POG Origins

     As a child there were many different toys which I cherished.  My sister sometimes would let me play with her Gameboy which she got for her birthday, my parents gave me the extremely fun exploding Crash Test Dummy figurines and eventually the exploding Crash Test Car!  Not to mention all of the Batman and Ninja Turtle figurines which were purchased for me!  Of course my favorite was our Sega Genesis console until my grandmother gave me her original Nintendo Entertainment System because I was the only one who played it eventually.  But there was one other toy which was simply a fad, however my inner-child probably would love to play it again.  The Pog!  

POGS!

I even had the Official Pog Making Machine!

    The game generally involves two types of playing discs, a pile of Pogs and slammers.  Pogs are flat circular cardboard discs which are decorated with images on one or both sides.  Slammers are heavier game pieces often made of metal, rubber, or more commonly plastic, which come in various thicknesses and weights.  Metal slammers are usually heavier than other materials, giving the player with the first turn an unfair advantage.

Slammers!

     Rules vary among players, but the game variants generally have common gameplay features.  Each player has his/her own collection of pogs and one or more slammers.  Before the game, players decide whether to play with the rule that whomever wins keep the pogs that they win during the game, and forfeit those that have been won by other players, or decide not to.  This rule is generally known as playing "for keeps" or not.  The game can then begin as follows:

1. The players each contribute an equal number of pogs to build a stack with the pieces face-down, which will be used during the game.
2. The players take turns throwing their slammer down onto the top of the stack, causing it to spring up and the milk caps to scatter.  Each player keeps any pogs that land face-up after they've thrown.
3. After each throw, the pogs which have landed face-down are then re-stacked for the next player.
4. When no pogs remain in the stack, the player with the most pogs is the winner.

I sure do Milhouse...  and pogs too...

     Pogs were originally milk bottle caps.  However the game of milk caps possibly originated from Menko, a Japanese card game very similar to pogs, which had been popular between 1603 and 1867 and also centered on players attempting to flip the cards or pieces of their opponent.  Much like modern pogs, the original Menko playing pieces were roughly the size of milk caps and featured images of Japanese cultural icons, like wrestlers and warriors.

MENKO!!!

     These pieces weren't made out of cardboard or plastic, but shaped from clay, wood, or ceramics.  Though Menko later included cardboard pieces that are considered the forerunners of trading cards.  Japanese immigrants then brought the game with them when they settled in Hawaii in the early 20th century.  Industrious kids started using milk bottle caps as Menko playing pieces because they were rigid enough and the right size.  Then the game started evolving on the Hawaiian island of Maui as early as 1927.  For decades, Menko was a favorite game of Hawaiians, including the woman who helped transform it into one of the early 90’s hottest fads.

     In 1991, teacher Blossom Galbiso reintroduced the game to the world when she taught her beloved childhood diversion to her students.  Galbiso favoured the game because she believed it helped teach math skills and provided her pupils with a fun game that didn’t require any dodgeball-style potentially dangerous physical activity.  There are cap collectors that have dating till 1940s and 1950s.  The simple classroom game helped ignite a phenomenon, as the game spread in popularity across the island and soon to mainland America, where the icons players used evolved from the milk bottlecaps to small cardboard circles.

MILK CAPS!

     By early 1992, STANPAC Inc., the small Canadian packaging company that had been manufacturing the milk caps distributed by Haleakala Dairy on Maui, the same caps that were collected by Galbiso for her class, was printing millions of milk caps every week for shipment to the Hawaiian island chain. Pogs take their name from a popular Hawaiian juice. POG, the game’s namesake drink, is an acronym for the juice’s ingredients: pomegranate, orange and guava.  Drank by 1.3 million Hawaiians each month, POG is sold in select parts of  the West Coast, so if you live in California, Oregon or Washington, you may be able to get your hands on a bottle.

     Canada Games Company reintroduced them under the Pog brand name the game had hit the mainland, first coming to rest in the West, before it took its charm across the United States, and then the world.  In short, it dominated, just like any good childhood fad should.  The term Pog was claimed as trademark by the World Pog Federation while other companies claimed it was generic term as it was selected by the children that played the game.  Seven other companies entered the milk cap field after a comic book and card industry convention in January 1993.  SkyBox International and Marvel added the product to their lines under the names SkyCaps and Hero Caps respectively.  The game soon spread to the mainland, surfacing in California, Texas, Oregon, and Washington before spreading to the rest of the US.  Hollywood also got in on the pogs action, releasing pieces for major releases. And you weren’t a ’90s icon unless your face was on some pogs.  Even Bill Clinton had some...

     The Pog fad soared, and peaked in the mid-1990s.  Pogs were being handed out for opening bank accounts and in McDonald's Happy Meals.

     In the minds of big brands, letting kids play pogs with milk caps was a wasted opportunity.  As the craze spread to America, companies like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, American Airlines and Nintendo released their own sets of branded pogs.  In October 1994, a lawsuit was settled between World Pog and Universal Pogs Association. Pog was recognized as World Pog's exclusive term and Universal Pogs changed its name to Universal Slammers, Inc.

     Because many children would keep the pogs they won in games from other players, many school districts considered them a form of gambling.  Pogs proved to be major distractions from classes and the source of various playground arguments.  These elements eventually led to the banning of pogs from various schools across North America and Australia.

     Today the U.S. military uses pogs as overseas currency.  To American troops around the world, pogs are more than just a ’90s fad.  The Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the U.S. military’s merchandise supplier, began supplying troops in Afghanistan with pogs in 2001 for use as army currency, aiming to cut down the weight of shipping heavy nickles and dimes overseas.  With the official name “POG gift certificates,” AAFES pogs maintained the name and size of the schoolyard game with a simpler design. The army pogs were released in 5, 10, and 25 cent denominations and are still used to this day to buy items from AAFES stores around the world.

Sources:

http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2014/06/26/6-facts-about-pogs-the-1990s-favorite-forgotten-game/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/54202/weird-history-pogs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_caps_(game)

YouTube sources:

https://youtu.be/Grq-6rXZzHM

https://youtu.be/KuYVzpQUWb4

Picture/GIF sources:

http://imgur.com/99xa2aR

https://media.giphy.com/media/xhby34aohIen6/giphy.gif

http://cms.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/insert_main_wide_image/public/menko-square-circle-collection.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Kids_playing_pog.jpeg

https://media.giphy.com/media/l2Je733DgHfXIWEve/giphy.gif

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/5f/fd/475ffda4279e78c03d43db2188342434.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/drs1T8E.jpg?1

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0610/15/milkcap-cap-pog-maker-machine-1995_1_d4c95ff6f2c78cf01e18651d670291c1.jpg