# Weird toys you vaguely remember **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 20, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231 "2003-06-20T18:16:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rodd\_Hill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/81 "2003-06-21T22:27:48Z")
Tremble before Zintar the Explorer, earthlings! [http://gamesandbeyond.com/zeroid/zintar.html](http://gamesandbeyond.com/zeroid/zintar.html) I also had a very cool E-Type Jaguar that my uncle sent from the UK, which had a wire remote; a rather limited toy in Saskatchewan, where it was too snowy outside for 6 months and too dusty outside for 5 months. Looked great though. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/82 "2003-06-21T22:48:56Z")
In the 60’s there was a series of battery-powered toys called Billy Blast-Off. The action figure of the astronaut had a battery & motor in it, & a mechanical linkage allowed the figure to power the variuos vehicles you sat him in. There were other versions, one that powered toy construction vehicles, & another that was waterproof, & ran mini-subs. Real bathtub fun. Oddly, it was remarkably mechanicaly reliable, working better than any other toy vehicle I ever owned. They were some of the very few toys I ever owned that were really built to last. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/83 "2003-06-21T23:31:03Z")
I had this six-legged reptillian monster that walked slowly across the floor, and if you shined a light in a hole in his chest he would stop, and I think make a noise and/or flash lights. ---
**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:** [June 21, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/84 "2003-06-21T23:42:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Iteki \* > \*\* > There was also some sort of “magic sand” that you could pour into water to make underwater sculptures and towns, and when you took it out again, the sand was still dry! I still have no idea what that was or why/how it would have worked. Was it as cool as it looked? \*\* That would be either Zand or Sqand. I remember a red and white plastic ‘television’ with a record player on top. You’d put in a record and a strip of still shots. As the record played the strip would automatically move down. Tough One- A robot whose head was a clear dome. His body was cylindrical and ended in treads(looked rather like Zintar actually). He came in a large (oh 10" high by 13" wide" ship). The cockpit prevented the reobot from being removed. Pressing a button rotated the inside of the ship so that a ramp could be deployed and the bot could be removed. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/85 "2003-06-22T00:17:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KRC \* > \*\*My sister and I tried to play a trick on my Dad with the GI Joe–we put the guinea pig out on the kitchen floor and waited for Dad to come get a beer from the refrigerator, whereupon we hid and pulled GI Joe’s string. But no matter how much beer Dad drank, he wasn’t fooled into believing that a guinea pig could say “Mission accomplished!” > \*\* A friend of mine found a voice box from some G.I. Joe-esque toy (it says things like “Let’s go fishin’ pal,” and “Let’s make camp… here!”) and successfully transplanted it into a very angelic looking doll. Fun ensued. I remember collecting Garbage Pail Kids stickers. Those were fun. Then there were the Jem dolls, most notable for the fact that their shoes fit Ken’s feet. Hours of cross-dressing excitement! I think I was a bit “too grown up” for toys when these came out, but what were the boy equivalents of Polly Pockets? I just remember that they were all sort of spooky and evil, yet tiny and cute. Strange combination. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2003, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/86 "2003-06-22T00:37:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by look!ninjas \* > \*\* > I think I was a bit “too grown up” for toys when these came out, but what were the boy equivalents of Polly Pockets? I just remember that they were all sort of spooky and evil, yet tiny and cute. Strange combination. \*\* [That would be Mighty Max](http://www.parnasas.com/PopArena/Articles/Mighty.html) No relation to [Mighty Max](http://www.bugeyedmonster.com/toys/max/) who I’d never heard of before this thread, but want now. He reminds me both of some of the Micronauts and of Lego Bionicle. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/87 "2003-06-22T04:00:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoClueBoy \* > \*\*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! > \*\* I believe I had ALL the vacu-cook-em-heat-em-goopy-eat-em toys they ever made. The creepys, the flowers, the everything. What I also had, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who ever had it…it was some kind of thing where you had wet sand in a squeeze bottle. You squeezed it out on to this platform that the water ran down into, so the sand would hold whatever weird shape you squeezed it into. Anyone remember this? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/88 "2003-06-22T04:02:09Z")
Does anybody remember a series of action figures that were total STAR WARS ripoffs? The villain was a 12" black uniformed masked guy and then there were two droids, one humanoid and one smaller. They were marketed at the time of the STAR WARS craze. (I’m not referring to Battlestar Galactica toys.) What COLORFORMS sets did you have? I had, over the years, STAR TREK, PLANET OF THE APES (drove me nuts because the apes were all uniform pastel colors), SPACE 1999, and WELCOME BACK KOTTER (which was quite boring). The only thing I saved for 30 years: all of my ViewMaster reels. Unfortunately the packages and booklets are a thing of the past. What have you saved (especially for the non-collectors)? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/89 "2003-06-22T04:05:50Z")
