Playing with them!

[sabrina]

Good evening ^^

Because of the discussion in several threads, I'm very interested, if you played with your Puppies, Kitties etc. and how do you played with them.

As I remember, my sister and I used the Puppies as our Barbie's pets. Even the Wild Animals where used in a zoo or as very exotic pets. XD
Surprisingly, we had various ways to play, more than with other toys. Used them also in our pool with some boats, placed them in a little tree or bush or even played in a puddle (our mother hated this XD).

We created a lot of familys and friendships, mostly related because of their colours. For example:

My sister used Santa as the strict father, Mo the kind-hearted mother and their children were two Splashers (twins), Tiny, Jemma and Granola. The Splashers were crazy and wild little boys, Tiny was a cool boy and beloved by the girls, Jemma the cute baby girl and Granola was stressed by everything... typical teenager.

The dark brown Merlin and Crabby were best friends, even when they're very different. Crabby had no own family, so Merlins parents treated him like their own son and so on. Teeny (the hippopotamus) was Crabbys "overly attached girlfriend", because of her big grin. They were so cute together. XD

We even had some funny compilations, like the beautiful and arrogant GiGi, who loves the criminal bad boy Spike. So much fun... good old memories...

I'm curious, how did you use to play?

[clover]

Oh, good question--I was just talking about this on another thread. One of the main reasons that PiMPs are some of my favorite toys ever is that they always seemed like a huge cast of varied characters, and I was able to apply anything and everything to them. They felt like a parallel to my own classmates at school, so whatever happened to us, I would have happen to them. I gave them full names (mostly using the UK names as their middles), pretended their cards were report cards or Pokemon-like ones, grouped them up into (for the most part) quartets or trios or duos of BFFs, and paired them up as boyfriends/girlfriends.

I'd basically insert them into situations from movies/TV/books/real life (everything from Disney to I Love Lucy to cartoons, horror and action movies, etc.) They went on just about every kind of adventure: being a gigantic sled team, space travel, holding elections, competing on game or talent shows, forming bands, swimming in the bathroom sink and Barbie pools and our real backyard pool (which I felt might have given some of the white ones a greenish tint in certain places, especially the Dalmatians, but now I can only see the slightest hint of that), being secret agents and spying, fighting battles with my little brother's army-dude toys, going on trips, being adopted from a pound (my mom's dishwasher utensil rack made the perfect row of kennels, & she'd always yell at me for stealing it), performing, having dog shows & Agility & other dog sports, determining who's related to whom inside and outside of the PiMPs (other toys, canine characters, & such), deciding who would live in which Polly Pocket & Pound Puppy homes (or in which houses/apartments in a book or poster or clipart gallery or whatever showing many different ones) and where they worked, and so on!

I even used a Lisa Frank folder as a game board and invented a game that used PiMPs as the pieces.

[Jenna]

Ooh, fun topic! This is gonna get long... I'm feeling nostalgic!

I played with my pups SO MUCH. They were my absolute favs, I was (am??) obsessed! Funny, how we all played was somewhat similar! My older sister was my main playmate. We also partnered up my pups. Each one had a "best friend" whom they lived next to in the Display House, or roomed with in the Hotel. I had most of the first two series, and whoever shared a breed were family. (Blanche was Suzana's mom, Suzie was Flint's mom, Merlin and Tracker were brothers, etc.) The cards were used as their "grades."

One time my grandparents took my family to California in their mini van and I brought my pups. I can't believe I didn't lose them! I live in SD, so driving there took like 5ish days. There was a close call with Bradley at a Pizza Hut, but we drove back and got him! I would have been DEVASTATED! But anyway, when we were in CA, we stayed at a hotel and our room had a closet within a closet and we were nearly as excited playing PimP in there as we were for Disneyland!

I also played a bit with my childhood best friend. I remember putting them in a bucket and dumping them down the stairs. I think we were seeing who would fly the farthest?

I once saw someone on a separate forum say that PimP was boring because they were just figures and "didn't do anything." I was almost offended! They did so much in my head!

[clover]

Oh gosh, I forgot to mention that I had the display house and hotel as well! The display house was like, when I didn't have as many...maybe the first dozen who fit inside and had their names on it, I think. After a while I started to keep them all in a cute puppy box, and my mom gave those playsets away. But the hotel was AWESOME. I loved all the accessories and designs on the walls and yard, the elevator, etc. Recently got one of the beds back randomly in an eBay lot. xD

Yeah, the cards were kind of asking to be their "report cards" from school, lol. And I also made a lot of the same-breed ones siblings (or otherwise related, maybe a few were cousins or whatever), unless they'd already been paired up romantically!

I would have been absolutely devastated to have lost one, and my family would've had to drive back to retrieve him/her as well--no matter how far! Haha. The flying down the stairs thing is hilarious.

"Don't do anything?" Psssh! They were (no, are!) so real to me! Toys like these are great because they let kids exercise so much imagination--creating personalities and scenarios and stories for them. As a dog nut, I loved how realistic, unique, and identifiable they are (the newer ones are cool, too, but more of them look a little bit generic-ish, and harder to identify by breed or mix.)

