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      Does it not now seem that in the 70s the marketing people were trying to sell to parents, not the kids? What else can explain the prevalence of TV ads throughout the decade saturated with cowboy imagery–the likes of Golden Nuggets, Texan Bars, the Milky Bar Kid…and Buckaroo!?

      The thing is, mums and dads had most likely been children themselves in the post-WWII era and would’ve been brought up on Saturday matinees, John Wayne flicks and Wild West adventure serials. Somebody, somewhere decided that these were the folk who had the disposable incomes (nobody having yet invented the concept of ‘pester power’). Thus, we have a decade-long obsession with everything whip-crackin’, rootin’, tootin’ and animal abusin’, pardner.

      See also Tip-It, Mousetrap, KerPlunk

At least Buckaroo! was blessed with simple gameplay. Easily snapped plastic mouldings (ten-gallon hat, pitchfork, grappling hook, billycan and all that) are gently lowered in turn by players on to a 2D bucking bronco.¹ As the ad explained: ‘Put on a shovel, try a pick–if the load’s too heavy the mule will kick.’ Words to live by, we think. Too much weight causes Buckaroo!’s hair-trigger to release, sending the aforementioned implements flying across the living room, under the settee, into the dog’s mouth and so on.²

      Later variations cashed in on Spielberg’s Jaws (the eponymous game was Mr a neat reversal of the same conceit: remove skulls, anchors, bits of boat, etc. from mouth of shark before it snaps shut) and, we presume, Cleese’s Fawlty Towers (Don’t Tip the Waiter employed a cardboard waiter on to whose carefully balanced tray players were required to add counters depicting pizza, cakes and sandwiches). Note the use of the exclamation mark in the title to imply excitement and/or surprise. Therein lies an unspoken suggestion that, at the climax, we might want to cry out the name of the game in a moment of catharsis and delight. This is a favourite device of toy manufacturers (see also Sorry! and Stay Alive!, although strangely not Yahtzee), pretentious restaurateurs (Fish!) and musical theatre impresarios (Oliver!, Hello, Dolly!). On a not entirely unrelated note, the phrase ‘fuck right off!’ works with an exclamation mark too.

1 The latest commercially available version of Buckaroo! is rendered in 3D as if, until the advent of CGI, children wouldn’t previously have been able to cope with anything quite so real. Alongside yer bog-standard Buckaroo! (with a design clearly riffing on the donkey from Shrek), you can also buy a seasonal Buckaroodolph! (‘the mule who doesn’t like Yule’).

2 If you’re so inclined, you can also play a variant of the game with your drunk friends. Once they pass out, pile on as many empty cans, fag packets, ashtrays, frozen sausages and shaving-foam squirts as you can until they wake up.

       Cadbury’s Chocolate Machine

      Obstacle to chocolate

      It’s bizarre that this should even make it into a children’s wish list of most desired games or toys, being the very definition of the anti-toy Ostensibly a cross between a savings bank and a chocolate-dispensing machine, it actually fails to live up to the promise of either. But that is to underestimate its novelty.

Although in reality it amounted to a deferral of pleasure, no more than a tuppenny barrier between the chocolate and your mouth, there was still something of the faintly exotic in getting hold of a load more of those mini-Dairy Milks and Bournevilles than you would ever find in a box of Roses.¹ In the days before washing-powder tablets and digital cameras, the fascination with anything miniaturised was not to be underestimated.

      See also ‘A La Cart Kitchen’, Mr Frosty, Whimsies

The classic dispenser was designed and moulded in ’50s-throwback red plastic (leading us to fancifully imagine that the Fonz himself would dish out his chocolate from one) with properly embossed gold Cadbury’s branding, plus it came preloaded with a dozen baby chocs.² In theory, a 2p piece slotted in the top would, with a twist of the hidden knob within, release a single, fully wrapped miniature that could then be enjoyed in isolation. In truth, and in part because not only was the chassis of the dispenser made of plastic but also the lock and keys, it took about ten seconds for greed to overcome the flimsy workings of this metaphorical chocolate chastity belt.

      With the contents therefore devoured in their entirety (and not so easily replaced, at least not until the next Argos trip), what essentially remained was a moneybox and, given that it generally

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