Hey, I just realized that I never owned a battery or electrically operated toy. I guess I’m from the last generation of kids who only had kid powered toys.
My sister and really wanted CPK dolls in the early 80’s, when they were damn near impossible to find. Mom worked at a store that carried them, and managed to get not only one for each of us, but one for my little cousin too, by befriending the stock crew 
.
Oh, I did get a horse, really. Best present ever (I was 15). I worked and paid for the stabling and costs, and had him for three years, until I went away to college. Selling him was like selling off a friend 
.
–tygre
What I always liked most were Legos, Legos, and more Legos.
I wanted a Holly Hobby doll. I got a generic one…oh, well. My parents tried hard to get what I wanted, but couldn’t always afford the brand names.
The toy I remember begging for was Matell Football. It was a handheld electronic game with red blips for the players. There was one offensive guy against 4 defenders. Each play was started by going up and down rapidly between the 3 levels available until a hole in the defense opened up. That thing was cool back then. I last saw one being played by George on Seinfeld.
For me it was the Howdy Doody marionette.
This was the inspiration for the character Woody of Toy Story
I spent some time sick at that age and my favorite book was A Big Ball of String* by Marion Holland. It seems to be out of print, but the last editions had new illustrations that weren’t as good as Holland’s own. Maybe that book is what started me down the road to a career in home automation–I hadn’t thought of it until now.
An electric train. (perferably Lionel)
I’m sure that dates me!
Later, it was slot cars. Anyone out there remember these? You got the car and controler, then went to a Slotcar track and rented time on it. They were large versions of the TYCO set ups. Lots of fun, but expensive.
COX gasoline powered airplanes. Had a control string with handle and you flew it in circles.
Yeah! That’s the good stuff!
I can still smell Cox Glo-Fuel. And if I forget there’s a bottle about fifteen feet from me. Ahhhh, methanol and castor oil–the stuff of dreams!
One Christmas, when I was a late pre-teen (or early teen – it’s been a while) I wanted (and hinted often and shamelessly for) an H.O. scale race car set. I wasn’t picky – just about any racing set in that scale would’ve done. I started hinting in early November.
At our house, we would put the Christmas tree up shortly after Thanksgiving. Presents (except those from Santa) would begin sporadically appearing under it from then on. A week or so after the tree went up, a package of precisely the correct size and shape appeared under our Christmas tree. It had my name on it!
I was ecstatic. I also stopped dropping hints. Since I was getting the racing set, I needed nothing else to complete my happiness that year. What else could I possibly hint for that would not be an anticlimax? Heck, I wouldn’t even mind the soap-on-a-rope and hand-knit slippers Gramma always gave me, or the inevitable gifts of underwear and socks.
I spent much of the time between then and Christmas imagining how much fun that racing set was gonna be. Finally, Christmas morning arrived. I waited patiently as others opened their gifts, savoring the anticipation. I even had to be prompted to open gifts, as I was fading in and out of racing car mania. Finally, there was only one gift left to open – the wonderful, magical gift I knew would make me the envy of my friends.
I was grinning from ear to ear as I carefully began removing the wrapper. I was trying to heighten the suspense by not just ripping the wrapping to shreds. It was the only time I ever tried to actually save the wrapping paper, as Mom always exhorted us to do (to no effect).
As I finally opened the wrapper at one end of the package, I realized something was up. What was a picture of a train doing on the end of a racing car set?
Then it hit me.
This wasn’t a race car set. It was a TRAIN set!
My moments-before smile was now a rictus. Dad and Mom looked so excited – perhaps as excited as I had been only a moment before. My recollection of the rest of the day was a blur. Dad was so happy to have gotten me the one thing he knew EVERY little boy wanted – trains! After all, that’s what he wanted when he was little, and I was his son, so of course I had the same desire. It’s genetic, right?
I never told Mom and Dad about my disappointment until years later. I don’t think it scarred me. Instead, it gave me the opportunity to give something to my parents. They hadn’t, due to financial constraints, been able to give any of us kids an expensive gift for a few years. I gave them the illusion that they had given me an extravagant gift that was exactly what I wanted.
Even though it really wasn’t.
I’m glad I inherited my dad’s sense of humor, though.
~~Baloo
Well I guess I’m really young compared to most of you butwhen I was little I adored Barbie, anything Barbie was wonderful, though I couldn’t stand her after I turned five and shudder at what Barbie has become now. I also loved the Smurfs, my blanket still has Smurf pictures on one side, I’ve had it since I was four. Does anyone remember the Care Bears, Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake?
Kitty
I had the Aurora car set, the one with controllers you could set for forward and reverse, and the double 8 with 2 criss-crosses - yep, destroyed 2 cars running them into a head on :D
You know what they say about toy trains? They’re like breasts - they’re there for the kids, but Dad always wants to play with them…
Sheesh, I had to go look them up on the net (there are collectors of everything on the net), but I remember desperately wanting and getting a Zeroid (http://gamesandbeyond.com/zeroid/zeroid.html) for the holidays. Robot on treads with little interchangeable arms for grabbing things and throwing things. Come to think of it, I think I want one now. I think the same company also made small cars that ran on AA batteries and had these little interchangeable square motors with small gears. Lots of fun for the few minutes until the batteries died. (This was in the days of the carbon battery when every house had a battery charger that claimed to revive dead batteries and in reality maybe squeezed an extra 30 minutes of life out them.)
A Creepy Crawler set. You poured a liquid “Goop” into insect molds and placed them on a cooking oven to harden tha plastic. After burning yourself a gazillion times, you popped out the insect and had loads of fun.
I don’t think I got this for Christmas, maybe it was for my birthday. I had asked for it and Dad finally relented and took me to the toystore. I had assured him it would cost about 6 dollars but the actual price was double that (a very big sum of money at that time). My face fell. I offered my weekly allowance (25 cents) to offset the cost. Dad was a big softy.
Creepy Crawlers ended up being a toy we all played with. Even my mom and her friends would create psychedelic bugs while chit-chatting over a cup of coffee.
Yes, my sister and I both got Carebears. I beleieve mine was Sunshine Bear, and I probably still have it. I got a Strawberry Shortcake watch in 1st grade, but I overwound it. I’ve kept it in the hopes that I can find someone willing to fix the mechanism.
My sister still has her Rainbow Brite towel the last time I visted her.
I was going to die if I didn’t get a Chatty Cathy doll. But I did not. Die or get that doll. My Mother got a beautiful baby doll and made clothes for her. A white and lace Christining gown and cap and a white pillow of her to lay on. Also other lovely clothes. She was so sweet. We were allowed to bring one toy to school on the first day back after Christmas vacation. A few of my classmates had hard plastic, ugly Chatty Cathy. I had an armfull of beautiful handmade maternal love. Poor was not so bad.
…Some moms really are angels sent from heaven.
Stellablue, if possible, please give your mother a hug for me.
Scott
All i ever wanted was an easy bake oven dammit. I think I gave up when I was 12.
Oh baby…do I!!!
I had the VERTIBIRD…That was one of my greatest Xmas gifts of all time.
I also had many GI Joes, Big Jim (and his sports camper)
This is one of those threads where you have to admit how old you are, isn’t it?
The first one I can barely remember was a Baby Tender Love. I can’t remember thinking I was going to die if I didn’t get her, but I remember being thrilled when she was under the tree Christmas morning. I even remember having my sister read the tag to make sure it wasn’t her toy. (Santa didn’t wrap the toys he brought to our house.) Anyway, that means I was really little because I could read at age 4.
Then sometime later it must have been Malibu Barbie. I really wanted her Malibu Dream House too, but Santa didn’t have room in his sleigh or something like that. I loved my Malibu Barbie though. (Here’s my speech to my kid, “When I was kid only spoiled rich girls had more than one Barbie doll. We were thrilled to have one and more than one outfit to put on them.”)
After that I really wanted a football. I hated having to go to a boys house and ask to borrow a football when my friends and I wanted to play. One of those new Nerf footballs would be great, preferable actually since they don’t hurt when they hit our delicate, girly hands. But, no, Santa did not bring a Nerf football.
Then the next year I wanted a Simon (a new fangled E-lectronic memory toy) and a Nerf football. I received neither. Apparently Simons were underproduced and hard to come by. Santa still didn’t think I was serious about wanting a football.
The next year I finally got my Simon AND a football. It wasn’t a brand name Nerf, because by then cheap imitators had come out. So, it was just fine with me. My friends and I had started to lose interest in playing football on our own by then because it was kind of fun tackling the boys. Santa would have been smarter to get me that football sooner. 