Back in the late 60s early 70s, I had this odd and probably hazardous toy machine thingy that you put globs of goo in, it heated it up, and went through some vaguely remembered stuff, and out popped warm and slightly sticky, very smelly dinosaurs!
Loads of fun! Probably toxic and a a fire danger, but MAN did this elementary school aged child have loads of unsupervised fun with it!
Plus, I had a water powered, pump up, sharp plastic rocket launcher. They would go way high in the air if you pumped 'em up enough! And try aiming them at your brother! Man, those were the days. Sharp plastic rocket and launcher sold seperately.
I also had Thunderbirds toys and action figures. I made Lego™ adversaries for them.
What about your odd and/or vaguely remembered toys?
A couple of things crossed my mind (I’m a child of the 70’s)
Big Jims
Smash 'Em Derby
Garanimals (the clothing line)
Micronauts
Slime - Garbage can with slime and there was a version with worms, too)
Pulsar - Challenge: Can someone describe it?
I also had these 13" cowboys and indians. One cowboy was in black, with slicked-back black hair and a little Maitre’d moustache. Completely in plastic but almose fully moveable (wrists, elbows, knees, hips)
I had the coolest toy when I was probably 8-10 yrs. old. Late 70’s. It was a Spiderman Webshooter that they dare not make these days. It consisted of the mechanism like a suction cup dart gun but it strapped around your wrist. There was also a string attached to the dart and a spool on the mechanism. When you shot the dart off your wrist it would shoot across the room, stick to the window, and leave a nice line between the dart and your wrist. Sooooo Coooool!
Unfortunately the same day I got it I shot it at my older sister. It hit her, she faked an eye injury, started bawling, and Dad got angry and snapped it in half. What I wouldn’t give to get another one.
My other favorite was the Green Machine (no not made by Bissell).
It was like a bigwheel but the rear axel pivoted for steering rather than the front wheel. Instead of handle bars there were two levers for steering. Pull back on the left and push forward on the right for a left handed turn and vice-versa. This one lasted for a week till I let the older neighbor boy take it for a spin and he busted it. Dad said it was my fault for letting him try it and wouldn’t replace it.
There was the “Thingmaker”, where you poured this stuff called “Plastigoop” into molds which you then put onto a heating element. You let it cook for a bit then took the mold out (using a pair of tongs) and put it in a tray of water to cool it off then removed removed the now-hardened plastigoop from the molds. The molds were all bugs and monsters and the like and it made these kind of rubbery things. Definitely a high potential for fire or multiple-degree burns.
Then there was the “Vac-u-form”. Same general concept except here you heated up a plastic sheet over a heating element then flipped it over a mold. Pumping a lever sucked out the air and the sheet formed itself to the mold. You then cut the shapes from the plastic and assembled them into small toy cars, boats and the like.
Finally, we had the “Strange Change Machine”. In this one you put flat plastic blocks into a heating element covered by a plastic dome. The blocks “unfolded” into a dinosaur or monster. After they cooled off you could play with them. (There was a pair of tongs to remove them from the dome.)
When you were through playing with them, you put the dinosaur back into the dome and heated it up again. When it was soft you put it into this other unit and turned a crank which squished it back into a block again.
They could never market anything like those today. There was a very real possibility of burning yourself while using them and I’m sure more than a few people did. Fun toys though.
Click-clacks, I think they were called. Maybe Clack-Clacks. Two hard plastic balls on either end of a string. Hours of fun banging them together – or across the skulls of your siblings!
They were called Kerbangers. Some even glowed in the dark. Remember the song- “Kerbangers on the left, Kerbangers on the right, kerbangers, kerbangers, kerbangers outtta sight. KERBANGERS!”
I’m a child of the 70’s too - so this is a fun topic
That 13" cowboy and indian set might have been Johnny West.
And I had the Smash’em Up Derby and a few of the SSP cars … that was fun !
I forgot all about that mold-thing. Didn’t it make rubbery-type things that you could paint ? (the item could have come out rubbery but later harden up) I have a fuzzy recollection that they had a monster-movie set in the early 70’s
And in the realm of “heat 'em ups”, let’s not forget the Easy-bake Oven, which used a 60-watt light bulb, IIRC, to create rather dodgy little cakes. Er, that was my sister who played with that one, not rugged, macho me. Right.
Aside from various items of spring-loaded or carbide-powered artillery (our neighborhood cats were the most traumatized anywhere), the oddest toy me and my brothers had must have been “Joe <something’s> Car Wash”. Yup, a plastic car wash with operating brushes, though which one put one’s plastic cars. Just the thing for teaching kids the sort of exciting jobs waiting for them if they didn’t go to school.
… almost forgot Sizzlers - a battery operated Hot Wheels car. Looking back it was pretty good for the 70’s. You recharged the battery with something that looked like a gas pump.
“Wizzer” tops were also a favourite. You make it spin by dragging the rubber/plastic tip across the floor (which would mark up the floor).
Another thing I haven’t seen in years were those small toys that had a spring and suction cup - you’d press it down and eventaully the suction cup would “let go” and the small toy would jump up in the air.
I remember the “heating element/goop-in-molds” toy. Mine was Flower Power.
I had an Agent 99 (from the Get Smart series) spy kit, including a make-up mirror that would reflect from an angle and a lipstick holder containing microfilm. I loved that.
I had this set of little dolls, maybe 4 inches high and they were all soft and came with this little bus or vehicle of some kind, and I seem to recall that they were sort of a gang of hippies, with fringed vests and one had a little fabric guitar that velcro’d on…no idea what they were called but I sure loved them. I wish I could remember if they were from a cartoon or something but I just have no idea.
We also had Gnip Gnop, the ping-pong-esque game that was inside a dome and you pressed some levers or something to pop the ball around.
J.J. Armes was a handless private detective whose prostheses included blades, guns, and ropes. The strange thing is that he was based on an actual person.
I loved my Johnny West set, but always wanted to be like the kids on the commercials who had all 52,993 of them. The accessories were incredible; there was also a medeival British line of the toys.
Remember the Bionic Man action figure who had the eye you could look through? He’s on .this page , along with Sucker Man and a lot of other members of WWAKTS (We Who Are Now Thirty-Somethings) will remember.
Remember the Lemon Twist? It was a jumprope like thing that you put on your ankle and jumped. I hated that thing with a passion, but we had to have one at my school for P.E…
I had one of those Creepy Crawlers goo-moulding ovens in the 90s. There was even a vaguely remembered cartoon based on it, and some action figures (who were not made of goop).
How about Growing Up Skipper? She was Barbie’s little sister. She started out as an adolescent, then you turned her arm and her waist extended and her boobs grew. My male friends were always turning my arm.
And there was Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop–gosh what a mess.
I got a toy for Xmas that looked cool, but afterwards… well, anyway, it was a Roman Galley, and it was battery powered, and it rolled, and the oars went back & forth. Es Toto.