strangest, weirdist or just plain wrong toy from your youth

[dhermann1]

Bows and arrows!

You've seen them in old movies, and they were real. Back before plastic was in use, all they had were simple materials like wood and metal and rubber. They used to sell little sets with a nice feather Indian Headdress, and a little wooden bow, with a pretty strong little string, and wooden arrows with real feathers and rubber cups on the tips. That was supposed to make them safe. Hah! All you needed to do was take that little rubber tip off, or let it fell off of its own accord, and you had quite a nice little lethal weapon. The old saw "You'll put somebody's eye out!" was no exaggeration! Kids had full scale little wars with them!

 

[Benny Holiday]

Smurfs

When I was a kid, British Petroleum brought out a whole line of Smurf figurines, just like on the cartoon show, that you could buy at their service stations. Even back then, I knew there was something just wrong with there being like two hundred male smurfs and only one female . . .

 

[Mr. Lucky]

Who cracked their fingers with these?

 

[Viola]

You've seen them in old movies, and they were real. Back before plastic was in use, all they had were simple materials like wood and metal and rubber. They used to sell little sets with a nice feather Indian Headdress, and a little wooden bow, with a pretty strong little string, and wooden arrows with real feathers and rubber cups on the tips. That was supposed to make them safe. Hah! All you needed to do was take that little rubber tip off, or let it fell off of its own accord, and you had quite a nice little lethal weapon. The old saw "You'll put somebody's eye out!" was no exaggeration! Kids had full scale little wars with them!

Have you seen the Denis Leary routine about how he had to go to the hospital after his brother shot him in the head with one of those? lol

 

[Absinthe_1900]

The Aurora plastic model Guillotine, a plastic model that horrified parents back in the 60s.
Ah! the memories of watching the little plastic head drop in the basket
Link to a built up kit: http://home.comcast.net/~cinorjer/guill.htm

Aurora is back! : http://www.auroraplasticscorp.com/index.html

 

[Starius]

The Aurora plastic model Guillotine, a plastic model that horrified parents back in the 60s.
Ah! the memories of watching the little plastic head drop in the basket
Link to a built up kit: http://home.comcast.net/~cinorjer/guill.htm

Aurora is back! : http://www.auroraplasticscorp.com/index.html

Something tells me a lot of little boys would use that on their sister's Barbie dolls...

 

[Edward]

Something tells me a lot of little boys would use that on their sister's Barbie dolls...

Maybe Wednesday Addams had one too - remember her doll, Anne Boleyn?

I've read that if you stretched Stretch too far gelatinous goop would ooze from his innards. Anybody have any experience with this?

Alas true. I used to have a green, space alien monster type one of these, this would have been back around 1982. The packaging showed him wrestling a human version which may well have been Stretch, though at the time only the monster one was seen anywhere. (My cousin had an official Incredible Hulk that was the saem type of thing). I remember I called it "Monster Movie" after a slot on the BBC in the early evening on a weeknight when they used to show things like the original Mighty Joe Young, King Kong, etc. I loved that thing and i carried it a lot of places (even though it weighed a ton!) I was amazed by how dents popped right back out when you pressed a finger or a coin into it. One afternoon, I tried the sharp end of a golf tee expecting it just to pop back out.... alas no! The inside was a thick, clear goop. I was always almost animist about my toys as a child - to me they had little personalities, and I felt I'd "killed" one if i broke it. I was ever so upset. My big regret with that monster is that I didn't at least keep its head (a separate, solid plastic part from the vinyl and goop body). No way of repairing it, though, so i think it just went straight in the bin.

When I was a kid that actually had play cigarettes now I am not talking candy cigarettes or bubble gum cigars, I mean real paper wrapped cigarettes when you puffed on them they had "smoke" come out the lit end.

Those are still around - I use them for costume purposes with fair regularity (that's what's in my cigarette holder in my avatar), and they're the next best thing to a real one for visual effect. They sell them in joke shops here, though of course they're always labelled "adult novelty item" rather than sold to children.


