David McCann: Blink and you might miss fashionable fad

HAVING conquered America, and with celebrity endorsements from Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker, it's only a matter of time before an elastic multi-coloured bangle becomes the must-have accessory in classrooms here.

Known as Silly Bandz, they are silicone rubber loops which are formed into animal, alphabetical and other recognisable shapes. They're designed to be worn as bracelets, either individually or in bunches.

Once removed, they revert to their original shape and can be used as a regular rubber band.

With dozens of bands on the market, they are the latest collectable item and look certain to spark a spate of swapping in playgrounds across the country, but how long will the craze last?

Taking a trip down memory lane, we look back at previous fads that faded fast.

SPACE HOPPERS: These inflatable horned balloons first bounced into the national consciousness in 1971 as a craze bordering on the epidemic.

The toy itself was a heavy rubber balloon with two rubber handles protruding from the top, on which the child would unceremoniously bounce up and down in a very inefficient mode of locomotion.

Those risking their bottoms on the Hopper would attest to its poor handling and likelihood of leg cramp in the vain bid to propel the balloon forward.

Sadly, the Space Hopper drifted into obscurity as the world woke up to it as an ineffective mode of transport. which failed to equip the user with the necessary elasticity to bounce higher, move faster or navigate around obstacles than they could on foot.

Despite its swift fall from favour, the Space Hopper is still available in many toy stores.

POKMON: As card-trading games go, Pokmon is runner-up only to football stickers in the genre, and dominated children's lunchtimes throughout the early years of the Noughties. First introduced to Japan in 1996, the growth of Pokmon centred on the animated TV series married to the collectible card game.

It is one of Nintendo's last remaining links to its heritage as a playing card company - it didn't start life as a console maker.

The premise of the game is to win a "battle" against your opponent, both armed with Pokmon trading cards.

Each character had a set number of attack and hit points. By doing damage to your opponent's Pokmon equal to or greater than its hit points, you could knock it out and send it to the discard pile, from which you could collect one of six prize cards.

POGO STICK: Parents and children alike enjoyed the springy recoil of the pogo stick engineered to launch the user into the air while clinging to a perpendicular metal pole.

Feet are planted on footpads either side of the spring and when the spring is compressed the operator lifts his weight and is sent several inches or feet, depending upon their aptitude, into the air. Repeat to fade in a kangaroo-like hopping motion.

Patented in 1919 by George B Hansburg and with an original wooden model used at the height of its popularity, the humble pogo stick is somewhat of an anomaly in this list of fading fads due to its frequent resurgence in recent years.

Back flips and other tricks are now possible on newer sticks, which has contributed to the growth of the new sport of stunt pogo or extreme pogo.

PANINI STICKERS: Perhaps best remembered for the infamous Hand of God goal that sunk England's World Cup hopes, another feature of 1986 was collectable football stickers that infiltrated school yards everywhere and spawned the oft-cited phraseology "got it, got it, need it . . ."

Despite originating in the 1970s, by the time the Mexico World Cup swung around the distinctive football- related images were at their zenith.

Players, teams, stadiums and badges were all waiting to be collected and mounted in your sticker album, and if you were sufficiently fortunate to find a rare shiny sticker in your pack, you could effectively crown yourself king for the day.

Complete your album and you were a playground hero.

FURBIES: Selling more than 40 million units in the three years since they were first produced at Christmas 1998, these talkative furry, owl-like electronic toys marked the first attempt to sell a robot on the domestic market.

They became big sellers due to their apparent "intelligence", and a spooky ability to develop English language skills, after much coaxing out of their native tongue, "Furbish".

Toys could also communicate with one another through an infrared port between their eyes.

Cute, but a bit creepy . . .