My all-time favorite was the Whoosh! compressed-air powered jet/glider. From the Sears catalog, it was a little to fragile and a little too prone to ending up on somebody’s roof. But what a blast it was to launch it skyward and chase it down as it glided off to who knew where.
James Bond 007 Aston-Martin by Gilbert
I had two of these, both brought back from England, the second one at my special request to replace the demolished first one which was played with into oblivion. Now I have slightly less than one that is totally thrashed… and I would never replace it.
The Outer Space Men by Colorforms.I had a couple of these hard-to-find – and now insanely expensive - figures. Now I have one that is very worn and frayed.
Barugon battery-operated monsterOne of the coolest presents ever (thanks, mom!) NOTE: The vid shows the Godzilla model. The Barugon one looked similar and had the same basic action, in addition to which, it had smoke coming out of its mouth.
Zeroids by IdealI had two of these, Zerak and Zobor, both now long gone. Many years later, a friend gave me his Zobor, which I still have.
After years of begging, my siblings and I convinced the parents to take us to Disneyland. We lived in Las Vegas, so it wasn’t a huge drain on the family budget. I was eight years old at the time.
So, we all took off in the morning darkness. dad, mom and three kids. I remember dad was driving, when the police officer came to the car window. Don’t understand what happened, but we did a U turn, went back to the house and dropped dad off. He was probably drunk, and the officer told him to get home. This was in the 50’s, and these things happened.
Don’t know why I am telling you this, but you need to know we were a poor family. Father was’t working and had time to drink. Mom was a school teacher trying to support a family, including my brother in medical school.
We finally reached Disneyland, early in the morning. We got a package of tickets. It had a few for the big rides, more for the medium rides, and some for the kids (boring). We had a great time. And then I spotted the toy car.
It was a shiny, red and black convertible. You would wind it up, which powered its’ four speed manual transmission. And the steering wheel turned the front wheels! Throughout the day, I would remind mom about the car. I imagine it was expensive. Everything sold in the park was expensive.
Good news, I came home with the car! Loved that car. Although it was difficult to shift gears on the fly. Do to its’ small size. And when I finished playing with it (never off-road), I always returned it to the box it came in. It was a beauty!
When I came home from college, I could not find it. Mom said I wasn’t using it, so she gave it away. Very tragic. Else I would have it today.
Neat! That’s a pretty clever mechanism it uses for the aileron/elevator control.
I still have mine, but almost completely disassembled in a box (along with a ton of other pieces). Maybe I should put it back together…
Me and my sibs played every board and card game there was. Funny, my kids weren’t into board games. We had a few Scrabble tournaments. But mostly they played video games. Sad, really.
i had one of those basketball games i had a cheap battery operated train set that came with a small track that you put on a plastic mat for scenery and came with 50 army men …i had fun replaying my version of a ww2 train battle
was even more fun when i bought a box of cowboys and indians …
i had the usual 80s toys gi joe starwars transformers… but i miss my colecovision and sega master system the most…
I’d spend hours playing with Lego sets and never build what I was supposed to
oh and even tho I was wishing they had star wars toys 30 years ago now that they do
I think making my own ships using various space sets was more fun …
Actually, i think sometimes lego sets are just higher quality models than toys. I mean would you build the 4500 piece super star destroyer and then give it to your kid at 150 a pop?
Tinker Toys. I’d sit for hours and make stuff with them. Also Lincoln Logs.
We had this one thing. It was the size of, and looked like, a 12 inch portable television set. But it had a record player on the top. There was a slot on the side to put these film/slide strips which were about a foot long. They would show up on the screen which inside was really just a simple projector with a light bulb and a mirror. The record and film strips would play in tandem. Real modern stuff for the 60’s.
I remember one of them was The Wizard of Oz. It told/showed the entire story from Dorothy in Kansas, the tornado to OZ, walking the yellow brick road and meeting all the characters, killing the witch and getting sent back to Auntie Em in Kansas. All in 2 minutes and 33 seconds (my Dad timed it once).
I guess it was called the “Show 'n Tell”
Oops. My memory must be failing me. It was THREE minutes and change, not 2.
I liked Legos - not “kit” Legos for making a specific thing, but the older general purpose ones. I built Lego “machines” complete with complicated internal structures representing things like power & computer cores, energy conduits, etc; I still have my childhood blueprint for a Lego “robot” somewhere.
I had a REMCO Electronic Sound FX Machine, which was a lot of fun (and probably pretty irritating to my parents, now that I think about it).
I remember really wanting the vibrating football game, where you assembled your team then turned on the vibrations to make your players move. It looked so cool on tv. Then a friend got one and I realized it sucked.
I had a kinda cool spy briefcase (Bond? UNCLE?) that had a real camera hidden in the briefcase. You could take pictures without people realizing. After using up a roll of film, it was off to the drugstore and a week wait. The pictures were all blurry misrepresentations of what you thought the lens was aimed at; mom’s elbow, a friend’s neck, etc.
There are two that I remember
2XL, the question and answer robot that also doubled as an 8 track player when I stole my brother’s copy of Boston
Vectrex, the failed video game platform that had an integrated black and white monitor.
You pulled a zip cord though the plastic car (rather like starting a lawnmower), and it spun a single outsize wheel in the centre of the car (usually cunningly(!) hidden in the bodywork).
They could get a lot of speed, and so were great for jumping down stairs, or racing down the road (where they usually disappeared down a stormwater drain, necessitating getting the pick to pull up the drain cover).
One year my brother and I made a deal with our parents to combine our collective Christmas and birthday gifts for the year so we could get Omega Supreme. It looks super cheesy now, especially next to the newer version, but at the time, it was the shit.
And apparently if I still had the box (and all of the parts, which of course I don’t), it’d be worth about $2000. Oh, well. I’m sure my brother and I got at least that much enjoyment out of it, so, even trade I’d say.
I loved those old lego pirate ships (late 80s, early 90s, by my memory) with the cannons that actually could fire and send a lego “cannonball” across the room. My friend and I would set up elaborate fleet battles across the living room floor that could take hours, complete with rules like every time a “cannonball” struck a ship, we shook the ship violently 3 times to simulate damage.
We were so disappointed when they changed those cannons so they couldn’t fire any more.
We had the vibrating football game and played it a lot. It was a bit chaotic but that was half the fun. Never did have much use for the passer, though.
Erector sets!
And one of my slightly older uncle’s toys, so probably from the late 1940s. It was a bazooka type gun that fired ping pong balls when you pulled the handles together. Similar to this one:
I never had a full sized one, but Burger Chef gave away some miniature ones as a promotion. These had an aluminum wheel which caused the car to lack traction, so I stretched a rubber band around it for a tire. It doubled its performance!
A few of my favorite toys:
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All of my action figures. Mostly Star Wars but also GI Joe and Masters of the Universe.
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I had an awesome Rodan toy. It was in the same product line as the Godzilla toy (which I also had) that was much more common. The detail on it was great. It’s jaws opened and closed. The wings flapped and the claws could pick things up. I found it last year when packing up my attic and the wings had melted in the heat and broke. Poor Rodan.
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I didn’t have many Legos but I played with Fiddle Sticks. It was a building toy with plastic hollow tubes of different lengths and colors and joints. I remember one of the suggested projects was a spaceship that was like three feet long with wings. My friend and I spent an afternoon building it and were so proud when we fished.
Erector Set
Handy Andy Tool Box
Spirograph
Mattel Snake & Mongoose Hot Wheels Set
Major Matt Mason