# A Toy From Your Childhood You Bought As An Adult **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 21, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300 "2009-03-21T23:51:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/21 "2009-03-23T15:22:33Z")
At this point, I have well over $1500 worth of LEGO, and not only that, but I can _gasp_ disassemble and reassemble them anytime I please, even into things not covered by the instruction books, EVEN THE “COLLECTORS EDITION” SETS. (My mom seriously doesn’t understand why I would by a $300 LEGO set, and having bought it, why I would not assemble the provided model instead of something else entirely) ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/22 "2009-03-23T18:13:43Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > At this point, I have well over $1500 worth of LEGO, and not only that, but I can _gasp_ disassemble and reassemble them anytime I please, even into things not covered by the instruction books, EVEN THE “COLLECTORS EDITION” SETS. > > (My mom seriously doesn’t understand why I would by a $300 LEGO set, and having bought it, why I would not assemble the provided model instead of something else entirely) I’ve bought LEGOs as an adult, too. I only had one very small set of the basic bricks as a kid because my parents thought they were too pricey. They are expensive - but they’re also a ton of fun. I bought myself an Invisible Man - we had one at school, and my mom thought it was the grossest thing ever, so I had to wait until I was in college to get one. I got myself some hamsters too! ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/23 "2009-03-23T18:22:37Z")
When I was a kid I had a killer “Stingray” bicycle. About five years ago I searched for the model like I had and a few similar ones on Ebay and learned there was quite a collectors market for original ones. I was on the verge of buying one, not to ride but just as something cool and retro to have around but I lost interest and never did. So my answer would be “almost” ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/24 "2009-03-23T18:32:44Z")
When my kids started playing with action figures they snapped the ancient rubber band holding together the torso of my GI Joe “Snake Eyes” figure from 1983. Found a replacement one on eBay. I would love to unpack my Commodore 64 and fire up a session of “Archon”, “Mail Order Monsters” or “M.U.L.E.” but have no idea where it is since my last move, or if my ancient box of floppies are still readable. (They still were the last time I checked, about 6 years ago.) ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/25 "2009-03-23T18:33:38Z")
I wanted a wrist rocket as a kid and got one when I was in grad school. More recently, I bought an old D&D module, “The Village of Homlet” that my friend had had when I was young. It was my intro to D&D. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/26 "2009-03-23T18:43:51Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > I would love to unpack my Commodore 64 and fire up a session of “Archon”, “Mail Order Monsters” or “M.U.L.E.” but have no idea where it is since my last move, or if my ancient box of floppies are still readable. (They still were the last time I checked, about 6 years ago.) My floppies all died a few years ago. Thank Og for emulators and roms. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Beginning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@New\_Beginning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Beginning)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/27 "2009-03-23T19:39:39Z")
I had always wanted an air hockey table as a kid and purchased (a cheap) one a few years back, though I gave it away when I moved. Similarly, purchased a gumball machine a few years back and then realized I don’t like gum. ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/28 "2009-03-23T19:58:12Z")
“Rock’em Sock’em Robots.” Yes, I was disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/29 "2009-03-23T20:00:41Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Toy I wish I still had: my Lionel train set. It’s worth big bucks now. My dad still plays with his. They were bought for him when he was a very small child in 1946 and 1948. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/30 "2009-03-23T21:25:56Z")
I bought a small inflatable Bozo the Clown as a tribute to the one taller than me that I got as a kid, which was a generic clown. [![](http://images.entertainmentearth.com/%5CAUTOIMAGES%5CRC452lg.jpg) ](http://images.entertainmentearth.com/%5CAUTOIMAGES%5CRC452lg.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/31 "2009-03-24T17:24:33Z")
