It was back during a time of cooties and ice cream cake, and it was in between the tetherball and four-square courts. Only the toughest survived – the weak were sent to the depths of the principal’s office. A throng of rebels would participate daily in perhaps one of the most daring games of the 1990s. How did they do it? By using slammers to knock down a stack of round pieces of cardboard.

With that said, if you didn’t play pogs for keeps, you were a fucking pussy.

Years before the elementary school crackdown on Tamagotchi, keeping pogs around during school hours and on school property was an indication of how truly bad-ass a fifth grader could be. Boys would be envious of the strength of your metal slammer and girls would be enticed by the size of your pog case.

The types of pogs you flaunted would also serve as an almost direct reflection of your popularity. For example, owning a few free pogs from a car dealership usually meant you ate lunch by yourself. In contrast, boasting a vast collection of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Power Caps would make your coolness factor skyrocket – you’d just have to be careful of not using the knock-offs from the swap meet.

Whether your pogs were from Gargoyles, Animaniacs, the Tick or Sailor Moon, what you had was perhaps one of the last of a dying breed – that is, one of the last taboo toys that you could’ve spent your lunch money on. Seeing as how elementary students of our day are now fussing around with the likes of BlackBerries and iPods and all the such, we can only hope that one day a generation will once again experience the beauty of the pog.