What were you super into as a child? Everyone had their things. (I truly believed Peter Pan would come to my window. Also hypercolor. Also Doogie.) Spill the beans in the comments below…
This is part of a series by illustrator Emily McDowell, who asks us one pressing question every month.
(Illustration by Emily McDowell for Cup of Jo)
I’m a little behind on commenting, but a few things I was obsessed with:
1) paper dolls – I had so many of these, it was insanity!
2) rocks/gemstones – my family went on a road trip from Seattle to Wisconsin and I was in heaven with all the quartz, tiger eyes, etc.
3) speaking other languages – I just always thought it was cool!
4) R.E.M., the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkel
I’m sure there were more, but these were the most important!
when i was little, i was obsessed with hello kitty. my ballet studio was next door to a shop that carried it and i would have to go in each week and see what was new. my favorite hello kitty items in my collection were the tape dispenser and finger nail clippers. Ha! random, right?
First, I love your posts Joanna, they always make me think and also pose the same questions to my boyfriend and thus learn more about him. So, since I asked him, I’ll include those too!
My boyfriend’s obsessions were: string (apparently he loved to make and undo all sorts of crazy knots and tie them all around the house), legos (he designed and built all sorts of creations), puppies (he would have happily gone with any stranger as long as they had a puppy), and dragons (he still loves them!).
And mine were: Batman (I used to tie a jump rope to random things and pretend to scale buildings), Beauty and the Beast (I was obsessed with Belle!), the Babysitter’s club books (I tried to start my own BSC), X-Men (I religiously watched the show), Spanish soap operas (they inspired many of my make believe scenarios), collectible Barbies (I saved up my allowance to buy them), Lisa Frank stickers (I had a huuuge collection), ballet (I wanted to be a professional ballerina).
I truly believed that Peter Pan was real. I hoped every night that he would come take me to Neverland. I read the book so many times and was sooooo in love with it.
Other childhood obsessions included classic Disney Movies like Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland (of course I thought Wonderland was real too), fairy tales, Indiana Jones, archaeology, and Uncle Scrooge’s comic books.
I haven’t thought of those things for so long! :)
In living color! I wanted to be a Wayan desperately. My brothers and I used to write and perform little sketch comedy shows. In 3rd grade I listed in living color and get a life as my favorite tv shows. I invited Damon Wayans and Ed ONeal to a dream dinner party in 5th grade. Comedy was how we passed the time in the sticks :0) and I loved cool erasers
This was so nostalgic, it got me thinking and remembering my childhood again :) I used to love ancient Greek mythology and Aesop’s fables, and would read them all. the. time. I also was obsessed with a revolutionary figure named Kolokotronis (still am till today actually). Another obsession were dresses. Unless we had gym class I would not wear pants for any reason. And finally, a HUGE obsession were miniature things like Polly Pockets. Anything that came in mini size I would become infatuated with, until I started making my own with polymer clay :)
‘m so glad a few others mentioned pogs and Oregon Trail! Haha, my sister and I would play Oregon Trail together and pretend that we were really headed to Oregon together.
Babysitters club
Rollerblading – my sister and cousin and I gave ourselves “rollerblading names” like Jeremy the Jaguar and Lisa the Leopard
Stuffed animals – particularly beanie babies
My sister and I would dance to a muppet babies tape
Books
Dinosaurs. When I was four all I wanted for Christmas was a pink dinosaur. My mom finally found one in the gift shop of the dinosaur ride at Knott’s Berry Farm
Hello Kitty
American girl dolls – particularly looking through the catalogue
Keeping crickets as pets – my 4th grade teacher suggested it and I think I’m the only one who took her up on it
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We need to see this video of you on the pogo stick!! I was a pogs and beanie babies fan.
“Jem and the Holograms”, The Babysitters Club book series (seriously, I owned all but a handful of the books when I moved on from it), and making friendship bracelets after my older pre-teen cousin showed me how on vacation. :)
Lip gloss! Lip smacker and Bonne Belle. I really obsessed over the small tins that had a sliding lid.
I always wanted my own Hello Kitty store. I was so obsessed with all of it but especially pencil boxes, printed tape!. I had a sticker book and the scratch and sniff were the best. I could not get over how things smelled back then (like Sanrio erasers, Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Tinkerbell lotion)!
Even though it was way before my time, I loved I Love Lucy! I have a huge Lucy collection of dolls, music boxes, posters and even her memoir.
