The 1992 Sears Wish Book!
Fifteen Treasures from the 1992 Sears Wish Book!
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The Sears Wish Book, often imitated but never duplicated, was the ultimate best thing ever. Hundreds of pages filled with toys, video games and other pieces of retail awesomeness, complete with color photos and catchy descriptions. In its era, no child built his or her wishlist without a Sears Wish Book.
Below are fifteen highlights from the 1992 edition, including everything from log cabins to crayon-shaped fish tanks. Enjoy!
Ninja Turtles 5th Anniversary Leonardo Figure! ($11.99)
In its time, the original Ninja Turtles toy collection was the hottest thing going. Five years and five bazillion dollars later, Playmates celebrated their successes by selling us gold Leonardo figures. Hoookay.
A TMNT figure that doubled as a trophy was kind of neat, but when you applied some imagination, Gold Leo became so much cooler. You could’ve pretended that he was some cyborg Super Turtle, composed of equal parts reptile and robot. Like a more organic Metalhead. In that form, he’d crack less jokes than a normal Ninja Turtle, so it was extremely fortuitous that Playmates chose the already humorless Leonardo for their self-congratulatory project.
Videotape Storage Case! ($11.99)
I know it may seem strange to include this, but man, THE MEMORIES.
With a combination of Christmas and birthday money, a VCR was one of my biggest childhood purchases. Sure, my family already had one, but this VCR was for my bedroom. Who cares if I had the worst hand-me-down television ever? Now I could watch Wayne’s World in private!
The best part was amassing my own collection of videos. I bought a storage unit just like the one pictured, complete with that ultrathin shiny wood — the kind that was just so easy to chip. When I finally filled that baby up – mostly with taped-off-television stuff, complete with handwritten labels – I was so proud.
Solid Gold Rock Star Sound Machine! ($21.99)
I absolutely owned a Sound Machine. My memories of it are pretty faded, but it was basically an oversized “sound effects keychain,” where you’d push buttons to create strange noises. Just like a real DJ, according to the description.
The detachable microphone was a nice touch, but since I have zero recollection of it, I’m guessing it was easy to misplace. This couldn’t have been a gift I outright asked for, but I doubt I was disappointed. It looked expensive, and it made crazy noises. If I could get excited about videocassette storage drawers, I could get excited about a Sound Machine.
Nickelodeon Belly Bumper! ($29.99)
I’ve never seen nor heard of Nickelodeon’s Belly Bumpers outside of this Wish Book. From what I can tell, they were just pool tubes. Forgoing their typical use as floatation devices, kids were encouraged to treat the Belly Bumpers as bouncy armor.
It looks like fun. It also looks like an easy way to blow out your knees. I can’t see many Belly Bumper battles ending without one or both kids on the ground, bleeding and cursing. I’m sure the Bumpers’ box featured severe cautions about doing virtually anything with them.
Swans Crossing Dolls & Accessories! ($16.99 per three figures)
Haaaaa. I think I was the world’s only fan of Swans Crossing. If you don’t remember that show, it was a cross between General Hospital and 90210. The absolutely insane teen drama aired five days a week, usually right after a block of cartoons. Its story was way too big for its budget, so you’d see kids inside submarines that looked like normal bedrooms, and “massive explosions” made from bottle rockets.
The existence of Swans Crossing dolls probably owed less to the show’s popularity and more to what the partnered companies assumed it would be. The show couldn’t have been huge, as I remember its timeslot changing on a seemingly daily basis. In its waning days (which wasn’t long after its debut), Swans Crossing aired at like 7:30 in the morning, weekdays. (I will admit to using the aforementioned VCR to tape episodes and watch them after school. I can also guarantee that I was the only person on the planet who did that.)
Swans Crossing featured the not-yet-famous exploits of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mira Sorvino. Sadly, neither of their characters’ dolls are shown in the photo. I’m not even sure if their characters had dolls.
American Gladiators Figures & Playsets! ($10.99 per Gladiator/Challenger two-pack)
There was a serious shortage of cool action figure collections in 1992, so even if American Gladiators wasn’t your bag, chances are, you had some of these.
To make the figures work with all of the accessories and playsets, they were given absolutely wretched poses. The Gladiators looked like they were trying to shit while standing. If you’ve always wondered what that might look like, just take a gander at Gemini up there.
Crayola Aquariums! ($26.99 each)
I wanted one of these FOREVER. Wish Books were always stuffed with elegantly bizarre fish tanks, but nothing topped the one-gallon crayon. The tanks bubbled, lit up and did all of the normal “fish tank things,” but let’s not kid ourselves: We wanted them because they looked like giant crayons.
I distinctly remember putting this on my list, with a note about how I wanted a red tank, but would accept blue in a worst case scenario. I thought the trick was avoiding yellow, but the real trick was convincing Mom to buy me an extremely vertical fish tank that was practically begging to crash on the floor.
I never did get one. 
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Thanks, Matt; you’re the best!
