Your favorite toys as a kid?

[scottyrocks]

I ended up burning mine, or exploding them with M160s, or dousing them in acid. You know -- typical pre-teen boy stuff.


As a six year-old capitalist, I traded in Topps "Wacky Packages" sticker cards ... also known as "Wacky Packs." Still have a bunch of them around somewhere. They've never become valuable!


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I was always very careful with my stuff. I remember when I first saw Toy Story. Remember that kid next door who destroyed his toys? I could barely watch that.

 

[scottyrocks]

I grew up in NYC and in the summer we were always outside. Roller skating with the metal skates that needed a key and attached to your Keds or PF Flyers. Everybody had Spaldeens (that a Spalding pink rubber ball to everyone outside of the boroughs) and we played punchball, box ball, stoop ball, stick ball, handball in the school yard, and we girls also played A my name is...

We used bottle caps to play skelly and drew Potsy (hopscotch to everyone else) boards with chalk. Jump rope was popular too.

I never liked dolls, but I did like games. I had Sorry, Parchesi, chinese checkers, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Fox and Hounds, Howdy Doody, Monopoly, Careers, and a deck of cards.

We made scooters out of a wooden box, a 2x4, and a metal skate that you took apart to be the wheels. We made carpet guns to shoot at each other. They were made out of wood, with a nail, a bottle cap, and a rubber band and shot pieces of linoleum at your friends (or enemies) :lol:

Wow, did you grow up on my block?

You also reminded me of when my dad and I built a go-kart (thats what we called them. They were actually 'soap-boxes' - no motors). Whereas everyone else made the frame from a sheet of plywood, my dad designed the frame for mine and built it with 2x4s. It was like a narrow ladder. Very strong. It had 2 wooden milk crates as seats, and baby carriage wheels and axles. Steered with the obligatory rope, of course.

Later on, I found some thick wire frames in my garage and built a 'convertible' roof for it, over both seats. My mom gave me an old bed sheet that I wrapped, and stapled the crap out of, around the top of this frame. The whole thing looked sort of like a T-bucket, which I had just recently discovered in a hot-rod mag.

I wish I had pictures of it. It was that cool. I'll have to sketch it out.

 

[just_me]

scottyrocks - if you grew up in Brooklyn, it's possible. lol

we didn't have go-karts. Ours were actually scooters. Similar to the picture.

 

[scottyrocks]

scottyrocks - if you grew up in Brooklyn, it's possible. lol

we didn't have go-karts. Ours were actually scooters. Similar to the picture.

Yep, Canarsie, right near the Brooklyn Terminal Market. Howzabout you?

 

[Sertsa]

Erector sets, original GI Joes, Lincoln Logs (made of real wood) and a lot of space / airplane toys. I remember having a "space suit" set that included a helmet and contraption for picking up moon rocks. I also had a Saturn V rocket that, if I remember right, had all the stages and even the orbiter and capsule.

 

[Diamondback]

I also had a Saturn V rocket that, if I remember right, had all the stages and even the orbiter and capsule.

Bringin' back memories... albeit recent ones--in junior high I built one of those, IIRC Revell's Apollo 11 25th Anniversary edition in 1:144. Was a big hit in a presentation for science class, especially seeing how big the pieces were relative to each other and a Shuttle... Coincidentally, the current playlist is from Apollo 13--synchronicity?


----------------
Now playing: James Horner - Darkside Of The Moon
via FoxyTunes

 

[scottyrocks]

As long as we're into space toys, did anyone have a Major Matt Mason Space Station? We had a few on our block. We went through a lot of batteries with those Crawlers going up and down the block.

 

[Trebuchet64_Fal]

in our neighbourhood ,we played cowboys and indians war games , spent untold hours riding in our billy carts (soap box cars) ,we loved exploring nearby caves and the local qaurry whilst avoiding the security gaurds and of course riding our bikes to the local swimming hole.

 

[PADDY]

Astronaut Outfit and Thunderbirds Rocket...

Yes, those late 60's were very much the Space Race age. I remember that Xmas morning creeping down the stairs to see what Santa had brought...and WOW!!

A full 'silver' space suit that I could wear with a NASA badge on one arm and the American flag on the other!! also a white Astronaut's helmet with a drop down green visor!! I thought I was in heaven (you see in 'those' days having watched rockets on TV being launched..etc, I wanted to be an Astronaut!!).

To keep the theme going, someone else had got me the Thunderbird's (Thunderbird 1...?) rocket. On another occasion I got the Thunderbird's uniform (definitely a common strand in those days!!).