[Emmy]

Oh goodness, seeing everyone's stories brings back so many memories!!

My younger sister and I used to play with our bunch the same way-- setting up groups of families and friends and couples and having them go on adventures together. I remember some of the games could go on for a few days at a time! It's like Clover said before, about them being like a big cast of characters.

I kept all my puppies and kitties in one of those large decorative boxes with a latch and a handle on it-- still do, though one of these days I ought to find a better solution. But we used the box and a few others as the "houses" for the games, which was fun!

I also remember the first time my childhood best friend came over-- the IMP families were the first thing I dragged out for us to play with! I had to have been six or seven at the time. We also had some good games, but I think my sister had the better imagination, plus she remembered all the names and personalities better.

We also brought quite a few in my grandparents' pool a few times?? Amazing that no one got lost, especially the little babies. I remember being really nervous that the chlorine would ruin them, but it's been a while and there doesn't appear to be any damage, so I guess we dodged two bullets there!

Anyway, IMP was always more fun than any toy that "did something." Imagination doesn't have to be replaced like dead batteries!!

[sabrina]

Mar 5, 2015 18:44:12 GMT -6 clover said:

They went on every kind of adventure--being a gigantic sled team, space travel, holding elections, competing on game shows, swimming in the bathroom sink and Barbie pools and our real backyard pool (which I felt might have given some of the white ones a greenish tint in certain places, especially the Dalmatians, but now I can only see the slightest hint of that), being secret agents and spying, fighting battles with my little brother's army-dude toys, going on trips, being adopted from a pound (my mom's dishwasher utensil rack made the perfect row of kennels), performing, having dog shows & Agility & other dog sports, deciding who would live in which Polly Pocket homes (or in which houses/apartments in a book or poster or clipart gallery or whatever showing many different ones) and where they worked, determining who's related to whom inside and outside of the PiMPs (other toys, canine characters, & such), and so on! 

Oh yes, yes, yes! Same here! Sometimes my cousin brought his Playmobil castle when he visited us. So our Puppies were lords, ladys, knights and farmers.

@jenna: Wow, you were lucky with Bradley. I always got very worried when we played in our garden, placed them into the grass and imagined it was kind of a jungle... until my Dad came up for lawn mowing! I got worried when we lost one of them there. But fortunately he found every single one before cutting them into pieces. XD

My best friend of childhood didn't like them, too. She said I was too childish playing with them like they were human, because she had little use for them. But even playing with Barbie dolls was impossible with her... she didn't have as much imagination as I have, I guess. XD

[vintagepups]

So many memories come flooding back reading this thread. My favourite pup, Jemma, lived with my Lucy locket and the others lived with the Sylvanian families.
I remember making a dog pound out of cardboard and all the dogs escaped and ran away to build the puppyville hotel and community!
The same breeds would be related somehow and they all had different personalities. I had a non puppy in my pocket with Bully written on his belly so he was the bully and Rolo would have to keep him in check.
Also I had the brown variant of Mary who had only one eye painted on so Jack used to help her around with his guide dog harness!
Mine also used to have pool parties in the sink, it's brilliant that we all seemed to do that.
Without a doubt my puppies were my favourite childhood toy.

[blackhorsebeth]

I played with my IMPs a little differently, it seems.

Since my dream job when I was a child was to be a vet I had the Animal Hospital vet centre playsets, and my puppies and kitties were the wounded/lost/abandoned animals that the vet dolls needed to make better.

I also collected My Beautiful Horses (since I was, and still am, horse mad), and in my opinion the puppies and kitties were about the right size to serve as dogs and cats to the MBH ponies and horses. So sometimes they were the stable dogs/cats, and sometimes the MBHs were also at the Animal Hospital.

Oddly enough, I didn't collect the Pony IMPs, because I thought they were too small for the dogs and cats and MBHs. The only thing they would have worked as would have been foals for the MBHs, and they already had foal moulds.

The only other way I played with my IMPs was in the bath, when I'd pretend they were at a swimming pool/beach/lake etc

[clover]

We were all so creative, in similar and different ways! ^3^ Love how everyone threw them pool parties. They're so down for anything. 8-]

Lol, I like the thing about Jack being Mary's guide dog, and Rolo keeping the bully in check. xD My Milton, Zerk, & Cliff were always best friends because they were some of my first "tough guy" dogs (German Shepherd, Doberman, & Rottweiler.) They weren't really mean once you got to know them, though.

And for the longest time I wanted to be a vet; watched Emergency Vets on TV all the time and was absolutely certain of it. Then I discovered my inability to do math (Algebra, anyway), and realized there'd be such classes involved in the curriculum to become one. >< But I still have a brochure I made as a kid for my veterinary office, with photos of various plush animals undergoing surgery on my dad's workbench, or sitting in an ICU pen...I set it up as close to what I saw on the show as possible. xDD I preferred using bigger guys for the hospital game, but of course I treated the "injured" IMPs with cool water.

