be careful what you wish for
Posted by mrs_hippiequeen@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 70 comments
domino rally is all i wanted that christmas, and i got it! what the commercial glances past is the fact that you actually have to set this thing up on your freezing cold marble floor, and then at hour 2, the cat decides to stomp through like she's tina turner, clearing everything with grace, but triggering your shell-shocked-by-mousetrap father, so he starts humming plastic "dominos" at her, causing her to skitter off in a panic, knocking everything over, so you have to start at the beginning again - just to achieve about 8s of less than spectacular action leading to a foam rocket with stickers already peeling themselves off jumping about 4" into the air.
therobotscott@reddit
My younger brother had a set. It was pretty cool.
badfishbeefcake@reddit
Such good memories! I had that!
sgrams04@reddit
I spent hours playing with domino rally as a kid and loved it. Then I come to this subreddit and I see a lot of hate for it. Why is that?
moejike@reddit
Don't know. I loved it. Setting it up was actually fun for me. I'm autistic, so that probably helped with that. "Oh boy, let's set them up in alternating colors this time!"
MartinMerten@reddit
Arenโt all Xennials a little autistic?
I mean.. if [insert anything here] is found to cause the rising Autism cases.. kids from the 80s/90s most certainly used. M
My theory; it was the markers that smelled like โfruitโ. mmmโฆ the purple!
silver-moon-7@reddit
If you think we're all a little autistic, it's likely that YOU are autistic (marker sniffing history or not)
BusFew5534@reddit
We're all on the spectrum somewhere
moejike@reddit
Purple was good. I refused to be friends with anyone who liked the smell of the black one. Nothing racist, just hate black licorice.
Sirtriplenipple@reddit
Nah it was the lead paint in everything. Hell those markers were probably lead paint.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
to this day i still think, "this is because of those markers" ๐
BeefSupremeeeeee@reddit
Came to say this, I loved it!
Unfair_Guitar_7981@reddit
gitโs nostalgic for some of us, but maybe people just remember the chaos, lol
JoisChaoticWhatever@reddit
I loved it. I fondly think about it.
gnomequeen2020@reddit
ADHD, a tremor, and the only hard floor in the house was in the kitchen. I wanted this set so freaking bad! I got it, and I discovered how shaky my hands were. Invariably, I would get a few set up, and I would shake or twitch. Since I was stuck in the kitchen, I would have to shut things down anytime we got close to a meal. This also necessitated cleaning up all of the parts over and over, which my ADHD ass hated.
I wanted it to work so badly!
MartinMerten@reddit
Because not everyone is you
unicorn-beard@reddit
I think it just looked sooo much cooler in the commercial vs what it actually was so i found it pretty disappointing. I could never get the elevator to work properly, the rocket shot like a foot and a half in the air, etc. With that said I still spent a lot of time playing with it.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Because the dominos fall down before you're finished setting it up!
Assortedpez@reddit
Yeah, I donโt get it either. I loved mine
illini02@reddit
I liked it. It just was far harder to set up than I anticipated, so it frustrated me.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
i thought i'd pulled a fossil with this one. had no idea it'd been covered before! i'm glad you had a good time with it!
TheConsoleGeek@reddit
Same, nothing but positive experiences with it. Love it.
FormidableMistress@reddit
I never had this. We were super poor when I was little though. I made my own Rube Goldberg machines with my brother. Had stuff going all around our little room.
Least_Story8693@reddit
After some fails, my cousin came up with the idea of lying each 10th domino flat to the side. So that if we messed up, the only 9 would fall*
*unless you sneeze towards the end of placing.
GenericDave65@reddit
We had this growing up and it was always fun but maybe thatโs because we didnโt have a cat
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
๐
amindfulloffire@reddit
"Mable floor"? Well, la di dah, Moneybags. I suppose afterward your cat Persian, diamond collar) went to dine on her Fancy Feast served in a crystal goblet while you two had some Viennetta--after all, it was European.
Anyway, this was a funny read. I remember kind of wanting this, but as with Mousetrap, in hindsight I'm glad we didn't get them.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
โบ๏ธ
SlavaSobov@reddit
Our domino rally was a set of wooden dominos from a garage sale.
