I’m another one who spent countless hours with Lego. I never had any of the fancy Technic car chasses, but I did make a Technic car of my own (much simpler) design, with the front and rear wheels synchronized (with appropriate gearing, since they were different diameters), and a pair of ratchets that could be engaged or disengaged to allow for “drive”, “park”, “reverse”, and “neutral”. Though most of my builds were spaceships (the Spaceship Guy in the Lego Movies was a real nostalgia kick for me).
Erector Set was another big one, though I mostly used if for things intended to be functional, rather than just free play.
And I also had a couple of those Radio Shack electronics kits with the spring-loaded connectors-- I think the 160 in 1 kit and the 200 in 1 kit. Man, if only I still remembered more than a fraction of what I taught myself using those kits. I’m still hoping to find a kid nowadays who would appreciate them, to give them away to.
I got this one toy, which I adored, then it broke two weeks after Christmas and I never saw it again… except at a friends house years later… and cannot find it on Google.
It was an airplane… simulation? You had to lay down (or place on a table in front of you) and biplanes would appear, whereupon you had to shoot them. The thing itself was a singular piece, the gun on one end, the simulator part at the other. It was kinda close to a video game except it wasn’t.
Anyway, I loved that thing and was very upset when it broke… and now I can’t even barely remember it.
My mom used to buy me these cool science type toy model sets in the 60s. One was a working Bell Telephone (v1.0) that you put together with plastic and wires and stuff. Yes, it worked. Then there was the little Gutenberg press that you assembled, and you could set some type for it, and it came with a composed page of a Gutenberg Bible to print. It was very cool. But the best one. Well I had been building plastic monsters and horror film characters - all the good ones. My mom found this replica Guillotine put-together model that was cool and really worked. But it’s greatness came from the fact that it came with a little plastic patrician with a spring-loaded head that you could strap on the table, lock him with the headstock, and lop his little head off. But that’s not the best thing. That was when my Mom saw this in a toy store and said, my son will LOVE this thing. Let’s see Amazon try to put that out today.
I had one of those, you pull the knob in the back and then let go and it fired like a slingshot. Those were the best. In retrospect, probably not safe firing a plastic BB-sized pellet at that force but man it was fun. I loved pirate Legos. Ooh, and tte little shiny gold coins you could put in a treasure chest, and the little shark with chomping jaws…
Strat-O-Matic was the same kind of thing. Closer to the APBA game in that it used dice instead of a spinner. I got my game, a 1977 version, at a yard sale in the mid 80s. Somehow D&D missed my little group of nerds, this was our replacement.
Speaking of technic Lego sets, I had (still have) the 952 tractor and the 915 bulldozer plus the motor and misc gears . I made the actual models once or twice, but I also combined them + lots of hand me down sets.
I came close to getting both big mobile cranes but never did.
I had a “Switch and Go” when I was a kid. Here is a you tube.
I didn’t have the “Battle Set”, I had a one with construction vehicles I think. There was another game but I have no idea what it was called. You had vehicles and a track but it only had curves and buildings. The vehicle would just roll across the floor between curves, so you had to get everything lined up precisely.
Spirograph never interested me until 1) I was told the numbers corresponded to number of teeth on wheels and gears. 2) I found a source for large flat smooth thick cardboard, and 3) I found out about Fisher Pens and their universal refills (Black, Blue, Red and Green too)! I would cover one side of a sheet of paper with calculations and the other with the drawing.
This nothing like what you describe but seems to be a similar game. It was called “SkyDuel”; you held it up to your eyes.
Looking at those reminded me of this electronic baseball game which was a big hit when I brought it to my church’s youth group retreat. That sound stayed in my head for hours after I got home.
I bought the game through one of those cereal box offers; this particular offer had been for a different hand-held baseball game but the company underestimated the number of orders they’d receive. To compensate for their error, they sent out games which were better than the original offer.
I had one of those. Chaotic is being generous. I could never get the passer/kicker to throw or kick the ball a distance shorter than 2-3 filed lengths. That made completing a pass impossible. You could kick a field goal with is, but the ball was so high it was very difficult to see if the kick was good.
