February 2, 2007 by mofitta
In the 80’s, sweatbands and leggings were more than exercise gear — they were fashion accessories. I was one of those girls that was given a set of Get in Shape Girl before I was old enough to read the instructions. As long as I knew the triangle button on my Fisher Price cassette player was Play I could still put on my spandex outfit, tutu dance skirt, snap on my matching head and wrist bands and pull up my leg warmers, and prance around the basement twirling my ribbon on a stick like I was Mary Lou Retton, jump up and down on the puffy little pastel pink mat and feel pretty and accomplished.
Now that adults are treating childhood obesity like it’s colon cancer, it’s a perfect opportunity to bring back Get in Shape Girl. It’s no biggie, you’d have to work pretty hard to fuck up a toy line like Get in Shape Girl. Take a dash of sweatbands, a water bottle, and about 50 tons of pink and purple — VIOLA! Arbor Toys have bought from Hasbro and remade it!!! Gotta get my paws on that. Even the plastic improved balance beam in the Gymnast Set. Although I wouldn’t trust a hunk of plastic to be jumped around upon. Inevitably broken chunks of pink plastic will wedge themselves into your ass as you fall on it. And - get this, a Cheerleader Set is available too. OhMyGawd. No way!
The Fitness Set comes with your basics for keeping in shape. Some hand weights, jump rope, wristbands, water bottle, instructional guide, and a carry case to put it all in! It’s a bit of a change from the original big pink tote bag with the ginourmous GISG logo printed on the front. (see commercial below) This one is clear plastic, so that wherever you go, everyone can see you’re carrying around work-out gear.
This kit doubles as a very inconspicuous murder weapon. You can tie people up with the jump rope, beat them senseless with the weights, and force them to drink drugged water from the water bottle. I dare say no one would expect a little exercise knapsack to be the culprit in a blunt force trauma.
Posters feature ’the matching scrunchie’. I can’t tell you how many scrunchies I had back in the day. I used to go to Claire’s at the mall and oogle the wall full of scrunchies. My favorite were probably the denim scrunches, as they went so amazingly well with my jean jacket with the cute little ruffles. I had a few scrunchies that matched my stirrup pants. I don’t think stirrup pants were actually popular, but they were what my mom bought me, and they matched my scrunchies, so I didn’t really care.
FYI: Wristbands are the new snap bracelets.
I had to make a shout out to GISG - It’s got a certain amount of longevity to it, much like pretend girl make-over kits and walking toy puppies. It’s nice to see little girls acting like little girls and not playing with Skanky McBratz Blinged Out Botox and Collagen Kit.
Now-a-days:
