You got some real bals, you know that!?

You know what I forgot about completely for 15 years? Pogo Balls, that's what. And it's actually spelled "Pogo Bal," which totally confounds me. They look like Saturn and were about as fun as Uranus, if you get my drift. It was kind of like putting a large stress ball on the ground, balancing a plate on top of it, then jumping up and down on the plate. I remember getting about 4 inches of air on these things. If you squeezed the top half of the ball really tightly between your feet and folded your legs under your ass as you jumped, then it gave the illusion of "mad ups." In the commercial these kids would be bouncing over houses, trees, prison walls, the space shuttle and all kinds of crap. Not me. I remember getting in about 7 off-kilter bounces before having to ditch in some shrubs.

Then there's the whole thing with spelling "ball" with only one "L." You just can't teach that kind of marketing prowess. Somebody woke up one morning and thought, "Let's just spell ball like a retarded 9 year old." Which reminds me...how awesome are ad campaigns that go the whole "parents just don't get it" route. As in there's a "parent" dressed in a button-up sweater vest and smoking a pipe who then says, "But that's not the way you spell BALL." And then a wacky voiceover comes on and says, "Dude, when will parents ever get it? Rock out! Jump up and down! Go to town, yeah! Satan rules!" Well, that last one is only if you've been huffing paint thinner.



In this ad, the "50's kid" is using a hula hoop, right? But it's a POGO Ball. You know, as in POGO stick. So since this is the way radder version of a pogo stick, what the hell does a hula hoop have to do with anything? Again, I remain confounded.