Best Toys You Owned As a Kid
Decatur Metro | April 23, 2012
I won’t even pretend there’s a Decatur connection! Do all parents think their toys were better?
Photo courtesy of Ebay
I won’t even pretend there’s a Decatur connection! Do all parents think their toys were better?
Photo courtesy of Ebay
Latest from Decaturish
At Home in Decatur
At Home in Decatur
lyn menne
TomL
brianc
smith
GreenTea
Michael
spreak
spreak
DEM
Monty
Bullseye
Jeff of maps and bik…
Isa
GI Joe would have been nice. The real ones, not the small ones from the 80s. Just a time machine to a better place and time.
Oh, I KNOW my early 70’s Easy-Bake oven (which cooked with a light bulb & had real metal cake pans) is far superior to the ones out today…and was there ever a toy that was as much fun as a Wheel-O, or the splinteringly dangerous but oh-so-cool Clackers? I think not. *sigh* Ah, good times.
LOVED our clackers! And can still remember what it felt like to miscalculate and clack myself — ooowww!
Nice. Speaking of metal, did you know that it’s impossible to buy a Tonka truck that’s made of metal anymore? It’s blasphemy I tell you!
OK, my wife tells me that’s not completely true. There is a dump truck that’s still all metal. Probably just a bone to throw to us “blasphemy!” yelling nut jobs.
LOL! A dearth of metal toy trucks is worthy of yelling “blasphemy!” about…
I have my old all-metal Tonka truck from the 70’s right here. Definitely incurred some injuries back in the day! (I don’t think it was intended to be used as a skate board.)
Sizzlers!l
I had that exact Fisher Price airport when I was a kid, and I loved it! Had the dollhouse too.
It’s a toss-up which toy was my favorite…either my Sunshine Family camper, which had a fold down table and was painted in gold, pink, and orange swirls OR my Weeble Wobble treehouse with the door in the tree and the elevator that you used a winch to pull up.
I had the airport too! I LOVED that airport! I also had the Sunshine Family camper (that had completely escaped my memory until you said that) and the Weeble Wobble treehouse.
Stretch Armstrong. Especially when your brother broke it.
I still have a Fisher Price school bus with all the people. My kids are constantly trying to lose all the people. So far I still have them all.
I had everything in that picture with the exception of that triangular-shaped car (boat?) in the middle and LOVED them too. Only the helicopter has survived and my son plays with it at my Mom’s house. My favorite toys were from the Star Wars collection. I had all the people, the Death Star, Millennium Falcon, etc. A lot of those things have lived in my Mom’s attic for years and now my son likes playing with them. He also has my original Tonka dumptruck.
I babysat for a kid who had the Death Star and Millenium Falcon. He was, by far, the most popular kid on the block. And he was really kind of obnoxious, but he definitely had the coolest toys.
Sticks and rocks. Then, when I got into double-digits, fire.
So many….
1) Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots
2) Monopoly
3) Coleco Head to Head Football & basketball
4) A NYC-certified blue handball
Evel Kneivel motorcycles with that launcher stand — you pulled the zip-cord through to make them go.
Six Million Dollar Man and that awesome capsule with the small black tubes you connected up.
Evel was going to be my post too, but with the stand with that had a turning handle, can still remember that sound. Loved my “Big Wheel” too.
I was at my grandmother’s house a couple of weeks ago, and my 2 yr. old nephew was playing with the Evel motorcycle I played with as a kid. The launch stand with the turning wheel is long gone, but the motorcycle still works great. Just wind the wheels up by pulling back and let it go. I couldn’t believe she still had it.
Now that’s a little unfair, dontcha think? You’re judging modern toys by comparing them to the great Fisher Price airport! One of the greatest toys to ever come off the line!! How could anything compare to that?
You know that little FP dude with the angry face and the hat with the turned up brim? I’ve got mine from childhood sitting on my desk at work.
Also: one of the things that influenced my urbanist beliefs as a kid was the great Fisher Price village:
http://tinyurl.com/7hckoph
A walkable neighborhood if ever there was one!
We’ve got a preschool kid and I’m always thinking of those old toys I loved when I buy him his stuff. And really, the things that Playmobil and Imaginext make these days are pretty similar in quality to the classics.
Ha ha! That village is the best! And the giant pieces mail? Love it.
I have noticed that Playmobil as stayed pretty true to form. Thank goodness for those German toy-makers.
The REAL Mr. Potato toy, not the ersatz plastic version they sell now. You stuck the parts into a real potato. It was great. I guess the parts were too sharp so they had to go to the plastic version but it’s not the same.