Loved an empty peanut butter jar filled with rhinestone buttons from my aunt’s dresses and blouses, hula hoops, Hogey Carmicheal, Kool-Ade, Dr. Kildare, my red Keds sneakers, paper dolls (June Allyson my fav!), pretend dress up and wearing high-heels, pretending to dance with Fred Astaire, Chinese Checkers, then The Beatles came along and I wasn’t a “little girl” any longer. Fell in love with Paul McCartney ( 196? )and still adore him.
The Weather Channel! I used to mute the tv and pretend to do the forecasts. I knew all the meteorologists and when their time slots were. I was glued to the TV during Hurricane Andrew (we live in Nebraska so it clearly didn’t affect us).
Also, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego…I loved that show!
The Boxcar Children. I loved reading those books. I even rented their cookbook from the library (yes, the Boxcar Children have a cookbook) and that led to my obsession of drinking 1 part OJ 1 part Coke for quite a few years after that. Actually, it’s been awhile since I’ve tried it. I think I might have one later just to reminisce.
Also I loved baking mini muffins. I was given a cookbook and mini muffin tin set for Christmas. My parents definitely didn’t argue with this obsession.
And another large obsession was the idea that I needed a club house. This led to many poor attempts of building one and hanging out in structurally unsound places.
Ballet, encyclopedias, medieval European history, Black Beauty, fairies, and Vikings (yes, the ones who went around plundering and pillaging… I have no idea).
I still have my ceramic animals in a box in my parents’ attic! I remember telling my sisters they’d be worth something someday and not to get rid of them … they may not have appreciated in value but I’m keeping them all the same!
This is such a great topic! I’m dying of nostalgia after reading everyone’s comments. Those little ceramic animals were addicting! Like someone else commented, I had an unending love for the Phantom of the Opera, which I saw in LA when I was 5 or 6 and then made my parents buy the soundtrack of for me to perform along to, naturally. Specific books and stories in general would fascinate me for months – Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, The sound of Music, anything about a long lost civilization and the inevitable curse its discoverers had to deal with. My brother and sister and I watched Newsies (with a very young Christian Bale!) approximately one million times. I remember gel pens and slap bracelets being THE BEST. And I was pretty obsessed with beating my best friend’s Skip-It record in elementary school, when we weren’t busy creating highly exclusive clubs with complicated hand shakes and code words…
LEONARDO DICAPRIO. thought we may legitimately get married. no lie.
horses.. and the Holocaust for some reason.
I’m still obsessed with tiny ceramic animals! Or anything tiny for that matter.
My obsession as a child was with unicorns. I think I had well over a hundred….I wonder where they are now? Mom?
Barbies. I had over 100 of them, along with houses, cars, an airplane, and so so many clothes! And Paula Abdul, we’d make up dances to her tape. And Saved by the Bell- that was what we played at recess. So funny!
vending machines! anything coin-operated in fact. i went a little crazy in japan as a result.
i desperately wanted to achieve a “guiness book of world record” record. tried it with hula-hooping and made it one hour.
also obsessed with anne of green gables (& gilbert blythe!), listening to my mom’s old joni mitchell, jefferson airplane and crosby stills and nash records, and reading agatha christie books.
kids are weird.
I was obsessed with the Victorian lifestyle, manor houses, and boarding schools. Blame Frances Hodgson Burnett. I played variations on The Secret Garden and A Little Princess with my dolls for YEARS.
I was obsessed with volcanoes and quicksand and becoming a “young lady” lol. I also really loved gorillas and food.
Dinosaurs. I just loved them!
I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder–I dressed up as her for Halloween and I convinced my family to take a vacation to her house in Missouri. Also beanie babies, American Girl, and dry erase boards!
I had so many, but Joan of Arc and everything Japan were some of my biggest obsessions as a child. I would write papers on those subjects every time I could in school. The Japan obsession was so big that it followed me into adulthood and made me apply for Japan studies at university. Turns out it was not meant to be but I have never had a bigger obsession, I think.
Paris (spurred by an awesome Magic Eye poster), dolphins, Carl Lewis (I was convinced we were related) and earrings.
Bob Barker (i don’t know. i guess it was my first crush. That tiny microphone was boss), the Beatles, Wind in the Willows (i pretended they were real and we all lived together in a mansion.)that fake strawberry fragrance that everything had
I was obsessed with playing school and anything school or library. I made my own library pockets and was always drawing on my chalkboard. I saved old school workbooks to use to “play” school with my friends. Obsessed!
yes! little ceramic animals. Also, I was obsessed with my hamster and kept a dialy journal about what he did (so weird). I also loved everything manatees–and still hope to swim with them some day, they are soooo cute.
