A plastic snowman with a hand crank that was meant to crush ice into perfect slush. It did not.
The advert showed effortless snow cones. Reality was ten minutes of grinding to produce a tablespoon of wet ice, and the handle usually broke first.
It is the single most reliably disappointing toy in British Christmas history and everyone remembers it fondly anyway.
Cost back then
£9.99
Goes for now
£25–£70 boxed
Keep going
A Hungarian architecture professor's teaching aid became the fastest-selling toy in the world.
Mattel's line of chunky figures, sold alongside a cartoon that existed mainly to advertise them.
The freezer centre was a whole shop of frozen food, and going there meant a chest freezer in the garage.
Sony's superior video format lost the war to VHS, leaving a small number of very smug and very stranded households.