[Elby]

My brother and I used to play with my IMP figures quite a lot. We played with the puppies most because these are the ones I had the most of. Most of the puppies were paired up as best friends or even husband and wife - I think we had at least two weddings (Bren Border Collie/Old English Sheepdog & Spiffy Old English Sheepdog and Ellie Border Collie and Jack Labrador) Alongside the kennels (I have two) and the Puppyville hotel, I also made myself a lot of 'playsets' (for want of a better word) I made myself a vet's out of a large crisp box so the Animal Hospital figures could live there, a salon out of an small box for Buffy, a playing field out of card with a paper mache hill the puppies could jump off into a pool, a Youth Club made out of a pizza box where the puppies could dance to music, watch films and play video games and even a MacDogals (a puppy version of MacDonalds!) I also made a Chalet out of two cereal boxes (an upstairs and a downstairs) for Teddies and Kitties. I may have some photos if anyone is interested.

I also had a dolls house which sometimes became 'Paul's Mansion' (Paul was one of the Teddies) and the puppies would sometimes go for meals at my Sylvanian Restaurant as well. In the summer my brother and I would take all the puppies outside into the garden to play at water parks with a bowl of water and my brother's Lion King pride rock playset that had a pool that made bubbles.

Believe it or not I turned the puppies into an orchestra at one point and drew tiny instruments out of cardboard for them all!

[clover]

How creatively fun, Elby!!
I did a lot of that stuff too. I paired almost all of mine up (although a few dated others before ending up with their spouses, lol) and remember having my mom officiate a wedding for at least one of the first couples that got hitched. xD I also had her marry ME to a couple of characters represented by toys, but that's another story...

I also used household items to construct a mini Agility course for them, drew the interior & exterior of a restaurant on paper and folded and cut it so that they could actually go inside, etc.

[tifidley]

Loved reading these.

I had my beautiful horses as well, blackhorsebeth and I'd use the puppies as their pets. I had various stables and fencing so I made loads of fields and arenas to have lessons in etc.
If I played with just IMP, I had teddies/puppies/kitties/ponies and a few different animals fox etc. I also had the little horse van and dreamhouse. I'd act out different films that I watched - The Lion King was a favourite as I knew every word spoken and sung. The main family that mine centred around were Dad - Queenie (Welsh Corgi), Mum - Jemma (Border Collie). I had a mini Queenie that broke off a keyring so that was their son. His best friends were the standing puppy (Buck) from Bella's family and the standing kitten (Butch) from Kara's family. These three were always getting in trouble. I had everything laid out on the upstairs landing and spread across the length of the hallway. I'd spend hours playing with all my animals.

I took them on holiday with me, into the bath to explore, into the garden, to school. I remember one day sitting in school playing with the puppy that I bought that morning and ignoring the teacher. What a telling off I got. :/

The little pack was 60 pence to buy and it included one puppy, one card and the leaflet showing the others that you could buy. I got 50 pence each day to buy my play piece and I'd always save it and then go eagerly into the shop and pick a puppy packet and eagerly open it before leaving the shop to find out if I had a new puppy or one that I already had.

[Kate]

My sister and I played pet shop ALL the time when we were little! It was our absolute favorite.
For the most part we had LPS, but I also had five PiMP and five KiMP and my sister had two PiMP family sets. She also had a few barbie pets that she'd include in her pet shop. We only had one LPS pet shop case, so we'd use a barbie carrying case as the second pet shop.
We'd start out by each setting up our own pet shop in opposite corners of the living room. We'd pretend to have customers come in to shop or to ask general questions about pet care during open hours. We even used the TV and stereo remotes as telephones so that we could phone each other if a customer who came into our shop was looking for a specific breed or animal that we didn't have but the other might.
Then after the stores closed for the day our pets would sneak out of their pet shops to visit their friends or boyfriend/girlfriend in the other pet shop. We had most of them paired up. Some were old married couples, but many were young and dating, getting into fights and breaking up, and getting together with new pets. There was a lot of drama going on. (Our barbies were the same way.)

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I think all that drama had something to do with our mother always watching Soap Operas in the afternoon. It's probably where we both developed our dramatic flare from.

[clover]

^ Great stories! They remind me of my childhood games and imagination. Oh yes, my LPS, Barbie, and other assorted critters of similar size would sometimes join the PiMPs. And lol @ the soap opera drama!
My pups' school was like, an impossibly perfect fantasy. I think only one pair got divorced and remarried to others. But I wanted them all matched up so impeccably, according to my judgment, that they dated during school and then got married and stayed together forever. xD There was still all kinds of drama and craziness, of course. 

[saradavo]

I love hearing all of these stories!
I would play with mine in the play room that had carpet squares. The squares I would use as dog yards and I would pair them up. I remember champion would go with Magnum and Jemma would go with Milton hehe. I would set up my barbie house and then barbie would look after them all. I had a bag that I would pack them all up in and take them everywhere with me, even when we would go away my puppies would come with me. I would also add my LPS to the mix and would act out little stories with them too.

I love how most of us paired them up! I would mostly do it by colour or breed lol.