private through a merger with Taxi Holdings Corp., an affiliate of Wellspring Capital Management, a private equity firm.The company operates more than 815...
gave away free pogs with the purchase of a menu item. Fox television released a line of pogs with the debut of "The Tick
The Tick (animated TV series)
The Tick: The Animated Series is an American animated television series adaptation of the New England Comics superhero, The Tick. The series debuted September 10, 1994 on the Fox network's Fox Kids block and was responsible for introducing the satirical comic book character to a mainstream...
" animated series. Disneyland produced limited edition caps for its "Go POG Wild and rollerblade Crazy" event in the spring of 1994. Knott's Berry Farm
Knott's Berry Farm
Knott's Berry Farm is a theme park in Buena Park, California, now owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, and a line of jams, jellies, preserves, and other specialty food, now part of The J. M. Smucker Company based in Placentia, California....
produced a limited edition set for the 1994 Southern California POG Championship. Kool-Aid also produced limited edition caps and slammers with the Kool-Aid Man imprinted on them, which were only available by mailing in a certain amount of Kool-Aid points. In an effort to curb drug use and crime, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE, is an international education program that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. D.A.R.E., which has expanded globally since its founding in 1983, is a demand-side drug control strategy of the U.S....
program in California designed caps with the DARE logo and Scruff McGruff, as well as county sheriff badges.
World POG Federation & Pogman
The World POG Federation, or WPF for short was probably the biggest brand of pogs in the UK. Most POGs feature the POG mascot, called Pogman.These pogs featured released many series featuring images mostly comical in nature, or parodying skits of famous scenes from movies, or other popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
.
Pog sets
Series- Series 1
- Series 2 (PogpourriPotpourriPotpourri is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material, used to provide a gentle natural scent in houses. It is usually placed in a decorative wooden bowl, or tied in small sachet made from sheer fabric....
) - Alcohol
- Alf
- Boy Scouts of America
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- American Wildlife Association
- AnimaniacsAnimaniacsSteven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, usually referred to as simply Animaniacs, is an American animated series, distributed by Warner Bros. Television and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven...
- Anti-Drug
- Anti-Smoking
- Batman
- Black History Month
- Cadbury's
- ChristmasChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
- Chanukah
- Classics
- Cristal
- DAREDrug Abuse Resistance EducationDrug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE, is an international education program that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. D.A.R.E., which has expanded globally since its founding in 1983, is a demand-side drug control strategy of the U.S....
- Discovery Channel
- Dragon Ball series
- Easter Eggs
- Fast Food Chain Promotional toy
- GargoylesGargoyles (TV series)Gargoyles is an American animated series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. Gargoyles is known for its dark tone, complex story arcs and melodrama...
, animated television series - GoosebumpsGoosebumpsGoosebumps is a series of children's horror fiction novels written by American author R. L. Stine and first published by Scholastic Publishing. It is a collection of stories that feature semi-homogenous plot structures, with fictional children being involved in scary situations...
, kids' novels - Hot WheelsHot WheelsHot Wheels is a brand of die cast toy car, introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to the Matchbox brand from Tyco.-Models:...
, toy car line - Kinis
- Limited Edition
- The Little Rascals (film)
- Matchbox Toy Car
- Mad Magazine/Madtv
- Mega
- Metalix
- Micro
- Mighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action children's television series based on the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, catapulting into pop culture in mere months...
, television series - MLB
- MTVMTVMTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
- NascarNASCARThe National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
- NBANational Basketball AssociationThe National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
- NFLNational Football LeagueThe National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
- NHLNational Hockey LeagueThe National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
- PocahontasPocahontas (1995 film)Pocahontas is the 33rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and was originally released to selected theaters on June 16, 1995 by Walt Disney Pictures...
, animated film - Prismatic
- Ric Flair
- Reboot
- Sailor MoonSailor MoonSailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
, animated television series - Silver
- Space PrecinctSpace PrecinctSpace Precinct is a British television series that aired from 1994 to 1995 on Sky One and later on BBC Two in Britain, and in syndication in North America on the SyFy Channel....
- Spawn
- Spongebob Squarepants (In Mexico)
- Star Trek
- Superheros DC UniverseDC ComicsDC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
- Superheros Marvel UniverseMarvel ComicsMarvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
- Supervillans DC UniverseDC ComicsDC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
- Supervillans Marvel UniverseMarvel ComicsMarvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
- The SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
- The TickThe TickThe Tick is a fictional character created by cartoonist Ben Edlund in 1986 as a newsletter mascot for the New England Comics chain of Boston area comic stores. He is an absurdist spoof of comic book superheroes. After its creation, the character spun off into an independent comic book series in...
- Tour de France
- Types of Silverware
- US Championship
- 50 US States and US Territories
- World Grand Prix 1995
- World Tour
- X-MenX-Men (TV series)X-Men, also known as X-Men: The Animated Series, is an American animated television series which debuted on October 31, 1992, in the United States on the Fox Network as part of its Fox Kids Saturday morning lineup...
, animated television series
There were World Pog Federation pogs in Canada, the US and Australia too, but were produced by other companies, such as the Canada Games Company, or Crown & Andrews.
Several waves of Playmates' Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
s came with bonus collectible, numbered, "Space Caps", featuring artwork of the figures themselves.
Tazos
Tazos
Tazos are round circular disks, which are found in packets of chips made by Frito-Lay and its subsidiaries around the world. The idea behind Tazos started out similar to Pogs, whereby each Tazo contained a score value, and a game was played to 'win' Tazos from other players.Tazos have been...
were also popular in the UK and Australia - these were effectively pogs with notches along their circumference which meant they could be connected together and used to construct rudimentary 3D shapes. They were given away free in packets of Walkers Crisps and usually featured licensed properties - notably scenes from Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
and Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
.
Military uses
Army and Air Force Exchange Service
The Exchange is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. Its dual missions are to provide quality merchandise and services of necessity and convenience to authorized customers at uniform low prices, and to generate reasonable earnings to supplement appropriated funds for the support...
, the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
's largest and oldest exchange system, distributes pog-like coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age as change at its stores in contingency areas (those supporting Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom). The reason for adopting pogs as currency was that supply flights overseas had limited capacity and air-freight shipping involved high costs. Metal coinage weighs significantly more than paper pogs, which are also much thinner than standard pogs. However, since only Congress can order US currency made and the pogs stay within the AAFES system, they are "gift certificates" instead of currency. While they are only issued in contingency areas, they are redeemable at any AAFES store worldwide.