Awww man the Swan’s Crossing and California Dream intros bring back that indescribable cool factor I could never attain in the 90s because I was just too young. I would have been 7 in 92′ but wow I remember the anxiety of the Wildwood boardwalk looking at all the cool high school kids in their super high waist jeans and nondescript baseball jerseys.
Big difference between then and now is the conforming of fashion at such a young age. You don’t even have to try to dress like the older kids because childrens clothing now is basically scaled down versions of what older people wear.
I think the Swan’s Crossing dolls are cute!
I played the clarinet in school too.
My music teacher also had issues.
He would start screaming and crying when the class wasnt paying attention.
MARRRIOOOOO PAINT FOR THE WIN! The only game my brother would let me play. It was soooo goooood.
There was indeed a Sydney Swans Crossing doll. I got it for Christmas. Yupppp.
The two big Christmas catalouges in my house were the Service Merchandise and JcPenny catalogues. I always preferd the JCP one because they had a bigger toy section. The Service Merchandise one always had their toy section in the back and it was always only about five to ten pages at the most.
By the way, anyone remember Service Merchandise? My aunt who lives out in Long Island used to work there until it shut down. Forget where she works now but it is in merchandise.
My thoughts on the first 7 items:
1. Did they only these in one character only? If not, why is there a 0000001 on it? Limited edition, perhaps? Why couldn’t they do something like this for Garfield and Friends (another CBS show from the 90′s) by making a 5th anniversary set with golden figurines of Garfield and Orson? Also, aside from plushies of Baby Orson (aka eyelashed Orson), Roy, Booker and Shelldon, why didn’t they make any more U.S. Acres merchandise? I would have loved an Aloysius Pig plush myself. And those Wade fans would be gobbling up every piece of merchandise. Sorry, Roy! (referencing The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’s Duck, where we find out that one person likes Roy and every other viewer likes Wade.)
2. Nowadays, they have boxsets that act as storage cases for DVDs. I myself own one with characters from the anime Lucky Star on it.
3. Did the microphone actually work? If not, how dissapointing!
4. Advertising pool toys in the fall, that’s not right! 20 demerits! (10 points for anyone who reference) Still, that’s one weird toy!
5. Why do these dolls remind me of this Maxie’s World?
6. I saw a parody of American Gladiators in the Garfield and Friends episode “Knights and Daze”.
7. On the subject of weird fish tanks, I’ve seen a beta fish in a flower vase filled with flowers and stones in it at a gift store once. It was the owner’s fish, so it wasn’t for sale.
My thoughts on the other half of items:
8. An early add-on by Nintendo? Wow.
9. People on the internet love making music with a program on the internet emulating this.
10. I had a Little Tykes cabin as a kid, until I was in 5th grade.
11. They made Sailor Moon dolls like this that had casual dresses that you took off, and the sailor suit was underneath it! Pretty cool, huh? But it was only in Japan. Also, the third character’s mutated form reminds me of Wolfrun from Smile Pretty Cure.
12. I’ve never heard of these before, being a 14-year-old 2000′s kid.
13. I never played an instrument before, but I was in the chorus for 2 years. Before concerts, we would sit in a room and watch episodes of Rugrats on VHS. (By the way, the teachers at my school were lazy to teach us anything besides the four main subjects and showed us movies instead, and we saw some great ones like Garfield, Everyone’s Hero and DuckTales.)
14. I remember seeing one of these before at school.
15. I have an electronic poker game, but it’s not this one.
RetroBJ, I’m from Long Island, too! I remember getting a catalog from JCPenney a few years ago and all they had was generic stuff and Disney Princess-themed baby dolls. But I don’t know the section you’re talking about.
Also, Sears doesn’t carry that much of a toy selection anymore. I only saw Fisher Price toys and Spongebob and Pikachu pillows last time I was there.
i dream of a day when Swan’s Crossing is on DVD.
my mom had that same handheld poker game when I was growing up; spent many an hour playing that thing as a kid
I fondly remember this. I had all the Mutations figures, but I can’t believe they were $25. Were those the actual prices or the super inflated Wish Book prices? And can’t believe Mario Paint was $60 even back then. I played the hell out of that one.
I also can’t believe that handheld poker game cost $40. But I gave it to my grandma, who played that thing for years. So, well spent.
Man, just seeing the clarinet brought me back.
Also, I had that VHS case. Lots of good memories stored in those, like the five Power Rangers “Green With Evil” VHS tapes that McDonald’s gave away.
I still have those “mutating” turtles figures at my Dad’s. I’ll have to see about getting them from him.
Hah… I have this very same catalogue still!
Mario Paint was well-loved in our household. I made some damn cool pictures on it. Believe it or not, the primary user was actually my dad, who composed some pretty awesome music on it. I kept it for years, even into college, until it self distructed. Totally ditto on the clubhouses as well.
Those VHS drawers are the bomb! Never can have enough of them. Every Goodwill/thrift shop on Earth seems to have at least one.