When I was really little my sister and I used to play a game that we loved whose name I don’t remember. There was a clear plastic tube that you intersected with lots and lots of multicolored plastic sticks (about as thick as toothpicks but much longer); you put marbles in the tube and the sticks kept them from going all the way down. When it was your turn you pulled one of the sticks and gradually marbles would fall down the chute. Whoever made all the marbles fall lost. Does anybody know the name of this game? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5ac83/32.png) [@The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mad_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/90 "2003-06-22T04:50:20Z")
**Sampiro,** your game is Ker-Plunk. My sister and I played this game too. I had the Visible Man and the Visible V-8 Engine. It was fun playing with the plastic guts. I was given plastic models often- cars, trucks, spacecraft, military- but the biggest was a styrofoam T-Rex skeleton, about 5’ tall. I remember the plastic disc-shooter; battles were better with this because you could rapid-fire on your enemies. ---
**Author:** ![rolandgunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/91 "2003-06-22T05:09:15Z")
Guys I’m tellin’ you I’m lovin this thread! Remember these great toys from the 70s?.. Big Jim action figures and playsets Metal men Rom the space knight Mego Star trek figures Action Jackson GI Joe w/ kung fu grip Six million dollar man gnip gnop the aforementioned mightymax the maximum man Shogun warriors Man…I miss the old days. ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/92 "2003-06-22T05:23:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sampiro \* > **Does anybody remember a series of action figures that were total STAR WARS ripoffs? The villain was a 12" black uniformed masked guy and then there were two droids, one humanoid and one smaller. They were marketed at the time of the STAR WARS craze. (I’m not referring to Battlestar Galactica toys.)** Gaaah! That was to be my very next offering. The two “hero droids” looked enough like R2 and 3PO that a lawsuit was inevitable. Except the 3PO clone had a green head, I seem to recall. And they had a flying saucer type spaceship, as well. Thing was bigger than everything available at the time except the big three Star Wars toys: The Millenium Falcon (with pistol grip landing gear) the AT-AT (the ultimate “look what I got !” trump card on Xmas morning) and the Death Star set (with foam garbage for your compactor, and a little… dianoga?) Them thar Battlestar Galactica toys were kinda neat, too. Anyone else mail in enough boxtops to get the extra special gold colored Cylon? And one I’ve described at least once before on the boards, but don’t recall ever hearing a name for: It was a gun. Big ole honkin gun. You fed a plastic strip into the side of it, which was transparent, with outline drawings of various and sundry “bad guys.” The gun projected a light onto the wall, illuminating the monsters as the strip was fed, with an ear damaging ratcheting noise, through the gun. You pulled the trigger, and a little pin poked holes in the plastic strip, making bullet hits, sort of, on the bad guys. Anyone gotta clue? **tanstaafl** , thou dost rock, mightily and loud. Starbird! w00t! [sub]I had the “no-IR” original too, now I think about it. One o’ my chums had the two later versions. Poor Intruder always got his ass kicked in two-on-one fights…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/93 "2003-06-22T08:19:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rolandgunslinger \* > \*\*Guys I’m tellin’ you I’m lovin this thread! > > Remember these great toys from the 70s?.. > Shogun warriors > \*\* Good god! Shogun Warriors! To this day I have no idea what the story behind the toys was, but I definitely remember that I had [Raydeen](http://www.wildtoys.com/Shogun/ShogJumbo/raydeen.html), and the damn thing absolutely fascinated me at the time. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/94 "2003-06-22T15:06:02Z")
Man alive, **jayjay** , I forgot all about my Marvelous Milky the Cow! I loved that damn cow. I even took it to bed to sleep with me, despite the fact Milky was made of hard molded plastic. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye, those horns were pretty sharp. It also came with a huge warning to NEVER drink whatever it was that you milked out of Milky. Naturally, after we ran out of the fake milk tablets that came with it, we made her drink all sorts of beverages, like Kool-Aid, and drank them. Milky’s innards were no doubt a breeding ground for bacteria since there was never a way to clean them. Oh well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger I guess. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/95 "2003-06-22T15:14:07Z")
