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Toys of Christmas Past
“No one ever forgets a toy that made him or her supremely happy as a child, even if that toy is replaced by one like it that is much nicer.” — Stephen King
“‘Tis the season,” so they say, so now I offer up something light, silly, and hopefully a little fun. Because I am Mr. Fun! All my friends say so, right? Right? (Nobody here except us crickets, man.) Ahem. Well, be that as it may, I got caught up in a conversation the other day about the toys we had as kids. Sure, it’s not an uncommon conversation, but whenever they start, it quickly evokes the same feelings of competitive envy I had when I was nine, when everyone would go back to school and compare notes on who got what for Christmas.
So here’s what I propose, if you’re game: go hit your search engine of choice, and load up the comments with pictures and remembrances of your favorite toys from your childhood (ages 1 to 92). If the post fizzles out early, well then, you’re all humbugs.
Here’s just handful of a few of mine, to get things started. Wanna play? Post as many as you’d like, after all, he who dies with the most toys, wins.
I HAD one of those! It was the best. One of the cars was a Porsche — I forget the name but it was the limited, 50 car production racer. Headlights actually worked. That was really nice, but it wasn’t the very best.
The best ever was a James Bond 007 briefcase, with the pistol that combines into a sniper rifle, a throwing knife (of flexible plastic) hidden along the side. and a transistor radio that flipped open into a Mac 10-like submachine gun. that was a beaut.
Added: I couldn’t capture a picture of it on ebay, but it’s selling for a nickel less than $3,000. I guess that’s about how much fun I got out of it.
GT Snow Racer. There is no competition. Best Christmas gift ever.
I had both the Smokey And The Bandit set and the The Fall Guy set.
Burt was still in his “not much of a household name” stage doing Western movies as a cowboy when I was playing with these toys. It was ten years later after he blew the first fortune that he stared in those schlockier movies. Which happen to include his biggest hit with the Bandit
As a high school teacher I remember the second to last time I asked a student what she got for Christmas – she hoisted up her shirt to show me her new navel piercing.
The very last time was a couple of years later when a senior girl turned around and pulled up the back of her top to proudly show me her new tramp stamp. This girl used to house sit for us in the summers and was the last person I expected it from. She’s now a very successful graphic designer and mother of two but I’m sure at the time that my jaw visibly dropped.
My brother and I got this one:
The spinning top thing, right? Last one still spinning wins?
We and our neighbors had these, the smashers and the others.
Battling Tops!
This bad boy:
Which was not attached to any TV or movie marketing campaign of which I am or ever was aware.
Unlike this one:
I seem to remember that, too. Little red LED lights on the front, right, with the push button there on the backside of the … bridge or whatever you want to call it?
We had that as well! Hours of fun!
Looks like a cross between Space 1999 and Star Wars.
A few more items:
It appears to have been made to cash in on the 70s SF toy marketing craze for sure. It was a great toy for a 10-year-old SF-obsessed boy.
Any one have one of these gems?
Anyone else have something like this? A punching clown – sort of a large, inflatable Weeble Wobble.
I think my brother and I had exactly this when we were very young. It would have been the early 70s- he was born in 71, I in 68.
Just remember to aim for the Jugular
We had a Santa like that, so we only punched him a few weeks per year.
OK, I had the Coleco football and a ton of Matchbox cars but I never did get a Big Wheel. Instead I had one of these . . .
Come to think of it, I did enjoy the Thunderbirds rockets.
Actually, I never got a Big Wheel either. If there was ever an example of that one gift I always wanted as a youngster but never got, the Big Wheel tops the list. I still tease my mother over that. Her excuse was that apartment-living in Pasadena made it an impractical gift. She has a point, I suppose.
But I spent so much time on my friend’s Big Wheel, it was practically mine. So I kinda claimed it.
I have a paper model of XL5. If anyone wants the pdf, PM me.
I remember getting this, a snow speeder, and an AT-ST walker all one year, plus bunch of figures. Only problem was that my dad had a tooth abscess, and so we all had to be very very very quiet. All day. With new, battery-powered toys. Very strange Christmas in that regard. I got many many years out of that thing though, to the point where nearly every detachable piece (where by design or by accident) had detached and gone missing. Was useful on raids against my sister’s Barbie house.
Let’s see. I had an X-Wing and the snow speeder, along with assorted action figures. One summer, the X-wing took flight and landed with a mighty splash in the neighbor’s kiddie pool, otherwise known as Dagobah. Wasn’t quite right ever again.
Some years ago, I made the mistake of ordering Lincoln Logs for my firstborn without reading the fine print. They were plastic. That said, I’m not sure the set I owned as a kid had any green roof panels that were intact by the time I outgrew it. They all snapped, probably as the result of a Lego meteor attack.
Those made great catapults.
My favorite Xmas toy ever: