Barbie and all the generic accessories were my favorites. We couldn’t afford a real Barbie Dream House, but someone manufactured an acceptable cardboard substitute, and my friends and I played with it for hours. There was also a toy store near us that had a HUGE rack with no-name-brand stuff that was sized for barbis - shoes, hats, hangers, “appliances”, purses… all for 8 cents a pack (This was ca. 1966/67) Between that stuff and the outfits my mother made (she sewed and sold Barbie-size clothes to make extra money one Christmas), I had one of the best equipped Barbies around. Still have her and a few of the outfits mom made, but the cardboard furniture is LONG gone…
I had a number of cool childhood toys, depending on my age (and that of my brother and sister).
- Creepy Crawly Thingmaker II
- Meccanno
- Handheld “Electronic Quarterback”, “Head to Head Hockey” and “Space Invaders”
- Anything to do with road hockey (playing road hockey comprised my entire childhood)
- the Fisher Price town – the castle with the dungeon was the best
Cool, we can have two Puzzletowns and then they can have a war. Or a train collision and the two Dr. Lions can heroically work through the night to save all the horribly injured victims. 
For added fun, we could go to the real Puzzletown in PA.
Hot Wheels, Creepy Crawlers, a chemistry set, and a Hippity Hop.
A pair of those hard plastic Bolo balls, held together by a string; kids would stand around at recess in huge groups and clack them up and down for the entire recess, until somebody’s bolo finally shattered and sent razor-sharp plastic shards flying everywhere, at either waist level or eye level. Kind of like Russian Roulette: Kid Version.
Oh, seriously? Frisbees.
I don’t remember who it was made by but it was a fisher price-ish farm with a family and animals. The coolest part was the chicken laid eggs and the cow gave milk! I’m still mad at my mom because she sold it at a garage sale. I thought my Speak and Spell was pretty cool especially because it drove my brother nuts with it’s com-pu-ter voice.
Oh yeah, one year I got the coolest phone. It was a pink princess phone, the phone had a locking compartment for your “secret girl stuff” and a diary section. What secrets a 12 year old girl has is beyond me.
Our first computer was pretty cool. It was a Commodore 64 and it had a cassette tape drive. My brother and I would spend hours writing “programs”. You know the ones that have your name run across five hundred times, and god help you if you forgot a colon or backslash!
Annie X-mas that monkey story was so sad, I admit though I had to laugh at the idea of the Mickey Monkey.
I love the Radio Shack 100-in-1 Electronic Project Kit. It was like an Erector set for electronics.
My best project I made with it (not a book-listed one; see, I learned): a cat alarm. If my sister’s cat came into my room after dark, his tail would trip an alarm. Sometimes it’d be a police siren, other times a bird chirping. No matter the case, it freaked him out good! :D:D
My cousin had “Incredible Edibles,” anyone remember those?
My favorite was a set of plastic pentominoes. To this day I still remember which piece was which color.
I remember Klik-Klaks! They were exactly like you described, but there was one other possible outcome (and the stated reason they were taken off the market): The string could (and often did) snap, sending the two hard plastic balls flying.
I miss toys like that
Fenris
Let’s see… when I was REALLY little, it was my pigs toy, which was the three little pigs, swen together at the arms, and each made a different noise.
Then I got really into tinker toys, which later evolved into legos.
I also really enjoyed my barbie dolls. That was because (now, don’t get scared…) I found that if you pulled their heads off and then stuck them back on kinda losly, a good foot stomp to the chest would send blond curls and plastic smiles flying across the room… My friends and I used to have contests as to how far we could get those little things to shoot…
But mostly, I was a reader. I have two books that I distictly remember. One was called “Princess” and it was about a cat. The other one was this four hundred page Micky Mouse book, but the title suddenly eludes me… Maybe “distictly” wasn’t the right word…
A simple penknife.
I would play with that thing for hours.
Whittled, played Mumbledey Peg.
Drew treasure maps in the dirt.
Oiled it and honed it for hours at a time.
Me too! Me too! I had Alfalfa’s farm and the Huckle Family House. They were AWESOME! I used them so much that the edges of the house-pieces got frayed and wouldn’t go into the green grid-base anymore. You’d have to slide it in from the side instead.
My dog ate my Huckle and my mom had an AWFUL time trying to replace it. I don’t know if they didn’t sell seperate pieces or if they just didn’t make it anymore. Anyway, she did end up getting a replacement Huckle but he only came in a set of the whole Huckle Cat family, so then I had two Mr. & Mrs. Huckles.
Another favorite toy: the Millenium Falcon and all my Star Wars action figures.
Best toy ever: A handmade dollhouse from my grandfather, complete with electric lights in every room. I didn’t even know I wanted a dollhouse until I got it on Christmas! I still have it, in perfect condition.
I can’t believe in this whole thread there has only been two cursory mentions of Legos. I had a friggin’ sea of Lego blocks. I love them to this day, although my Lego’ing is mostly limitied to programs such as LCAD and MLCAD (which are pretty cool, I must say).
Other than that I can remember this really cool Evel Knevel bike I had. It came with a detachable/posable Evel doll. You’d put the bike on this wind-up platform thingie, crank it 'til your little arm went numb, and let it loose. It went like a raped ape, careening and jumping all over the place. It was tres fun.
P.S. - Johnny L.A. thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had one of those Verti-Birds - the one on the ship. I remember having a blast with that too. I would never had remembered it, though, if you hadn’t provided that link.
Jack Batty, I haven’t gone out looking for a Vertibird (although I did buy one about 3 years ago. I think I gave it away in a fit of housecleaning.), but the link in my fist message indicates they might be available at K-B Toys or even Target.
Incredible Edibles! Oh my God! I loved those things. I can still remember how they smelled. I had the Creepy Crawlers also. There was nothing better than sitting in the house on a snowy day and creating those things.
LEGO
I used to make Incredible Edibles too. Very fun to eat the little “bugs”. There was also a Creepy Crawlers “army man” set that came with little wires that you could put in as armatures.
BTW: I bought some Creepy Crawlers moulds a few years ago. Of course the real Thingmaker (the one with the heating element) is not available. So I just pop them into the oven with the heat on low.
>>>>I had a styrofoam delta-wing glider that had a Freon motor. Stick a tube up the nozzle, pressurize the cylinder with Freon, and you had a jet propelled glider! Don’t let the Freon hit your thumb when it comes out! These are long gone. Bloody EPA.<<<<< Posted by Johnny LA
Oh man, I had that…I STILL have frostbite scars on my thumb and pointer fingers from when the jet launched.I lost the tube that inserted into the engine after playing with it,in the snow, for two hours and 3 cans of the propellant.There must be a HUGE hole in the ozone layer over Northwest NJ.
I had Radio Shacks aviation lab kit.It had a hot air baloon,a helium balloon…a rocket and a balsa glider kit.I had alot of fun with that.
OOOOOHHHH! You guys just reminded me of more:
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Water rockets. Blast off in a spray of water and compressed air, and run and circle under it and try to catch it on its wavy way down.
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We had a weird toy featuring a helicopter on an overhanging arm, and you tried to get a “bomb” or something (maybe a rescue parachute?) into these holes. I think something really fell, but it’s possible that it was just electronic scoring. Anyone remember that? I’m sorry, I have no idea of the name.
Yup Dave…We had that.I think it was called 'Chutes away!.You had to drop rescue parachutes down to shipwreck survivors and the like.
I could get all the little chutes in the holes except the one Waaaaaay on the inside.