But yeah we had the same experience, no cats but someone would knock it down prematurely.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
wooden dominos at least had weight! these bitches were plastic and impossible to place
SlavaSobov@reddit
True, but we all had someone to annoy us by ruining it before it was ready. ๐ฎโ๐จ
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
always
TheJokersWild53@reddit
How many sets did you need to create what they did in the commercial? I feel like maybe you got 50 or 100 dominoes with a set but they threw together like nine or 10 different sets with extra dominoes that made the commercial look a lot more fun than it really was.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
it wasn't til today that i saw the fine print at the beginning of the commercial, that if you get "the" set, you still need 3 more add-ons. no wavy hill, no switchblade domino rails ๐ซ
LardLad00@reddit
Oh look at mr fat cat over here with his marble floors
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
ms fat cat ๐
TrickyAirport5867@reddit
You're Tina Turner line had me breaking up.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
๐ฆต
PokesBo@reddit
Bro you needed the domino dealer
Basic-Pair8908@reddit
How did you get it to turn?
1101base2@reddit
This probably helped fuel my current enjoyment of watching those massive domino projects I've seen online. They were so expensive for what they were, but they were fun.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
kind of like realizing after i got the pure moods cd that i really just liked the remix of all the songs from the commercial, i can definitely still get into some dominos falling videos.
i even enjoyed that investment commercial where there are domino-like things lining up, and i'm like....now push em over
Deep_Dimension_8919@reddit
I had a big play room with tile floor and the domino dealer car that drove and automatically placed the dominos standing. Problem was, it would only make it about 10 to 20 dominoes before it would malfunction and end up, knocking over all the dominoes that it placed. I tried so hard on so many occasions to make it work, to no avail.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
this might be a bigger flex than my parents' marble floors ๐
Deep_Dimension_8919@reddit
Like a lot of us, I was a child of divorce. Both parents definitely went overboard in their attempts to pacify my anger over the situation. I was about 9 when they split. Prime age for bribery with toys.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
ah yes. it happened later for me, but i got a telescope and a gameboy one year ๐
jjmawaken@reddit
I loved domino rally when I was a kid
Johhnynumber5ht2a@reddit
The stupid elevator piece with the weight always got stuck. The marbles didnt stay put so you had to add them last and they would still roll out early and screw everything up. That round piece that was supposed to set of multiple things Never worked, and the icing on the cake.....the coolest piece was the stupid rocket that only launched about 8 inches in the air and would inevitably launch at an angle right into something else that ruined the whole thing. I swear they hired to team who designed MouseTrap.
I still spent a ton of time playing with these things
SenorWeird@reddit
As a kid, i hated mousetrap because it never worked.
As an adult, I hate mousetrap because I have to set it up for the kid and then it never works.
"Hey kids! Wanna learn about Rube Goldberg machines?! Fuck this game and let's go watch this badass video from OK Go instead."
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
YES
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
i think they call this a moral victory ๐
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
This was the original "How To Keep An Idiot Busy For Hours" before they came up with the Keychain.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
i dunno, my grandmother had something called a "do nothing block" that was pretty entertaining
illini02@reddit
I begged my mom for this. Got the "Deluxe" set shown in this commercial.
My god, it was so annoying. Setting those things up was such a pain in the ass. It was the 90s, so most of my home was carpeted (except the kitchen). And those fucking things didn't work except on hardwood.
Half the shit didn't work nearly as well as you thought. if you tried to do a curve, and it was set up slightly off, it didn't work.
I'm sure my mom was annoyed AF that I barely ever played with it.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
i'm pretty sure i tried incorporating them into my lincoln logs
Plane_Chance863@reddit
Most of our floors were carpeted.. so yeah
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
rough
Plane_Chance863@reddit
Yeah, the only place to play was the living room, which was not supposed to be played in (you know, the room where only visitors get to go).
The alternative was setting the dominoes up on a board over carpet in a room with a floor that trembled when you walked, and my brother was a stomper. This did not go well.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
crazy that domino rally didn't stand the test of time ๐
Plane_Chance863@reddit
The thing is that now is the optimal time to play, carpet isn't in style anymore! (I think. Do I even pay attention to trends?)
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
no cheap laminate - no mercy!
small___potatoes@reddit
Epic. I got Domino Rally Neon for Christmas one year.
ilikeaffection@reddit
I'll never get over the crazed, wide-eyed excitement on the child actors' faces in these sorts of 80s (and 90s) commercials. I wonder how they managed to get these kinds of performances out of the kids.
PhiloLibrarian@reddit
like sheโs Tina Turner ๐๐๐
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
โบ๏ธ
False_Impression8767@reddit
This video made my day!
MossGobbo@reddit
That accurately describes the experience.
inactionupclose@reddit
Ya this was definitely a rollercoaster of emotions whenever I wanted to play it.
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
you played it more than once?? ๐
inactionupclose@reddit
Haha maybe twice. Lol
mrs_hippiequeen@reddit (OP)
unwrapping it was definitely the peak moment ๐คญ