I did however find a way to put the passer to good use. The rule was you could hold the passer and pull it back (as if the passer was dropping back to pass) then wait for your opportunity to pass. I’d just hold it there until all the defensive men had vibrated their way to the side lines then let it go to run. It was like an extreme quarterback draw. With the field essentially empty, the QB made a long gain, often a touchdown.
Of course that strategy once used was all too obvious for the other team to adopt.
I was having a hard time thinking of any really memorable toys from my childhood (though I can think of many from my son’s childhood!) but that reminds me of a compressed air and water rocket that I had. That was really cool, and was a great toy out at the cottage where there were lots of big empty fields.
You poured a measured amount of water into this transparent red plastic rocket, depending on how high/far you wanted it to fly. Then you attached it to an air pump, pumped it up, and pulled the trigger. That thing could soar to amazing heights!
These are long shots, curious if anyone remembers:
Big Bruiser. A large, toy tow truck that came with a pick-up you could tow. The pick-up had replaceable parts, such as a regular fender and a crinkled fender. link
Mastermind. Some sort of “computer” toy. My memory is foggy, but I think there were cards you entered into the computer, lights would flash, and you would receive some sort of response to your question (?). (could not find link)
Both of these are from the mid 60s.
Also, who else had a plastic car wash similar to this?
mmm
I had the talking GI Joe circa 1967. When the talking mechanism broke I would pretend the speaker holes in his chest is where he was shot in combat and survived!
Years later my younger brother had a Pulsar action figure. It was kind of weird. He would pit Joe against Pulsar.
**Plastic Army Men. ** Loved playing with them things. Blew the shit out of them with fire crackers! Would stage time travel battles between them and the plastic cowboys and indians set I had. Got a huge set for something like 2 bucks out of a comic book. Took 4 freaking months for delivery. Mail order shit took forever back then.
I had one of those; it looked like a Saturn V. I think the nose-cone would separate and a parachute was supposed to float it back to ground, but that never worked. Who cares? Trying to blast a landing jetliner was the real objective.
There were many variants on that general theme and from what I can find on Google, there still are. The one I’m thinking of was the first of its kind, and it was a very simple design that looked like a 1950s concept of a rocket ship. Later on they added things like you mention, and IIRC there was even a two-stage version. I can’t remember if I ever had any of those, probably not. I distinctly remember the simple red rocket, and it was great because it was very light and unencumbered with the fancier add-ons, and could really soar to fantastic heights!
I (or my mom) only ever sent off for three things in the mail. The first was a Batman rubber stamp kit. It was from the back of a cereal box. It was smaller than I thought and my dad had to get some ink for it since its ink pad was dried out. The next was Sea Monkeys! It seemed like they took forever to arrive, but they did sort of work. Reading the Johnson Smith catalog that came with it was worth the dollar!
The last thing was a camera I got from saving up Bazooka Bubble gum comics. A little known shortcut was to buy the nickel Bazookas. They had bigger comics that were worth ten comics each. The camera was so small it took twice the exposures on a regular roll of 120 film. I never used it.
Looking back at things, I wonder why my parents were always so keen to get rid of all of my cool toys once I quit using them regularly. I remember them asking if they could give away or throw out some of them, but most of the good ones just disappeared over the years. Oh, well.
It seems that everything mail order took forever to arrive back in the day. Even from the JcPenny catalog.
When I was in 3rd grade I sent in my Bazooka comics for a “space radio phone”. That was in the spring of that year. When they arrived I was already in the 4th grade, I kid you not.
And all they were was 2 metal discs and some string, like when you used tin cans to make a telephone. Don’t know what I actually expected to get for nothing, but still, I was so pissed! :mad:
Tonka Trucks! I had about 20 of them, the good ones made out of steel! I even had the firetruck that hooked up to the garden hose and squirted real water via a hydrant and cherry picker. They were awesome!
If we’re talking about disappointing mail-order toys, there was a Go-Bot (I couldn’t afford Transformers, except when I got lucky and found one at a garage sale) that was this scorpion monster thing, available only by special offer. The ads made it look huge! I was excited to get it, because I already had the big mobile base thing for the good guys, and was looking forward to having a similarly-sized evil one to match up against it. When it (eventually) came (I don’t remember how long it took, but of course it felt like forever), it turned out to just be the same size as any of the other Go-Bots. Though I did eventually get the evil base, too (at a garage sale).