Plastic charm necklaces, Footloose (the original), horoscopes, Family Ties, Growing Pains, and George Michael. :)
Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green gables, Baby sitter club books. I loved play mobile figures and accessories, but we never had many. I had a huge collection of My Little Ponies though, they must have been cheaper than Play Mobile.
I was interested in pillow forts, hot chocolate (at any time of the year,)Dragon Ball Z, tree climbing and those stop motion clay movies play on network TV during Christmas time. I LOVED writing and I was an only child for a while so I also played alone with dolls.
I loved Joan of Arc as a kid too. Strange, but true. Great post, reminds me of all the things I loved as kid.
I was obsessed with ballet – could not get enough hours of practice in and would have worked out 8 hours a day if allowed. Actually did work out 4 hours a day and loved every minute. Also, Egypt. Aaand… count me in on the Louisa-May Alcott/Narnia/Nancy Drew bus.
And reading through the comments reminded me of an obsession I had for years that even then seemed weird to me – tiny people. Not cutesy ones, but Metropolis-style, actual miniature humans. I daydreamed about them quite a lot. Where does THAT come from?…!
Oh dear, I was obsessed by so many things as well! Most of all in musicbands: First of all Roxette (She’s got the look – oh yeah), Ace of Base (All that she wants), Michael Jackson – I loved the albums Bad & Dangerous and I remember many summer days, riding with my bicycle, the radio turned on loudly on the carrier, driving free-hand and singing all the songs :) And I also loved to do Playback Shows with my friends * Then Barbie’s of course, my Babyborn doll, Erasers & Stickers * So funny to think back and everything is still so present in my mind and I know exactly how I felt that time * Love from Switzerland
Monty Python of course!
Totally obsessed weirdo as a kid. I loved hermit crabs to an extreme level, even though they eventually started to smell like hot garbage. I was obsessed with a set of animal flashcards that had facts about the most random animals (consequently this led to an obsession with beluga whales…). I was obsessed with Saved by the Bell and Spice Girls. And, I was crazy about the Goosebumps book series. Just out of control. Being a kid is so cool and weird. I love that about childhood.
Beanie Babies, Disney Princesses, Dressing Up and I have phases of certain things like Mary-Kate + Ashley films, Doctor Who and more
Lauren x
Britton Loves | Fashion Lifestyle + Photography – http://www.brittonloves.blogspot.co.uk
Wonderful topic
i was obsessed with my dolls,babies.my son was very naughty but great vehicle reader and his obsesses are cars
stage decoration in coimbatore
I loved Japan too. I would write my own Mangas (comic books). I loved tiny trinkets, I would bring them everywhere with me! I also loved the American Girl magazines, I loved reading the articles. I loved cameras, and making home movies. Those were the days.
Anybody remember Highlights? I loved those “what’s wrong with this picture” games. I was mildly obsessed for a time with writing a poem that would be accepted and published in an issue–and I succeeded! I too loved anything miniature, playing dinosaurs or chipmunks, and building blanket forts. As a pre-teen, my best friends and I were true creepers practically stalking JTT. We constantly sent him letters. Thank goodness Facebook didn’t exist.
I love this question!
My obsession was rocks. I loved searching for good shapes and sizes and also when my parents would let me buy minerals and geodes. I kept them all organized in a bass pro shop tackle box that my dad gave me.
Funny thing is, I ended up studying geology! Wish my mom would have kept that box, it would be fun to look through my collection today! :)
Ha. I, too, had a collection of tiny ceramic animals. The tinier, the better. I wonder if I still have any of those. Also, pencils; the more colorful & glittery the design, the more I had to have it. My culture obsession was France, for whatever reason. Still is. :)
This is an awesome post. Now, I have to go make a drawing of my childhood obsessions to hang on my wall!
Ceramic animals, Japan & strange medical disorders (weird!)
Cowboys
The Rockford Files
Wearing overalls
Books
Violin music
Come to think of it, I still love all of those things except the ceramic animals… maybe I should start collecting them again!
Anne of Green Gables, (playing dress up and reenacting the scene where Diana gets drunk off of “raspberry cordial”…my friends and I would do that scene over and over and over!), horses, the secret garden (we would take over our yard and the neighbors yard declaring them “secret”, and creating my own businesses (a florist, an office supply store, a restaurant, and a night club even?!