Things I wanted as a kid but never had, but have now: [“drinking bird” toy](http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=drinking+bird+toy&gbv=2) (actually, a miniature working heat pump) a gumball machine (I have five of them, ranging from the tiny to over two feet tall, woohoo! – although only one is actually being used to dispense… M&Ms) Sea-Monkeys – although I couldn’t keep mine alive longer than an hour or two. Plus the profits go to a white-supremacist group, so I can’t in good conscience try these again, boo-hiss. Etch-a-Sketch (these keep turning up at garage sales) Russian matryoshka [nesting] dolls – a full set in the traditional style, no less more titles than I had from the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books a kaleidoscope – a good one, that you supply your own thingamajigs to look at a “black” [UV] light – which I can still use on odd occasions as a far-out accent light, but very rarely do so. Reminds me of the roller rink I loved to skate in as a kid. two blue tubs of LEGO, which is probably more LEGO than I had as a kid. * * * So far I’ve managed to avoid buying springy shoes or springs you could attach to your sneakers (not that they were ever made for adults anyway) and a slingshot. I’ve also not bought one of those state-of-the-art extreme pogo sticks; we had a lame-ass kiddie pogo and a much better, more powerful pogo stick, but these turbo-charged ones are a pretty recent invention, it seems. The other big omission is a unicycle. I actually came across one at a garage sale, tried it out, couldn’t even figure out how to sit upright on the damn thing, and gave up the dream right then and there. Better for me and better for society, I’m sure! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/32 "2009-03-24T17:39:55Z")
> [@The\_Scrivener](#): > > [“drinking bird” toy](http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=drinking+bird+toy&gbv=2) (actually, a miniature working heat pump) A goonie bird! My mom does a mean impression of those. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/33 "2009-03-24T17:52:33Z")
A [rod hockey game.](http://www.tablehockey.net/) ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/34 "2009-03-24T18:10:03Z")
[QUOTE=Cuckoorex] There was also some kind of spaceship that made a rising engine noise if you tilted the nose up. [/quote] > [@DocCathode](#): > > That sounds like one of a group of space toys made by Fisher Price. The ships would make a cruising noise that changed when the nose was tilted up or down. I still have mine somewhere. > > Unfortunately, I can’t recall the name of the line and Fisher Price has made a lot of other space toys since then, making a search difficult. I still have mine. It’s called the “Starbird.” [Here](http://www.cinemarcade.com/images/Desktops/SB79.jpg)’s a picture, but this one appears to have been gussied up a little. Mine doesn’t have any red decals on it and didn’t come with a stand. It has blue markings on the cabin, and the little wing extensions have been lost. (I don’t even remember it having those little wing extensions). ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/35 "2009-03-25T00:57:47Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > When I was 12 (in 1939), I bought a wonerful old brass Zeiss microscope from a hock shop for $5. Very primitive today, but it did have three lenses (which had to screw off and on to replace one). This led me into a wonder world of microscopy, and used it until I graduated HS. > > A couple of years ago, when too difficult to haul my telescope out and set it up any more, I changed my hobby from astronomy back to microscopy. Bought a wonderful scope with a built-in digital camera, so can view objects right on the monitor screen as well as through the eyepiece. What a change in technology. Wow! You just reminded me that my dad has an ancient optical microscope that he used to use in his practice until he brought the wooden crate home one day and gave me a box of premade slides to play with. Hours of good times peeking at all the different things. …now I can smell the inside of the crate and how heavy the microscope was for a wee lizardling to wrestle out (I think I was barely bigger than the crate). I should ask him if it’s still in the shed that we use for storage, and if so, if I can have it. Although I have no idea how much it would cost to ship the thing and how it would survive. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![toadflaxxed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@toadflaxxed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadflaxxed)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/36 "2009-03-26T00:50:54Z")
