After giving this about two minutes of careful thought, I’ve come up with my Top Ten …
10. Close 'n Play record player. You felt like such an adult, having your own record player. You opened the lid, which was the whole top of the appliance, put your 45 record in, closed it and it played. So simple, even a young kid couldn’t screw it up.
**9. Rock polisher. ** It seemed like such a complex process, polishing up those Petoskey Stones. But what an end product!
8. Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots. Are you kidding me? One of the greatest toys ever for boys.
7. My comic books. I had an awesome collection - a lot of old 10- and 20-centers, as well as the more modern ones (for the 1970s). My favorites were the scary ones (Tales From the Crypt) and war ones (Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier) and combinations of the two (Weird War Stories). In a recurring theme that you will see in this list, I no longer have a damn one of them.
6. My football cards. Never really got into baseball cards, but did on the football. I grew up in Michigan, but back in the early-to-mid 1970s, I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan before I became a Detroit Lions fan. (Back in those days, you chose sides between the Steelers and the Cowboys). I probably had all the Steelers’ football cards, and almost all the guys from those great teams are in the Hall of Fame now. You guessed it: Lost or abused all of those now-valuable cards into oblivion.
(Aside to other guys in here: Do you remember those sports biography books from this era, that would profile four good athletes from each position in the NFL? The cover would say something like “Dorsett-Harris-Blier-Campbell,” with their pictures each taking up one-quarter of the cover. I loved those!)
5. Squishy Witch Head. I have no idea what this was actually called. But I think there were two styles of creepy heads, and the premise was, you could squish and distort them, then they would go back to their original position. A precursor to Stretch Armstrong. Pretty simple, but I loved mine.
4. Daisy western-style BB gun. What male doesn’t remember the adventures with his first BB gun? “A Christmas Story” nailed this concept.
3. Hugo, Man of 1,000 Faces This was a weird, bald-headed, large, puppet style doll. You could add scars and other features to the face, put different wigs on him, etc. I have no idea why this toy struck such a resonance with me, but I bet they’re going for $500 on e-bay now. He could kick Mr. Potato Head’s ass any day!
2. Electric Shot Shooting Gallery. This toy rocked! It was a self-contained table toy that shot stainless steel balls into a shooting gallery with varying things to shoot at enclosed in clear plastic. (Does anyone else remember this?)
1. Bandit bicycle. My pseudo-BMX, with paint and decals that made it look just like Burt Reynolds’ Trans-Am from “Smokey and the Bandit.” I ripped up and down the trails with pride, and was the envy of my buddies.