Whoops, I meant Mr. Potato Head.
AHID, you are closer to my age than I thought!
I loved my Mr. Potato Salad.
What toys? In my day, we had to make do with sticks and dirt!
Seriously…
my bicycle (small town–once you were out of training wheels, there were practically no realistic boundaries)
Tammy — a fashion doll with pre-pubescent proportions (my mother hated Barbie and wouldn’t allow her in the house); I still have her, along with the many, many outfits my mother sewed and knitted for her. And Misty, who came with her own cardboard beauty salon and three different magic markers you could use to “dye” her hair
Fun Flowers — like Creepy Crawlers except flowers instead of bugs.
Super Spirograph (still have it, actually, rescued when the parents evacuated the empty nest).
Crazy Clock Game (variation on the Mouse Trap Game), have searched eBay, would love to find one
Monopoly, Scrabble, regular playing cards
And MOST OF ALL, anything that rightfully belonged to my teenaged sisters, especially if it was concealed in one of their pocketbooks or in the back of a drawer
Agree with your mother on Barbie. Only now the Barbie-loving age has moved way down to the 2-5 year old set so I think the doll is more about memories of nursing than a preparation for adolescence (which was ridiculous given that 1950s stereotyped female body). By first grade, the girls have moved on to the lucrative American Girl phase…….
+1 on Creepy Crawlers. Let’s all heat up metal trays and pour Plasti-Goop into them and then let it harden into spiders and snakes. I also loved my Big Lou robot (which I just saw on American Pickers) and my Tiger Joe tank.
Which reminds me of Shrinky Dinks! Any “toy” that involves the oven HAS to be good.
we got our kids shrinky dinks for christmas a couple of years ago…they are still so much fun!
Dang skippy– now I want to go out & get myself a set to play with!!!
+1!!
Scrabble and playing cards: true classics. I love it that my son is now better than me at Scrabble (and I’m pretty good for an amateur who has all the 2-letter words but not the 3-letter words memorized). I can now play for real. And girls still love to play cards sitting on their towels at the beach, pool, or lake.
And PlayDoh. Does it still smell (and taste!) the same?
Yes! One of the few classics that has not really changed except that they have added colors and probably the dyes are less toxic. Still smooshes the same, dries out the same, and makes a mess the same! The spagetti grinder accessory was always my favorite……………..
Spaldeen or Pennsy Pinkie? Tough choice.
Silly Putty FTW!
Silly Putty–a classic that generation after generation of parents wishes would go away. Silly putty in girls’ hair is not a happy event.
Why this one of course!
http://www.timemachinetoys.com/toypics3/CapeCanaveral.JPG
LEGO bricks. I asked for them every birthday and Christmas for years. I just handed down my suitcase full to my two kids and now I get to play with them again whenever I want to.
+1, I wish my folks had kept my legos. Of course, we didn’t have the star wars kits.
My Annie Oakley cap gun and holster set, the 20-inch Schwinn I got for my 5th birthday, Patty Play Pal, and my first pair of “safety” scissors which my mom let me keep despite my tendency to use them on inappropriate items. Like the couch, my Sunday dress. My hair.
Patty Play Pal–the doll that was taller than me! I believe I cut her hair too.
Yes! The same Christmas I got a Patty Play Pal I also got a puppy. I was stunned.
I enjoyed Jarts. And I never got seriously injured by them either.
I still have the houseboat version of the airport pictured above. Nostalgia.
and my Mary Poppins doll (still have her, too)
“Close your mouth, please, Michael. We are not a codfish.”
Back in the old old days, we had a record with the soundtrack from Pollyanna that my sister and I completely memorized. Then we’d say all the lines when it would come around in the schedule on the Wonderful World of Disney. It frightens me that I can still quote long bits of dialogue fifty years later.
My older sister can still spout the lyrics of “Willie the Whistling Giraffe.”
LOL–Nancy, this is funny because it made me think of a recent thing that happened to me. We rented the original Parent Trap with Hayley Mills and I watched it with my kids. I was scaring myself because even though I probably hadn’t seen it in 25 years, I knew every word of every scene.
