Free Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

moments and maybe-we-should-have-played-Atari-instead moments. Its number one lesson? Don’t have more kids than you can cram into your overlong 1960s-era convertible. It is also, apparently, a good idea to take the time to go through something called “College,” even though the board-game version was fairly deficient in binge drinking, debt acquisition, and drop-adding.
    It was unclear who decided to put insurance policies, stock certificates, and promissory notes in a kids’ game. Between this and Monopoly, it’s like Ferris Bueller’s economics teacher was put in charge of kids’ game play. Still, few things in Life, and life, were as satisfying as retiring as a doctor to Millionaire Acres while your dopey brother landed in the Poor Farm. Shoulda gone to college, bro.
    X-TINCTION RATING: Still going strong.
    FUN FACT: One version of the game replaced the cool convertibles with dorky minivans.

Garanimals
    I N 1972, kids broke free of the fashion dictator: Mom. Thanks to Garanimals, we could now cobble together a decent ensemble all by ourselves, just by matching the animals on the tags. Even a fashion-ignorant four-year-old could do it. Does this turtleneck go with these plaid pants? Pair up a couple of pandas, and your dressing duty was done: Fashion clash averted.
    It was a foolproof system—until you started to experiment.What could possibly go wrong if you paired a monkey with a bear? Plenty. Interspecies mingling doesn’t go well in nature (good luck with that relationship, monkey), and it was an even greater disaster in our closets.
    Today, though, the simplicity of the idea makes a lot of sense, even for adults. More than one coordination-disabled person, facing a closetful of options, has wished desperately for the good old days, when the only decision necessary was whether to don hippo or zebra.
    X-TINCTION RATING: Revised and revived.
    REPLACED BY: In 2008, Garanimals staged a comeback at Walmart. The animal icons are a little cuter than their 1970s counterparts—and more active. Now they apparently enjoy playing musical instruments, shopping, and putting on makeup.

Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific
    S HAMPOO really let its hair down in the 1970s and ’80s. Body on Tap incorporated beer! Lemon Up had a lemon-shaped top! Fabergé Organic wanted its users to tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. But the crowning glory of the shampoo aisle was Gee,Your Hair Smells Terrific.
    The name sucked you in. Few products made an entire sentence their name, and such a goofy one to boot.There was no Gee, I Think Your Butt Looks Smaller for jeans, or Gee, Your Breath Doesn’t Smell Quite So Rank for mouthwash. The pop-art packaging, with its deep-pink bottle and chubby multicolored letters, further encouraged the purchase. And the scent sealed the deal. It smelled kind of like a combination of your sister’s perfume, an opium den, and the hanging air freshener in your older brother’s Chevy van. Put together, it smelled of the ’70s.

    X-TINCTION RATING: Revised and revived.
    REPLACED BY: GYHST, as its friends call it, is still made and can be ordered online through the Vermont Country Store. Looks—and smells—just like we remember.

G.I. Joe
    E VERYBODY knows G.I. Joe; since invading toyboxes in 1962, the twelve-inch action figure has gained worldwide fame and a foxhole full of military accessories, outfits, and vehicles. But in 1975, toward the end of the Vietnam War, Hasbro relaunched Joe as part of an “Adventure Team” that captured pygmy gorillas, wore pith helmets, and battled aliens instead of acting out scenes from Apocalypse Now .

    Joe now had a new job and a new look. Some of the changes weren’t exactly upgrades: His new fuzzy hairdo and scruffy beard made him seem a little like a plastic middle-school art teacher. His Eagle Eyes, which moved from side to side with a lever on his neck, just made him look shifty. But we all