The most popular toys of the decade were Action Jackson figures, AFX slot cars, any Star Wars figures, Atari games, Barbie dolls, Barrel of Monkees, Beautiful Chrissie, Big Jim action figures, Bionic Man and Bionic Woman dolls, Cher dolls, chopper bikes, Dragsters, Duke The Superdog, Evil Knievel figures, Glow-in-the-dark Superballs, Green machines, Hotwheels cars, Hungry Hippo game, Klackers, Lego, Mattel Intellivision, Pogo sticks, Pong, Banana seats and Sissy bars (on bikes), BMX Bikes, Minibikes, Go-Karts, Skateboards, Smash-up Derby cars, Strawberry Shortcake, S.W.A.T. action figures, Tetherball, Tonka Toys, Totem Tennis, Slip'n'Slide, Whirly Bird Helicopters, Lego, Potty Training Dolls and Wingums.

Slip'n'Slide	Evil Knievel figures	Strawberry Shortcake	Klackers

Smurfs: The Smurf character evolved from a simple sketch by Belgian illustrator Pierre Culliford. According to the legend, Smurfs are blue elf like creatures standing three apples tall that live in the forest. Characters such as Jokey Smurf, Greedy and Brainy were all part of the clan that took advice from the wise Papa Smurf. Most of the group were captivated by the only woman in the clan - Smurfette. Smurf-mania sent the world into a merchandising frenzy. These blue elves ended up outselling the merchandise from Star Wars, Garfield, Snoopy, Annie, and Mickey Mouse. By 1982, everyone was Smurfed out.

Streaking: In the Spring of 1974, on the sunny college campuses of Florida and Southern California, the fad of streaking began. Early streakers say they did it to cure boredom, and many that followed them claimed it was an expression of personal liberation. For many, it was simply to win a bet. Some did it as a political protest. One young man darted through the state legislative chamber of Hawaii proclaiming himself, "the Streaker of the House." Another exhibitionist streaked for the impeachment of President Nixon in Washington D.C. Those who did it purely for fun tried more creative methods of streaking. The more daring streakers biked across their university campuses or parachuted out of aircraft.
The fad soon spread from the US to other countries, and streakers became regular features at football, tennis and cricket matches in England and Australia. In fact they caused so many disruptions to games in play, heavy fines had to be imposed and participants were given life bans from stadiums and sports grounds. Streaking still takes place today, but in nowhere near the numbers of past decades. Their novelty has now gone, and most people view streakers as little more than a nuisance. Those who streal usually only do it for the money from dares.

Disco: a genre of music that originated in discothèques that has influences from funk, soul music, and salsa and the Latin or Hispanic musics which influenced salsa. Elements of what became disco music began to appear on records from the early 1970s such as the 1971 theme from the film 'Shaft' by Isaac Hayes. The first disco songs were released in 1973, however many consider Manu Dibango's 1972 "Soul Makossa" the first disco record. Initially, most disco songs catered to a nightclub/dancing audience only, rather than general audiences such as radio listeners, but in time there were many popular radio hits that were also being played in discothèques. Most 1970s Disco genre songs had a distinctive four/four bass beat and followed rhythmic bass-pattern close to 120 beats per minute. The disco era is epitomised in the movie "Saturday Night Fever" and its soundtrack.
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Disco	Light bulb eating	Pappa Smurf

Glass Eating: Glass was not safe around Tim Rossovich, an American linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles. Rossovich showed the public how tough he was by biting down and eating beer mugs and light bulbs. Rossovich was known on the University of Southern California campus for doing crazy stunts, but it wasn't until his pro career that eating glass received coverage. People were amazed at his ability to eat glass and survive. Around 1973, a sophomore at Harvard University decided to prove that Rossovich was not as tough as he appeared to be. After going out with friends, he unscrewed a light bulb and began to eat it. Soon, other students at Harvard began chewing on bulbs and glasses. A few copycats indulged in the practice in Australia. The trend ended quickly when the practice was banned on US university campuses.

Dungeons & Dragons: An urban legend holds that a young teenager stepped up his role playing in the game Dungeons and Dragons and took it to the sewer system of New York City. A few months later, it is told, the lad was found wandering about the underground pipes with a shock of white hair and appeared to be stark raving mad. Such is the view that many have of the game, with some claiming it promotes sex and violence and others linking it to witchcraft and satanic worship. Despite these concerned warnings, an estimated three million players took part in it in 1982.
Dungeons and Dragons was created in 1974 by Gary Gygax, a former insurance salesman. Gygax developed the game as an extension of his interests in military strategy and science fiction fantasy. Having been turned down by all of the major game companies, Gygax decided to start his own game company and eventually released games like "Top Secret," Boot Hill," and "Gamma World." His bread and butter, however, was Dungeons and Dragons, a board game focusing on warlike battles with fantasy-spawned characters. The player takes on the role of the character and accumulates tools, weapons and powers along the way. One of the players acts as the Dungeon Master who sets up the structure of the game and the other players try to work together to fight their way past monsters as they maneuver through tunnels, mazes and dungeons collecting as much treasure as possible.