I had this “a tisket a tasket” flower-making basket that took Play-Doh and squished it through these squat cylinders, making petals and stuff. Then you put the cylinders in the basket and you had a basket of flowers. I’m pretty sure that the Play-Doh was flower-scented, too. I distinctly remember my mom getting _geeked_ about Creepy Crawlers being re-released and buying them for me. Boy, was she disappointed that they did all the wussy safety precautions on the new design. 😃 I had Don’t Wake the Dragon (the aforementioned penguin and egg game), Mouse Trap and others. My all time favourite board-ish game was our wooden Labrynth. You had a small metal ball that you placed on the top of the box. the top was movable by two knobs and you had to move the top to make the ball go along the path to the end without it falling into holes. I hardly ever made it past hole 27, I distinctly remember that. We still have it downstairs I think, I should pull it out (and get stuck on hole 27 again). We had this hockey game where you had a rink (probably about 3’ by 2’) with players on metal poles in the “ice” that slid along tracks (just straight lines). You put the plastic puck on the ice and played with someone else, pushing and pulling the levers to move the players up and down and twisting them to hit the puck. My dad spent hours painting the players for my brother and me (I’m a girl); one team was the Redwings and the other was the Maple Leafs, complete with accurate jersey numbers and names. 'Course, the only player on the Wings that’s still playing is Yzerman (I think my dad painted those in Yzerman’s first or second year). :: sniff :: ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/96 "2003-06-22T15:49:48Z")
Hmm, shit this is fun Shogun warrior , i think . It was a big action figure about 2.5-3 feet tall , with four missiles in one hand as the fingers and a big battleaxe on the other , plus shoulder launched missiles as well. GI joe toys , a big tank that in reality was a walker bulldog, but it was 2 feet long by about foot and a half wide, hmm, my dimensions on this sucker are wrong ,but it was big. Probably a 105 mm cannon that shot bullets which looked about 50 cal in diameter now, set in scale for the big GI joe. Lots of revell aircraft carriers came under fire from this sucker. Die cast toys from the UFO series back in the seventies , had the interceptor ,the sam launcher and i think the submarine. Then the james bond car from the spy who loved me that had 4 missiles that could be fired and the car could go into submarine mode with the press of a button. Massive Tonka vehicles , meccano , don’t remember the name ,but it did the same thing as meccano , except it had wood dowels and wooden connectors. Hotwheels race tracks , you fed a hotwheels car into something that turned two rubber thingies and it spat the car out so fast , plus the car tracks that had pistol grip thingies that kept cars going. Last but not least , train sets always had me enthralled for hours , just watching them go in circles Declan ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/97 "2003-06-22T16:09:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skeezix \* > \*\*And one I’ve described at least once before on the boards, but don’t recall ever hearing a name for: > It was a gun. Big ole honkin gun. You fed a plastic strip into the side of it, which was transparent, with outline drawings of various and sundry “bad guys.” The gun projected a light onto the wall, illuminating the monsters as the strip was fed, with an ear damaging ratcheting noise, through the gun. You pulled the trigger, and a little pin poked holes in the plastic strip, making bullet hits, sort of, on the bad guys. > > Anyone gotta clue?[/sub] \*\* Well, my brother and I had the variant that was shown on the page that **jayjay** linked to earlier ([here’s the link](http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2/cooltoys/)) called the “Ghost Gun”. I don’t remember one with other sorts of bad guys, but it was probably the same sorta thing. ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/98 "2003-06-22T17:33:36Z")
Well hell, I missed that link th’ first time around, and the Ghost Gun is awful close. Ours was white plastic, but it was the same idea. The bad guy strips were sold seperately, IIRC, and all the early ones were indeed ghosts and such. I vaguely recall some of the later ones having a UFO/BEM theme, and one with these evil looking treelike “Ents” that might have been the Tobunga from that awful movie… **Declan** , this: > [@](#): > > **Shogun warrior , i think . It was a big action figure about 2.5-3 feet tall , with four missiles in one hand as the fingers and a big battleaxe on the other , plus shoulder launched missiles as well.** sounds like Mazinga. Early versions had a removable “rocket ship brain” which was eliminated in later runs of the toy, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/99 "2003-06-22T18:43:22Z")
We had a toy with little penguins that climbed up some stairs (it was like a little penguin escalator) and slid on a slide back to the bottom of the stairs. We called it “Kansen Penguins,” kansen being my little brother’s made up word for anything that went on a track (cars, marbles, penguins…) I know that we got it at KB Toys, but I don’t remember the real name of it. It was really cool, though. I wonder if we still have it somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231/100 "2003-06-22T19:37:54Z")
How 'bout those little slot cars that you put in some kind of holder, squeezed a trigger a few times, and them launched the cars down a track (or on the floor, in the street)? ## Not _Hot Wheels_, they were bigger. And these cans with holes in the top? They had them with different animal pictures on them. You turned them over and then back again, and they were supposed to make a noise like the animal pictured, whether cat, dog, cow, sheep, pig, or whatever. Every single one of them made the same noise: “mmmMMLEEEHHHHhhhh…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-toys-you-vaguely-remember/183231.md?page=6)