Thanking the gods for ebay, I have been able to replace or add to some of the toys I had as a kid - and which I mostly still have: replacement pieces for a child-sized china tea set (white with a golden wheat pattern that actually appealed more to my mother’s sensibilities than mine) and the molded plastic play food that I’d served on the abovementioned tea set (one tidbit was a putrid-looking jello-molded dessert). Another item from my childhood - which I never had as a kid but which I’d always coveted (my friend, Bonnie, had one and she let me play with it one of the times I went to her house) was a house for my trolls. (When I was invited to her birthday party I tried to drag out the troll house from Bonnie’s closet and her mother, who was normally an even-tempered sweet woman, yelled, “Oh, no we’re NOT!!” and snatched it away from me. Forty-three years later I’m still embarrassed by her and my behaviour.) Again, ebay provided a seller with one that met my needs. I’d also love to score a Mattel Thing-Maker to make Creeple People and Mini Dragons. Bonnie, once again, had the coolest Mini Dragons AND Creeple Peoples sets and would make dragons and people for pocket change (to buy more of the Magic Modeling Goop, presumably) but I had the set that had, like, one or two of each kind of mold set and couldn’t make the kind of dragons I wanted at the time - just a dragon that looked like that ghastly Star Trek creature that resembled three lumpy people under a brown chenille bedspread. What I’d REALLY love to be able to find is a Popeye-related activity book that I had back in the '60’s. It was titled something like “Wimpy’s Hamburger Parlor” and you punched out the characters and accoutrements (hamburgers and spinach cans presumably being two), and the outer wrappers of the book could be made into the actual hamburger parlor. I’d have to maybe find TWO of them - one to punch out and the other to leave untouched. I gave up trying to find one on ebay and Google searches for it haven’t panned out - yet. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/37 "2009-03-26T01:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d also love to score a Mattel Thing-Maker to make Creeple People and Mini Dragons. Bonnie, once again, had the coolest Mini Dragons AND Creeple Peoples sets and would make dragons and people for pocket change (to buy more of the Magic Modeling Goop, presumably) but I had the set that had, like, one or two of each kind of mold set and couldn’t make the kind of dragons I wanted at the time - just a dragon that looked like that ghastly Star Trek creature that resembled three lumpy people under a brown chenille bedspread. You don’t necessarily need the Thing-Maker, unless it’s essential to your nostalgic experience. Just get the molds and the Goop, and you can bake the Things in your oven or toaster oven. You can Google around for instructions on the time and temperature you need, and also for your Goop and or molds. There are places that make replica Goop, too. The newer Goop was formulated to cure at a lower temperature, for safety’s sake. So be sure you know which sort of Goop you have, and bake accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![mamakat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@mamakat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamakat)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/38 "2009-03-26T01:43:08Z")
All the toys I wanted and didn’t have a child, I now buy for my kids. (I tell them it’s for them, but I’m usually the one playing with them.) The first toy that I bought for my daughter and myself was an EZbake Oven. She was way too little, but I had fun showing her how it worked. Other things are tons of Legos, Lincoln Logs, and the complete set of Babysitters Club books. ---
**Author:** ![tarragon918](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@tarragon918](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tarragon918)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300/39 "2009-03-26T02:03:37Z")
I confess … I just bought one of the 50th anniversary Barbie dolls! I really wish that it had been a throw back to the original Barbie, though, instead of the modern looking one. Of course in a perfect world, I would have kept my original Barbie, Midge and Ken dolls in the packages and never played with them (oh come on now, wth does that?!). What I’ve been looking for and still haven’t found, though, is a stuffed basset hound plush dog; I received it for Christmas in the 50s, when I was 5 or 6; about the time that “People’s Choice” tv show was popular. I promptly named the dog Cleo, after the main character on the show, although my Cleo was a male (well, I always called Cleo a him!). I had him until 1975, when the trunk that he was in, having come all the way to Washington DC from Princeton NJ, was stolen from the back seat of an unlocked car. ☹ I lost other things in that trunk as well, some important things but also quite a bit of sentimental value. I think, though, that I’ve always missed Cleo the most. Cleo was plush except for his face, which was vinyl. When he was new, he had a squeaker in one of his floppy ears, but I wore that out within a year or two, I think. He was a bit raggedy after 20 years but still in fairly decent shape. I’d really like to find another stuffed hound like that. I thought I’d seen one on E-Bay once, but I’ve never been able to find it again! _sigh_ Gah! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-toy-from-your-childhood-you-bought-as-an-adult/490300.md?page=1)