The Parent Trap! Yes! We have both the original and the “new” versions and enjoy both of them. Each is dated in revealing ways but the basic concept is classic. Isn’t it about time for another version with current stereotypes? Let’s see, the girl with short hair goes to Clairemont and the one with long hair goes to Oakhurst. They end up in the same classroom at FAVE and hate each other at first–one is from a McMansion in the Great Lakes and likes lattes and downloading books on her Kindle; the other is from a McCraftsman Cottage in Oakhurst and likes organic chai and raising free range chickens. But when they end up in detention together after both refusing to sing the IB song, they glance at the photos on each other’s iPad and discover that they share the same parents, who separated when they were still infants because they could not agree on which part of Decatur to live in……………. I don’t want to give away the ending but they all four end up in a large condo at the Artisan despite the fact that condos supposedly generate tax income for the City without affecting CSD enrollment.
I had one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kenner-No-8-Constructioneer-Building-Set-1960-Original-Box-/220992853156?_trksid=p3284.m263&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%26itu%3DMRU-220%252BUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D21%26pmod%3D200747722916%26ps%3D54 (hope the link works)
The Kenner Girder & Panel and Bridge & Roadway Building Set! I had the 1957-58 version shown here. http://www.girderpanel.com/ListOfAllSets.htm#1957-1958 This thing was awesome! You could build drawbridges and office buildings and freeway ramps and everything! It was scaled to work with HO trains and Matchbox cars, so you could build a railroad depot with the train tracks running right through it. Then you could disassemble the whole thing and build something else. WAY better than an Erector Set or Tinkertoys.
The best part was you could get expansion packages with more parts for as little as 25 to 50 cents. You’d send away for the packages and eagerly await the day when it came in the mail.
Great thread! Haven’t thought about that building set in nearly fifty years!
What fun!
This post is giving me a major bout of Fisher Price nostalgia. In addition to the airport and village, I had (and loved) the Fisher Price Movie Viewer:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1973-Fisher-Price-Movie-Viewer-with-Three-Movies-/120901125026?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2644c3a2
My favorite movie cassette for this was a scene from Mary Poppins where they magically “tidy up the nursery.”
I loved my Charlie’s Angel’s Hideaway with my Jill, Kelly and Sabrina action figures in capri bodysuits and scarves and boots. I actually still have them all, except the house. Oh, and I think the Jill was actually Kris but I spent 1977 in denial that Kris existed so she was always Jill to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgCIte4_aWs
It was a toss up for us kids on which was the best Fisher-price item: the airport, farm, or parking garage. We loved them all …
Man…all of you guys’ posts on these wonderful toys is making me want to leave work & spend the afternoon in a toy store!
Dare I admit this? I loved my Barbie. I also loved my EZ Bake oven.
I had these awesome Smurf rollerskates. They went on over your shoes. I also loved my Barbie townhouse with elevator. That being said, I really hope that I can skip any Barbie or princess phase with my daughter.
I can’t believe no one has said Weebles and Light Bright! My weebles and fisher price peoples all played interchangeably. One of them had a pop up camper that I thought was the coolest. I also loved light bright -tiny sharp plastic things everywhere! I moved on to shrinky-dinks and the “stained glass” w/ the little plastic pebbles that melted in provided metal cutouts. More arts and craft love extended to all spirograph stuff (STG, I’m jealous of your deluxe set) and fashion plates, which were a series of mix and match outfits on one side, and textures on the other side- the latter so much fun I hunted down the current version to give my niece for the holidays.
Light Bright, definitely. Also paper dolls — couldn’t wait for my mother’s McCall’s magazine to arrive every month, to get the latest Betsy McCall outfit.
Also, Slinky kept its fascination for quite a long time, I think partly because of the distinctive sound it made.
Batons (one of the big sisters was a majorette). Paint-by-numbers. Square, toothed loom for making potholders out of those cotton loops.
Soaky.
LOVED my Lite-Brite! Loved my batons, too (thanks for the memory-jogger, STG)…ah, I just want to go play, play, play…wouldn’t it be cool to be able to step through a door into the past, just for an afternoon, to play with all the awesome toys we took for granted back in the day?
Yep. I think part of what I really long for (besides some really good potholders) is how the world made sense back then. Not because it was 19nixety-whatever, but because I was 9. 4th graders have it all, but never know it at the time!
Lots of good memories here. I liked a weird game called “Gnip Gnop” (Ping Pong backwards, and pronounce all the letters. Here’s an old commercial for it:
Speak N Spell, Clue, Big Wheel and my beloved Lincoln Logs. My cousins helped me build the Mack Daddy of condos for my hamsters with my Lincoln Logs. They had bridges to get from one unit to another.
Lincoln Logs were awesome and they always remind me of my Construx!
I would still go crazy if I could have all this…
http://www.timewarptoys.com/playcol6.jpg