In the U.S., this week not only includes Thanksgiving, the holiday where Americans attempt to consume as much turkey as possible (or tofurkey for vegans and vegetarians), but also Black Friday, the day after where people try to do their holiday shopping without getting trampled.
One infographic by Pronto, an online comparison shopping site, via our friends at Visual.ly, takes a look at holiday toys from the past compared with their 21st Century counterparts.
What’s striking about the list is not how different the hot holiday toys are from the past, but about how they’re not. The ViewMaster, for example, used to use cardboard discs to hold 3D photos, but the new version uses an iPhone instead. The classic board game “Scrabble” now allows you to show off your knowledge of the dictionary to your friends via the IPad. Mr. Potato Head is a lot more body than head these days then when he first debuted in the 1950s, but in 2011 he finally got his pants back on.
Though it’s a cliché to comment on how realistic modern video game graphics are, you’d be forgiven for mistaking “Madden” for an actual football game on TV. Of course, there are plenty of people who still think that the old minimalistic graphics and bleeps and bloops of classic video games are cool.
Even Rubik’s Cubes have gotten an upgrade. The TouchCube uses lights instead of the stickers, so you can’t cheat and rearrange them and claim you solved it.
Don’t miss our post on Mario made out of Rubik’s Cubes. For a list of reboots of classic toys that didn’t turn out to be as classic as the ones above, check out Playtime Fail.
