Epic Win: Waterfuls
Submitted by Amanda B
Waterfuls were fun for the whole family! Fun for you when you were playing with them and fun for Mom and Dad when they had to mop up the puddle of stagnant water you spilled all over the place!
The best part about Waterfuls was that there was skill involved, but only if you were 5 and had spent thousands of hours playing with them. The video below demonstrates how well an adult is able to do the Hippo Waterful, however we all remember being experts that could sink all the balls in a matter of seconds.
I never had one of these but my best friend had a few. I was never any good at them, but they were fun for while until I just gave up.
Oh man, I used to love these. I would always play them at the dentist and doctor’s office, until one day I made my parents buy me one. I wonder where it is…
Holy crap! I had that frog game! I played it so much that little bits of metal from the washer on the back of the frog started scraping off into the water after a few months.
And the person in the hippo game video obviously doesn’t know the secret: The bottoms of the games were flat because you were supposed to put them on a table, not hold them in your hand.
I had the froggy too. I liked making him sink down really slow so he’d end up on his toes like a little ballerina.
My 9-year-old brother has a crab one of these.
Yeah, the person in the video appeared to just be spamming away on the button. Not good.
I had that very same hippo game, and used to be able to sort the balls by color: all the blue ones first, then all the green ones, etc. (Then again, that was over 25 years ago, so perhaps I’m misremembering…)
I loved these things as a kid, I think I had three of them. Can you still get them, or do they not make them anymore?
http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/INPW4.html?menu=
I played the heck outta these! They were great for long car trips. I got to be an expert. I would love to get some for my kids now… *goes to search Ebay*
I loved these but I never remembered what they were called!
I must have been really bad at it when I was a kid because, after a while, my mother would only let me play with it outside or in the bath.
*SQUEALS* Oh, I loved these!!!! I kind of made them dance instead of trying to get points, though.*dances little froggy legs*
Oh man! I totally had a Pocahontas one! I loved that thing. I wish I still had it.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!
when my mom sees them she sends em to me cuz she knows how much I LOVE THEM!!! i think i have a generic one in my bathroom that i used to play with when i pooooo.
Oh my goodness! I haven’t thought about that hippo game for years and years! It was wonderful!
i never had one…my parents never got me good stuff..i used to play with these at the store like target and kmart when we went shopping for stuff and my mom would let us run rampant in the toy section to get us out of her hair…i loved these
I had one with a dolphin. I pretty much took it everywhere. I’m pretty sure I still have it somewhere because I was hooked on it.
I had a basketball one, a “ring around the peg one” and a color marbles one with buckets.
Loved them, Mom probably threw them away. Going to Ebay them too.
I had this as a kid and i loved It! I had it for so long that it started to not work and the water got really disgusting looking.
The hippo one? I’d turn it upside down & push the button over and over, until it was full of air. Then I’d turn it back upright, and see how many bubbles I could get in his nose before it floated up & expelled all the air. Through its nostril. Yeah….
I loved mine. Unfourtunately, looking back, I clearly remember drinking the water out of it. Thank god for immune systems.
I used to have loads of cheap argentine ripoffs of Waterfuls when I was a kid (in Argentina pretty much everything is a ripoff)
I love how slow the balls drift down and how tiny and colourful and tasty they look. I never had the guts to break the things open for the tiny balls even though I really really wanted to.
I love tiny things…
Oh my gosh! I loved these! My grandparents had quite a few of them (A hippo one like this, and also ones where you have to get rings on pegs, etc.) and when I was bored I would dig them out. I don’t know if we really had any ourselves, but anytime I was there I really enjoyed them.
I had one with a submarine or a spaceship or something, and three little guys. I remember the submarine used to move down when you pushed the button continually. Most challenging and fun one that I ever played with
I had one with a bunch of little triangles that you had to form into a pyramid on a platform in the middle. There were pink and blue ones, so if you got good enough to start getting bored, you could make patterns out of them.