were called pogs, and had a thankfully short-lived reincarnation as kids' toys of some kind a few years back. I don't remember how it worked, but the little tykes were gambling with them, causing most school districts to ban them. This, in turn, made them even more desireable, of course.
I'll look it up to see what the gambling thing was all about.
Edit:
Well, I'll be darned. This claims they were not from the milk bottles, though the concept's identical:
Cardboard money.
My serious addiction to Pepperidge Farms Goldfish Tiny Crackers(R) has enabled me to complete multiple sets of Goldfish milkcaps (collect all six!). Milkcaps, for those of you cowering under rocks, are small cardboard discs with images on them. These are implemented by the global youth in some sort of 90's Marbles game mutant offshoot. They used to be called "POG"s (for "Papaya Orange Guava", the types of bottled juice that originally yielded the game pieces), but of course someone snarfed the trademark to that one. If you can imagine a tiny Goldfish cracker engaging in he-man MTV-type sports depicted on a small cardboard disc, you're just as insane as the marketing board that came up with this idea. These are three concepts that should have never been crossed. Someone should keep track of this heinous trend and make a coffee table book: "Late 20th Century Travesties in Marketing". Anyone interested in acquiring the rarer "Spike!" (armless Goldfish wearing handkerchief and sunglasses, somehow playing volleyball) or "Shot!" (armless Goldfish somehow implements hockey stick) milkcaps should drop me a line to receive a true Christmas Miracle(tm). As an aside (is there anything that I write that isn't an aside?), I enjoy saying the phrase "tiny crackers" immensely and try to work it into conversations whenever possible.
