When growing up I was a real sucker for marketing ads or just maybe a stupid kid. Either way I always bought the toy hoping it would be like the commercial. Either I got lazy with the elaborate set-up to make it like TV or the toy just sucked. I had a remote control car and tried to take it off a jump, it broke almost instantly on impact. My nerf football went long, but not reeeeeal long.

Anyway I'm rambling, but there was one toy that lived up to the hype IMO. Crossfire, crossfire, crooooossssfiiiiiiiiyaahhhh.

Man that little game was intense, fire shot out of my living room. Lightning came down around me, beads of sweat rolled down my face trying to push that purple star shaped plastic ball across to the other side. Aahhhhh poor man's air hockey.

Peep it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwn1NTK-50

haha i loved crossfire as a kid

may have to pick one up sometime for some degen crossfire gambling action with friends

edit* cant think of anything that i was super pumped about and then disappointed with as a kid, but im sure there were plenty and ill try to think of them. tho i do remember being bummed about 'ring king' for the NES, because i was expecting something super awesome and i was so young

it walks down stairs alone or in pairs... What a crock of ****! it took me about 5 minutes b4 i gor the damn thing so tangled and bent it was useless!

i always remember getting mortal kombat ultimate and yoshi storys two and being super excited about then.

but the crossfire commercial reminded me of my cousin's house, where the closet was FILLED with board games. life, sidewinder, all these not so common games. made me very nostalgic.

i was real into he-man. watched the cartoon everyday, had the sheets etc. but whenever i got a new action figure i would just tear it out of the package and think "ok now what?" i had castle greyskull and battlecat but whenever id set up a 'scene' all i could think of was how stupid the whole thing was because you could see my hand holding and moving them. bah

I think OP is looking for examples of things that DID live up to the hype, not stuff that dissapointed.

My submission: Jenga. That game really is fun, and tense.

Biggest dissapointment of all-time: Electric Football, you know the one where the field vibrates and the players wobble around in no particular direction. So gay.

I ****ing loved super soakers and nerf guns as a kid.

I remember getting a pair of sneakers from Stride-Rite, IIRC the brand was Kicks. I had seen a commercial in which a kid jumped over a forest in those things, so I was disappointed to find they were regular sneakers.

yeah it's confusing what you want, since i remember crossfire being terribly disappointing - i neither won nor lost the other person's soul while playing.

Slime delivered the goods.

On a completely related note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvDUx...eature=related

LOL. I remember being super excited about the Crossfire commercials. I ended up going over to a friends house who had Crossfire, we played, and I was like, "that's it?" That game was completely horrible and boring.

Electronic football was the biggest dissapointment ever. It wasn't anything at all like the commercial.

Anyone have Torpedo Run?

This was an amazingly fun board game, but the ships liked to break a lot.

OMFG YES!!!

I was going to put Torpedo Run as my choice for toy that delivers but didn't think anyone had heard of it, I don't recall it being a commercial success.

I actually went on eBay recently looking to buy a used Torpedo Run but couldn't find any, only a few pieces for the game or something but not the whole game.

Easily the greatest "board game" ever made.

Torpedo Run was pretty awesome. I bet my parents still have it in the basement somewhere. I'll have to check next time I visit.

Aerobies completely delivered. The only problem was, mine delivered too well and ended up on the roof.

Do you mean Zips?
You must have been smarter than me, I had every color and thought I really did run faster in them.

The shoes I was disappointed in though were Roos. Once you get your foot in them, the pocket is so tight you can only get like one penny in them.

LOL, yes, Zips. I didn't remember that they were velcro, what dip****s we must've looked like.

When I got my first pair of sunglasses I practically burned my retinas out trying to look at the sun. Total let down.

As for toy that lived up to the hype: Nintendo NES

I'm getting stuck on YouTube watching 80's toys commercials.

I'd like to take the time to admit that I had about 20 of these, plus the ring, and thought they were really awesome.

Lawn darts far exceeded any expectations you may have gotten from advertisements.

+1 on whoever said super soakers. The original green one revolutionized water guns(was that the 50?) The first kid on the block that had one of those could crush any other kid in a water gun fight. This led to a neighborhood arms race, someone had to buy the SS 100 then the 200 (which was heavy and killed mobility) then eventually backpacks full of water and power.

As for bad products I remember being so excited about the NES power pad and it being a piece of ****

My Dad landed a "Jart" in my Aunt's chest when they were kids. It just missed her heart and she's fine 35-40 years later.

On the subject of water guns, I always loved Entertech. Batery powered semi-automatic awesome.

i think super soakers lived up to the hype

when they were introduced they were >>>>>>> any other water gun

edit: i spent so much time reminiscing about super soakers that cobra kai beat me to the punch

gotcha paint pellet guns. but you had to soak the pellets in hot water. and if they get too old they never end up working. then i think the company went out of business, or stopped making them, so you couldn't get pellets anymore. still fun when we first got them though.

then a friend of mine and I ordered some uzi pellet guns out of a comic book or something. we get them. the pellets were huge, heavy and shot like 10ft, if that. very dissappointing.