As to guns.... well, when I was a very young child in the early-mid 70s, my parents decided that I was gonig to be brought up without guns. Eventually, as is the way of things, someone else bought me a toy gun as a birthday present or some such, though before that I had long since been fashioning them out of card, lego.... you name it. From then on, very many of my toys were either guns or at least gun-based (Action Man, toy soldiers, etc). Ultimately it did me no harm - i have no desire to own a gun, legally or otherwise, let alone actually use one, so it's not like the toys made me a gun fan or anything, presumably what my mother feared. I do remember though how often she lamented that all toys for boys in those days involved guns, war or killing in some level, pretty much. I see that as a wider social issue, myself than just toys - back to gender role stereotypes and all that. I'll never forget the year my mother, in her capacity as a Sunday School teacher, decided at the end of the year prize day they'd give out Biblical action figures instead of books to some of the kids who weren't really readers, the theory being they'd be more likely to absorb something of the message that way. the figures were no sooner out of the packaging, than Goliath was squaring off against Moses in a wrestling match. Being a giant, the big Philistine had the advantage - at least until Jesus escaped his blister pack and kicked the giant's ass. lol

The toys that in recent years have seemed the weirdest to me: baby dolls for little girls. I happened to surf kids' TV on Saturday morning there, and there was an advertisement fror something along the lines of the latest version of the baby doll mentioned above. There's something really rather disturbing about seeing what seemed to be a six or seven year old girl cradling this baby creature and cooing "She knows her mummy!" Sure, there's the old chestnut about early imposition and enforcement of gender role stereotypes of woman as brood-mares. Beyond that, though, while we all throw up our hands in horror at teenage pregnancy rates, I can't help but wonder if there isn't some link there to the way little girls are socially pushed towards playing with babies and simulating the parental role from such an early stage.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Oh, boy, dolls again.

I have a friend who had a doll thats head fell off. She kept it as is and called it "Chuckie." It did look like the doll in that horror flick. She still had it as an adult, kept it in a drawer at work, pulled it out to display when she was mad at something or someone. Sort of like a voodoo dolly.

I also know of a mother who tried to keep guns away from her little boys, in an attempt to socialize them to be pacifists (I think much of this started during or shortly after the Vietnam conflict). She reported that, in spite of her best efforts, her sons would chase each other around the house brandishing carrots and hollering "bang, bang."

I think, in all cultures, there have been baby dolls for little girls -- the Inuit had then fashioned out of bone and dressed in little furs, Native Americans made them for children. I think lots of girls have a nurturing instinct in them and the dolls reinforce that. The problem that arises is not all little girls feel that way and could benefit from other instructive toys, too. I hated dolls but loved my little cowboy and horse figurines more than any other toys. The cowboy toys went to my brother, I got the dolls. They had short doll lives.

karol

 

[Big Man]

... the toy I wanted and never got was a shoulder holster snub nose 38 toy I don't remember if it was an FBI rig or labeled as "untouchables" but I sure wanted it.

I had one of those, but if I recall correctly it was marketed from the TV show "Highway Patrol" (one of my favorite shows). It had brass shell casings that were spring loaded. On the casings you put a grey plastic bullet. Then a "greenie stick-um cap" was added to the shell to make it complete.

 

[staggerwing]

The Aurora plastic model Guillotine, a plastic model that horrified parents back in the 60s.
Ah! the memories of watching the little plastic head drop in the basket
Link to a built up kit: http://home.comcast.net/~cinorjer/guill.htm

Aurora is back! : http://www.auroraplasticscorp.com/index.html

I had one of these! great fun but no, it wouldn't work on Barbie dolls, only the intended victim who's head was spring-loaded to pop off when hit by the dull plastic blade. In junior high we did build a working Barbie-doll sized gallows for a school project though. Imagine that today!

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Some years back I met the model designer for Aurora, at an old kit collectors gathering, He showed photos of the not produced prototype Gallows, and Electric Chair, that would have followed the Chamber of Horrors Guillotine.

It seems that parental reaction to the Guillotine was somewhat negative, and threatened Aurora's partnership with Parents Magazine.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Fascists!
I'm waiting to hear from a Lounger who had the I Vant To Bite Your Finger game in the 80s.