As for 'GO-CARTS' which has been mentioned. Well we lived on a big tree lined Avenue on quite a hill, so marvellous for sliding down in the snow but also excellent for go-carts!! My brother's or Grandfather would make them up for me with old pram wheels and bits of wooden fruit boxes and planks..etc!! oh those were the days!!

 

[just_me]

Yep, Canarsie, right near the Brooklyn Terminal Market. Howzabout you?

Sheepshead Bay. Avenue W near Nostrand Ave.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

The Navarone playset. Mine was by Mego, not Marx, and this was around Christmas, 1980. I still have it, worn and all, and the box is waterstained, but I still have it!

 

[Sertsa]

I see I'm not the only one who loved the late 60s/early 70s space toys. From what I remember, some were amazingly detailed and complete.

Diamondback - Made a scale model and compared to the shuttle is really impressive. Along the lines of its size, I remember someone or some display that used a model to show how much was shot into space (the rocket) vs what came back (just the capsule).

 

[der schneider]

my brother buried my major matt mason on daytona beach in 69 gone with the tide

he flushed my baking soda mailorder frogmen down the toilet they are still searching for matt

he broke the heads on my drum set my dad probably didnt care to much about that one

mom has given me bits and pieces of my Gi Joes she has unearthed in the back yard. the foot in the boot was kinda spooky.

I invented the skate board wooden skate wheels dont last long and after a one block long ride down a hill and the vibrating made it hard to walk.

My kids found a newly released wooden wind up tick tock clock that they gave my wife for xmas this year it sits next to her 1964 original.

my kids played with the pedel car my wife and her brother played with.
its in the garage waiting for grandkids

 

[Tiller]

I was born in 85, so I was a child of the late 80's early 90's which meant I played with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . I also played the first Nintendo console the NES when I was a boy, trying to help Mario save his Princess, and Link save Zelda from the evil Gannon.

I also played with/made Creepy Crawlers when I was a lad. Outside I had my swing set, and the woods where I played with my toy guns, and saved the world. Fighting evil and saving the day for what was good and righteous, like the superheros of old lol .

 

[Diamondback]

Diamondback - Made a scale model and compared to the shuttle is really impressive. Along the lines of its size, I remember someone or some display that used a model to show how much was shot into space (the rocket) vs what came back (just the capsule).

Yeah, it is--especially when you consider that the Saturn was basically not that much more advanced than a WWII A-4/V-2 aside from welded structure and its engines... and the fact that the current Shuttle was never intended to be more than a proof-of-concept demonstrator.

That was part of my presentation, too... it was especially interesting to note that with the right bracing, you could fit an entire Apollo CSM+LEM into a Shuttle cargo bay... which tells me NASA is serious about neither watching costs nor technical advance with the "next-gen moonshot", but that's one for another time and another thread.

 

[scottyrocks]

I was a little too old for it when it came out, but my brother had a Big Wheel. Those were the hottest things going back then for a long while.

 

[Lotta Little]

I loved my Lite Brite. I had the original, with the blinding light bulb and a full pound of colored pegs. One of my sisters gave me a modern Lite Brite for Christmas as a joke, and I have to say, like most things, the new, improved design was a big disappointment. Kids today don't know what they're missing.

 

[Fedord Spaniard]

i was born in the mid 80s so for me it was the super powers collection, the transformers, thundercats, silverhawks, gi joes, he-man, voltron, batman the animated series, spider-man animated series, x-men, the supernaturals and many more

 

[Sertsa]

Diamondback - True, on several counts. I think most of the effort needed to go into designing how to get people back. But as you said, another thread. (I also went to Cape Canaveral when I was young, which was far more fun to me than Disney World).


But back to the toys. I also had a Big Wheel. I don't remember how, but it had a slightly dented wheel (I think it was used). Rather then being bothered by it, I liked to start at slowly,as the wheel would clunk and sound kind of like a train as I picked up speed, and I would see how fast I could get the clunks to go.

(And I think there may still be an old Lite Brite somewhere in my parents' basement.)

On a related note, did anyone ever make anything decent on an Etch-A-Sketch?

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

SLOT CARS!

In the '60s & '70s, particularly in the north/midwest where long winters compel indoor activities, Aurora/AFX electric slot cars were the rage. HO scale for the little home track and 1/24th scale for taking to the slot car hobby shop to compete with other little neighborhood racers. Man, those were so fun. I wound up getting back into collecting the HO scale cars a few years ago, but it just wasn't the same...