I was never much of a toy girl; I stuck to books mostly. I remember asking for <and getting!!> an Easy Bake Oven, and that ROCKED!!! I also begged for a keyboard, and was granted a stand-up organ that…was broken within a month, as the legs it was on were SO wobbly, I didn’t stand a chance.
But my favorite toy amazed my folks, I think.
I never cared for or about stuffed animals; I’d get them for presents and usually stick them in the closet; just never did anything with them.
But then…Ricky Racoon came into my life!
From Radio Shack <which was my FAVORITE store>, he wasn’t just a snuggly 'coon with a name, oh no. He had a RADIO built into him! That made all the difference, and I took him everywhere.
I went to sleep listening to WLS every night for about 10 years. And boy, do I miss whatever DJs used to do the song spoofs…I can’t hear ‘Freeze Frame’ without thinking ‘Fauklands!’
And the ‘Jane’ remix they did for Mayor Byrne, whooo! Was probably my first introduction to satire right there.
Chemistry set. Nowadays they have been made so safe that there is no fun left. I enjoyed mine so much I was going to be a chemist. Until I got a student job in a real lab and discovered how boring real laboratory work is. Second favorite was Tinkertoy. I lusted for an Erector Set, but they were too expensive. This was pre-Lego days. My children played incessantly with Lego. He still does and his wife gets him Lego for birthdays.
Yes, yes, yes to the Fisher Price Little People! I adored them, and the woman who babysat me as a child had a basement full of them.
I also remember many happy hours spent with tupperware busy blocks. They opened up on the diagonal, and you could snap them together in all kinds of ways. They came with small green figurines inside that corresponded to the letters on the blocks: a kangaroo in K, a violin in V, etc. I just found a set of these (newer made, without the figurines) for my son at Goodwill and looked them up online afterwards. The new sets go for $35, I paid $1. Woo hoo!
I loved my Sit-n-Spin. Noting like a toy that made you so dizzy you couldn’t stand up. I swear I spent hours on that thing. My parents must have wondered if it was scrambling my brain…maybe it did…
BTW…googled Brix Blox, and have spent the last ten minutes on this blog of old Sears Catalog products; I am blushingly horrified to admit how many of these things I remember drooling over when I was young!!
I was insane for dinosaurs as a child. I had a collection of dinosaur fact cards, dinosaur stuffed animals, and a dinosaur book where you could stick removeable dino stickers on landscapes representing different time periods. The prize of my collection was a set of about 100 little plastic dinosaurs. I used to play with them under the kitchen table, arranging them by color into families and having them elect their own government.
One Christmas, my grandmother gave us an incredibly detailed dollhouse that she had made herself. It was painted, wallpapered, carpeted, and came with equally meticulously-crafted Victorian-style furniture.
One of my favorites was the GI Joe, who we were forbidden to have because my Mother had heard that if children played with war toys they would immediately hijack airplanes and destroy everything in sight.
My brother used some subterfuge to get him and me and my sister were delighted to learn that if you pulled his string he talked. He promptly became a good friend of the Barbie doll.
His highlight was the evening we used some of Joe’s tactics to skillfully observe my father and determine that he was about to approach the refrigerator on a quest for a beer. We viewed the area, then planted the guinea pig in the middle of the floor. All was ready!
We hid behind the door and, at the appropriate time, pulled the string.
Possibly the sound of our giggling gave it away. Then again, my father has never drunk enough to believe that as he reached for a beer, a guinea pig would announce “Mission accomplished! Good work men!”
My parents, with four girls around the house, saw the $$$ that could be wrapped up in Barbie, her friends, clothes and other accouterments and wisely banned her from the house from the beginning. However, we had beaucoup paper dolls (including Barbie!) in every concievable theme.
The other stuff that I spent a lot of time with were Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys (see a theme here?), a crayola art set and my baby dolls.
When I was a toddler, my dad and grandfather built a playhouse in our yard with dutch doors and real windows. It was furnished with a salvaged school bus seat (bolted down) for a sofa and with a play kitchen donated by our neighbors when their daughters outgrew it. We logged a lot of hours playing out there (with half the neighborhood kids) until baby sister finally outgrew it and it was converted to a shed.
Bicycles were the big outdoor thing. They managed to give us some freedom and mobility, at least until we learned to drive. It’s a wonder that all of us survived!
My friends and I had a lot of fun with my Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. I also remember plenty of good times with a Thingmaker, Hot Wheels, and Legos. Matchbox cars were great fun too–I even had a Batmobile.
I loved my Dancerina Ballerina Doll. I liked Fischer Price toys and my sisters and I had The farm, the house, the school bus, the farm, the parking garage and The plane. I also had The Old Lady in The shoe to learn how to tie shoes and the Clock to tell time. Big Wheels, Barrel of Monkeys, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Barbie and Ken dolls. I really loved my first microscope and looking at cells for the first time.
We played with legos for hours. Our bricks were red and white, and ONLY bricks, none of the fancy pieces now available.
We also had Barbies and played with them a lot. Our mom and Granny made us crocheted, knitted and hand-sewn Barbie clothes. I still have some of them, and my daughter played with them, too. We also had Liddle Kiddles and made dollhouses for them out of shoeboxes.
I had a chemistry set and loved it. I remember making casein paint out of dry milk. We also did a lot of crafty things and my older sister had a Thingmaker.
I had a U-boat. OK so it was just a picnic table with a pole stuck up the middle to be a periscope. Still I sunk just about everything. I sank the Bismark about 5 or 6 times. Scored a couple of Japanese aircraft carriers. I even sank a few pirate ships. The depth charging was rough though. Dive! Dive! Full evasive! Rig for silent running…
My brother and I both loved Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, our swing set (nothing fancy, but it was fun), our sandbox, and generally running around and playing with all the kids in the neighborhood.
We had a Thingmaker, too. I still have a green Creepy Crawler spider somewhere. Had the Flower Power molds, too.
And I LOVED my EasyBake Oven. There was a long line of favorite dolls. Never had an actual Barbie. Instead, I had Midge and Skipper and maybe one more. And a Twiggy and Tina Cassini. I think this was Mom’s way of getting me dolls without making the complete Barbie investment.
I also had an Incredible Edibles machine. What a strange present to give a little boy, but I loved it! i used to beg my mom to buy me more “food-goop”.
I had a Cher doll - anyone remember those? She had blonde hair and black hair - you twisted the top part of her head to change the color. And she came in this orange mumu wrap dress.
And if you stuck her in the window, her tan got darker.
I had one Barbie and one of her friends. They dated my brother’s Lone Ranger and Tonto dolls. I also had the Walton family of TV fame (in retrospect, WTH?). They were smaller than Barbies so they had to date each other. It was okay with me because I’d never seen the show.
