Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Gnip Gnop

One of the joys of garage saling is when you find that lost piece of your childhood, a forgotten memory of wildly slapping a plastic paddle and watching neon pink and green balls bounce erratically about.  I'm talking, of course, about that slap-happy game by Parker Brothers, "Gnip Gnop".



Designed by toy and game wizard Marvin Glass, inventor of classics such as "Mr. Machine", "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots", "Mousetrap" and "Ants in the Pants", "Gnip Gnop" ("Ping Pong" spelled backwards, of course) was released in 1971.  I received mine for Christmas around 1974. Mine didn't survive my youth, but I found this replacement for $6 at an estate sale.









My only problem as a child was I typically didn't have anyone to play with, so I was doing both the "Gnipping" as well as the "Gnopping".


13 comments:

  1. oh how i wanted one of these. the commercial was so catchy!

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  2. Oh yeah, I had that. Fun times.

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  3. This is so funny, I just saw this in Toys R Us over the weekend!

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    1. I had no idea it was still being made. And I see there's a knockoff made by Ideal called "Pop Pong".

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  4. Oh so had this it was pretty fun! You have to love that those simple games where always a blast.

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  5. We never had this but we did have mousetrap - it took forever to set up and never work right. I think we eventually removed all the pieces and used them for other games.

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    1. I think I played Mouse Trap one time from beginning to end. You're right, it was an investment to set up.

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    2. huh. it usually worked for me. in a funny case of art imitating life, at the first burning man i went to back in 1996, someone had built a life-sized version that used a bowling ball as the ball, and that thing NEVER worked, haha. but it was fun to watch them try.

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  6. Wow. What a find! I vaguely remember this game, but could not have told you what it was named in a million years.

    PS - My Mousetrap experience culminated with Very Young Me swallowing the metal ball. So you probably have me to blame for all those small parts warnings.

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    1. So YOU were that kid! Actually, the same thing happened to my daughter, although she didn't swallow it, I was able to get it up with the Heimlich maneuver. I put away the vintage games for a while after that.

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