I’ll take most disappointing gift to unwrap for $1000 Alex.
Next worse was a Lifesavers Candy Puzzle. The box was the size to plausibly hold 8-10 rolls of Lifesavers and covered in a glossy image of the candy. Such a let down.
(I never got a game boy at the time and I’m a little bit salty about it, but now as a parent, I understand my parents’ choice not to).
My parents got me a gameboy but the only games I had for it was Babe Pig in the City and a copy of Ducktales that was lost in the attic before they gave it to me and wasn't found until last year.
As someone who grew up in the early 80s, I would have been gitty for this. While I enjoyed video games, my heart was listening to music. I much rather have a portable radio than a game boy at that time.
I woulda been in jr high when this came out and everyone wanted either the Sony sport (waterproof) or a discman if you had rich parents (I did not).
We got a used NES and pile of used games because a cousin worked for a rental store and they started dropping NES stock when the Super NES came out. Somehow later on someone gave us a Genesis, but that and an Apple 2e were all we had for most of the late 80s- 90s.
Oh yeah, and in 92 little kids were still all about those crappy voice recorders from home alone. My little brother was all about those for a year or so.
Of course they're non-functional. It's a cheap transistor radio. It's got a wheel switch for on/off/volume and a wheel for tuning. What would the buttons and d-pad even do?
If radio wasn't absolute shit 'round here (nothing but commercials, Christian talk, and bad country), I would actually rock one of these if they became available again.
All the good music has moved over to HD Radio. There are very few stations in most markets, but the ones that do exist almost always play stuff you won't hear on the FM dial.
An MP3 player or my phone for Spotify, one of those portable FM transceiver things, and this GameBoy radio. Use the transceiver to get my music from the MP3 player/phone to blast over the air on an empty band, and tune the radio to that channel.