 

[Edward]

I'd totally forgotten that game! I didn't own I Vant... , but I do recall someone bringing it in to play at school on the last day of term in primary four - I'd have been eight years old at the time, it must have been either late 1982, or mid 1983 (i.e. last day before Christmas or Summer break). I seem to recall we didn't bother playing the game, just did the bitey bit... I never could figure out in my memory though how it worked. Am I misremembering, or was it the case that it was supposed to bite only some times, or was it just every time it got a finger in there? Can't recall how it would have been possible for it to not leave a mark?

 

[BegintheBeguine]

It bit only sometimes. (Oh, how long I've waited to type that sentence!) It had a spring that didn't always engage, was the trick.
There must have been many games that we didn't play according to the rules, only worked the fun parts, like Alarm Clock and Mouse Trap.

 

[Twitch]

Growing up in the 50 s I had toy cars and airplanes mostly and of course guns. I suppose the "most dangerous" one was a Mattel gun that had a plastic bullet that you popped into a spring-loaded cartridge and loaded into the cylinder like the real thing. Sure today some would cringe because the pistols actually fired projectiles, oh my gosh!

I'd like to REALLY know how many kids were injured by them in any fashion. Today Mattel is probaby hurting more kids with Chinese lead poisonlol

 

[52Styleline]

The one that comes to mind from the 1950's was a toy steam engine. It had an alcohol burner to heat the boiler and had a working steam piston, flywheel, and steam whistle. Think about it....an open flame burner, hot metal, and boiling water. What a combination for a child's toy. I burned myself more times than I can count on that thing. To provide even more opportunity for mayhem to my childish body parts, there were a series of shop tools with real wood cutting blades that could be powered by the engine. It's amazing I still have all my fingers. lol

 

[HamletJSD]

Somehow I had my parents convinced that a gifted child was able to be trusted with certain things ... so pretty early in life I had things not every kid could get their hands on. Things like rubber band guns. Firecrackers (black cats, not those little popping things you throw at the ground). Chemistry sets. Bow and arrows. And yes, lawn darts ...

My sister had the "just plain wrong" toys. Such as teddy bear with a burnt face.
And a "Barbie" doll with the head of a "My Little Pony."

It's amazing she still likes me, now that I think about it.

 

[dostacos]

I had one of those, but if I recall correctly it was marketed from the TV show "Highway Patrol" (one of my favorite shows). It had brass shell casings that were spring loaded. On the casings you put a grey plastic bullet. Then a "greenie stick-um cap" was added to the shell to make it complete.

yes Highway Patrol Broderick Crawford the greatest shooter of all time. 2" snub nosed 38 fired from the hip and he NEVER missed lol

 

[dostacos]

I had one of these! great fun but no, it wouldn't work on Barbie dolls, only the intended victim who's head was spring-loaded to pop off when hit by the dull plastic blade. In junior high we did build a working Barbie-doll sized gallows for a school project though. Imagine that today!

I had one too, best painted model I ever made

 

[Caledonia]

Ok, so me and my brothers had a slice of bread. Call us poor, but Play Doh wasn't an option!

Somehow, and the evolution of this natty game is long forgotten, we discovered you could turn a slice of bread into cheese. Forego your objections - it's true!

Bored, we'd all go and get a slice of bread. Only cheap white will do, which was handy seeing as that's all we had.

Ahem - anybody currently eating should look away now.

Now boys and girls, all sit in a circle and take the slice of bread in both hands.

Ready?

Flatten the bread to as thin as you can get using only your grubby little hands. Yes, finger tips are good, particularly with dirty fingernails. Mash it between the palm of your hands.

Great game! Totally absorbed for at least 5 minutes.

Done? Excellent. Now progress in an orderly fashion to the fridge. Place mangled bit of bread in the fridge, and run back to the couch for a few seconds.

Ah hah! All done. Bread is now cheese.

And if you don't believe me try it - you might have to put on your Retro-Aging-DaZzler-Whizzy Helmet at this point, as the adult brain is not able to synthesise the sheer imaginative power of the play value of a slice of bread.