Dungeons and Dragons	Hot tub

Hot Tubs: Though very similar to spas, Jacuzzis and whirlpool baths, hot tubs were favoured in part because they could be built to be used indoors or out, and were viewed as a weekend aphrodisiac. The cost of a hot tub was significant, often costing as much as an entire swimming pool but they also came in several colors, styles and types of wood. The hot tub craze took off during the late 1970s, starting in California. Unfortunately, when something gets very popular, there seem to be people bent on finding a way of ruining the fun. First experts came out of the woodwork warning of the dangers posed by the tubs (indeed they were able to point to an incident where a couple died because they turned the heat in the tub too hot and then stayed in for longer than recommended). Warnings arose claiming that women could suffer numerous medical problems, including venereal diseases from the warm waters of hot tubs. This fear was only heightened with the AIDS scare in early 1980. The misinformation that came out at this point caused people at that time to shy away from the tubs as fast as they had clamorued to them.

Minibikes: For those in the early 70s who were too small or too young to grip the handles of a motorcycle, minibikes were a suitable alternative. Minibikes were about a metre tall, were light enough for an older child to hold up and had wheels about 25 cm in diameter. They didn't go very fast - but no one seemed to care. As minibikes progressed, they soon came available with brakes, suspension and headlights. Minibikes were right at home in rough terrain and were not damaged with a fall and so they became more popular for off-roading than to racing or drive around the suburbs. Because of the small size of the bikes and the young age of the drivers, minibikes were soon outlawed on main roads when children began seriously injuring themselves driving on streets where cars could not see them. By 1973, the first generation of enthusiasts began graduating to real motorcycles, and minibikes purchases slowly started to decline.

Minibikes	Talking to plants	Monster trucks

Talking To Plants: Dr. Gustav Theodor Fechner, a German professor, was deemed a fool by many in 1848 when he dared to suggest that people should talk to their plants in order to help them grow. He would later find himself in good company. In his book Nanna (Soul-life of Plants), Fechner explained that plants were very much like human beings in that they had central nervous systems and possessed emotions. He suggested, therefore, that humans should attempt to relate to their plants by talking to them often. Thirty-four years later, Dr. Charles Darwin (famous for his writing on the Origin of Species) concurred in part with Fechner by publishing "The Power of Movement in Plants." In it he favorably compared characteristics of primates to those of plants.
Years later, horticulturist Luther Burbank wrote a book called "Training of the Human Plant." In it, he hypothesized that although plants might not actually understand our words, they could telepathically comprehend the meaning behind them. In 1970, a New York dentist named George Milstein produced a record called "Music to Grow Plants By." He believed that exposing the plants to pleasant melodies could help them to grow several times faster. Scientific studies actually confirmed that plants subjected to soft, classical music grew towards the sound but that plants subjected to hard rock music often withdrew from the music, withered and died. By the mid 1970s, million of people across the world were talking to their plants and playing Mozart and Beethoven to them. Many still swear by the practice today.

Monster Trucks: The craze of fitting giant tyres or small utilities and pick-up trucks was inspired in 1974 by Robert Chandler's Bigfoot - a souped up Ford with 1.2 metre-high tyres. It was named after the Yeti, hairy ape-like creature that has allegedly been sighted all over the Pacific Northwest of the USA. People flocked to see Chandler demonstrate Bigfoot's prowess at county fairs across the US, which usually involved rolling over and crushing junked cars.

CB Radios: "10-4, good buddy." "Smokies." "Pregnant roller skate." These phrases may sound foreign to those born in the age of iPods and laptop computers, but in the mid-1970s these phrases clearly meant "I understand," "police," and "Volkswagen." This lingo became popular with the emergence of the CB radio after a movie called "Convoy", about truckers who used CB Radios to communicate with each other, became a worldwide hit. Acting as both a transmitter and a receiver, this two-way radio first became widely-used among truckers during the 1974 Arab Oil Embargo. The CB allowed truckers to notify each other which fuel stations were open and selling gas. Soon after, the general public found numerous uses for this tool. Drivers often used the CB to alert one another of police presence on the highways and speed traps. Fisherman used CBs to inform each other where the fish were biting, and others just used it to cure their loneliness.
Many sociologists claimed that the obsession with the CB Radio stemmed from people's desire to indulge their fantasies. The CB radio provided the anonymity for people to act as though they were someone else. This role has now been taken over by the internet in the form of chat rooms. In the early 1980s the CB became so common it lost its novelty, and simply became an effective means of communication. Although it is still used by truckers and police, the communicators of the 90s have replaced the CB radio with mobile phones and the internet.