I love this one Jo. Mine was Sylvanians, Stilts, Guinness Book of records (especially the human body pages) and my imaginary friends called “The Ponky Oaks”
Rosie
http://www.rosedogandco.blogspot.com.au
I was never “obsessed” with anything, really. I didn’t collect anything that was popular when I was growing up. I did love books, always. I got an American Girl at age 9, in 1992, and I loved her. I was either playing outside in our lovely Southern California weather, or reading inside. :)
I was obsessed with watching The Little Mermaid everyday after school in 2nd grade. I loved it so much that I had my dad record the movie onto a cassette tape so when we drove to Florida that summer for vacation I could listen to it! I also loved and love (to this day) pens! I filled a lunchbox with them and I’d carry it around, never letting anyone look in there, except my dad – once! It was my secret box of pens.
Tiny boxes, the Salem witch trials, ancient Egypt
Instead of a pogo stick, it was the Skip-it for me. I could do it frontwards, backwards, sideways, and while turning in the opposite direction of the skip-it. I could have been a professional, lol.
Ceramic animals! I had a small collection. I didn’t realize that was a thing.
American Girl everything (especially my doll Molly). Beanie Babies, making beaded jewelry, making forts.
So many great comments that I totally identify with! My twin sister and I were obsessed with pack lunches — probably a result of finding ourselves enrolled in the school lunch program from day one of kindergarten ad infinitum. On school holidays, we’d make ourselves PB&Js and stick them in a brown paper bag with a juice box and some Cheetos. We’d even write our names on the front and leave ourselves little notes inside. Then we’d walk around the house happily swinging our lunch sacks like the little lunatics we were (are).
Beatles – dancing to A Hard Day’s Night in my slip that had a tutu-like skirt and hoping I could be a Beatles back-up dancer
Playing house and acting like I was Paul McCartney’s wife (this was about 1989. My dad is a huge Beatles fan)
Learning all the words to Pearl Jam Ten & Nirvana Nevermind cds
Super Mario Bros
Sleeping in my plastic Little Mermaid tent and waking up sweating in the middle of the night
We would get Feature Films for Families including The ButterCream Gang, Split Infinity & Rigoletto and no one else remembers those movies, but I loved them!
I was strangely into the book “Gone With The Wind”. I read it 23 times between the ages of 9 and 12. I learned everything about the Civil War so I could better understand it. That book was way too mature for me.
Horses, and (this will date me) Roy Rogers… and BOOKS. I’m still obsessed with books.
Love this trip down memory lane:
Cocktails soundtrack. Listened to it every day for 2 years in carpool.
Making up dances to any Whitney Houston song
Wrapping fruit roll ups around my thumb to eat it
Watching Murder She Wrote and Get Smart
Forcing my mom to judge coloring contests between me and friends
Houston Rockets 1994 World Champions :)
I guess my mom took me antiquing, because I started collecting silver flatware when I was around nine. I was all about polishing my silver (this is around the same age I formed a Mary Poppins club):).
This is an awesome question with great (and endearingly weird) responses! Let’s see: Newsies (my friends and I even tried to learn the choreography), archaeology in general and Egypt specifically, Texas, and the Eloise books.
Guiness book of world records! Yes!
“Roll the ball down the hall” with my sister, Ramona Quimby (and Beezus) – both the books and the PBS series (red socks episode!!), Hey Dude, Babysitter’s Club books, Where the Red Fern Grows, piling ALL of my stuffed animals on my bed at bedtime, musical, the 1996 summer Olympics, Oregon Trail!, reading contests, Marky Mark …
Later: 90210 (or as my best friend and I called it; numbers.)
Ah, so many things (including Anne of Green Gables, like half the women here!). I was also completely enchanted with Tin Tin comics.
How fun to see what everyone said! I was obsessed with playing “restaurant” or “teacher.” LOL. Good times.
xo Julianne
http://reallifesurreallife.blogspot.com
Making time capsules and digging them up a day later, archaeology, beanie babies, BSC, putting beads on safety pins and attaching them to my shoelaces (did anyone else do that?), sleeping anywhere but my bed-most memorably in a sleeping bag in the bathtub and behind the couch, gel pens.
These are great to keep in mind as my husband and I start thinking about having kids…no need to worry if they turn out to be little weirdos like I guess I was, ha!
I had many, in phases. Books always, from The Gymnasts to Babysitters Club to Sweet Valley (twins then high) to Anne of Green Gables and any frontier literature. I was obsessed with muppets (especially, for some reason, Labrynth), George Gershwin (how did that happen?), Walt Disney, Goonies, becoming an animator, and ice hockey (especially Wayne Gretzky). Oh also this one pink and white striped shorts and top set that I would have worn every day for seven years if I’d had my way. I was kind of all over the place.
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