Lava lamp	Mood ring	CB radio

Lava Lamps: Proving that not all fads were necessarily born to be ridiculed, the Lava Lamp is one of the most well liked fad items ever. Created by Craven Walker, the Lava Lamp is a long cylinder within which a waxlike substance was heated, causing the substance to slowly bubble, float and move about the glass encasement. Illuminated by a soft light within, the lava would continue to move endlessly. After almost 10 years on the market, sales of Lava Lamps plummeted in the mid 1970s but their aesthetic appeal never died.

Mood Rings: In 1975, sentiment amongst Baby Boomers shifted dramatically as much of the anger and rebellion from the 1960s began to evolve into a desire to calm down and enjoy life as fans of the Brady Bunch and David Cassidy. As the moods of society were changing, society seemed to need a device to monitor this change - hence the birth of the mood ring. Created by Joshua Reynolds, the rings reacted to changes in body temperature and purported to show a person's present mood, thus changing colours of the "jewel" in response (blue showing tranquility, black showing anger or tension and so on). All fads seem to have a very limited lifespan but the lifespan of the rings was actually fixed, in that the ring's crystals would only emit the color changes for a period of two years before they would settle permanently into a shade of black. Because the rings remained popular for only a year, by the end of 1978 they no longer worked and mood rings were forgotten.

Mopeds: In 1974, the countries of the world were knee deep in a fuel crisis due to the OPEC oil embargo. At times, travellers were forced to wait in lines just to get a tank of petrol. Most cars were not very fuel efficient and people looked for a new method of transportation which could could allow them to travel efficiently and reasonably. Enter the moped. The moped, which was half bicycle / half motorcycle had existed for years in Europe but was little known outside of The Continent. Importers were quickly organised in places like the US, Canada, South Africa and Australia. Mopeds were very economical but not particularly fast, so while petrol remained in short supply, they sold well. As soon as the oil supply crisis was over, sales fell away.

Slogan and Happy Face Buttons: The slogan button was first used in 1896 in the US presidential campaign, and became a means to make political statements and sexual innuendoes during a period of revival in the 1960s. These decorative buttons made out of a piece of paper with a printed message, celluloid, and a metal backing, soon covered hippies' backpacks and young students' book bags everywhere. Many buttons denounced the Vietnam war: "Make Love, not War " and "Draft beer, not boys," while others simply promoted sex: "If it moves, fondle it." "If it feels good, do it." As the fad continued into the 1970s the mottos became less political and more meaningless, for example: "Mary Poppins is a junkie." In 1971, the yellow Smiley or Happy Face button took over. Within six months, 20 million of these simple yellow buttons were sold. A New Yorker named N.G. Slater first manufactured The Smiley button in 1969, but it did not gain widespread appeal until the spring of 1971. Suddenly, the market was drowning with this face which began appearing on earrings, lights, rugs; Cartier even created a special order gold smile. The Happy Face came to represent the peace, love, and happiness that the "flower children" of the 1970s promoted. But by the mid 1970s, manufacturers added the "Have a Nice Day" slogan to the button to enhance sales.

Pet rock	Smiley face earrings	Minibike

Pet Rocks: Perhaps the most ridiculous fad of all, the Pet Rock symbolised the silly hearted nature of people which allows most fads to grow. Created by Gary Dahl, the rocks were seen as a perfect pet, needing very little maintenance and always behaving, quietly and peacefully. During 1975, rocks were given as gifts to friends and family members, packaged in boxes with an owners manual and often with birth certificates or papers so as to affirm pure-breed lineage. Though initially just plain rocks, they quickly were sold in a variety of looks, often with small faces painted on. Some were sold as a group of pebbles, symbolizing a small family. Before they went out of style, more than 5 million had been sold, proving that no matter how ridiculous a concept, millions of people would have no problem making someone else wealthy for the sake of being up with the latest fads and fashions.

Space Ball Radio/8 Track Player:  As the 8 track cassette tape was fighting it out with the audio cassette for supremacy as the preferred medium for mobile music, designers of the players themselves were coming up with plenty of innovative appliances that reflected the times. Landing man on the moon in 1969 caught the public's imagination and sparked a rash of "space-abilia," The most memorable was the Weltron radio/tape player which was the size and shape of a bowling ball, but with a spaceman-like face and a carrying handle on top. At the bottom of the swiveling base was a giant rubber suction cup, making the radio extremely stable on a smooth surface. A funky if not too practical touch was a chrome mounting ring on top. Yes, you could actually hang this radio on a chain from the ceiling, and many people did! With the telescoping antenna fully extended, it made for a pretty ungainly setup. The "mouth" of the spaceman was where an 8-track tape cartridge was placed. The Space Ball could run on AC power, flashlight batteries, or 12-volt DC power from a car's cigarette lighter. Other electrical goods manufacturers copied the Space Ball, replacing the 8-track tape deck with an audio cassette player, which was more popular down under.