Doug: Today I am waxing nostalgic for all those great toys I had when I was a child. There's no timestamp on today's memories. Instead, I've just thrown together a ton of Internet image grabs of stuff I had when but a wee lad. Enjoy! And please -- share some of your own reminiscences.
15 comments:
Geeze, my battered, re-costumed, stained, probably-moldy team of 10" G.I. Joes are still all standing in a protective group on a high, obscured shelf in the comic book room. My inner-hoarder could never quite let any of them go. Several are of the pre-Lifelike Hair & Beard vintage. Including the talking Moon Landing Joe ("The Eagle. . .has. . . lllllanded. . . "). First thing to always go on those figures: foot coming off when changing the boots. It really became a routine part of the procedure.
A particular favorite toy from the era? SSP's Smash-Up Derby sets-- and hats-off to Kenner for making a toy that, by god, held up to an unprecedented level of abuse, I'm sure. When you think about it-- those four cars represented a bit of a toy-design engineering miracle, 'cause they DID. NOT. BREAK. under circumstances that would have destroyed even the other SSP cars. . .
HB
Wow Doug, what a great group of toys you show today! One must wonder, though: just what did Bigfoot need with bionics?
Those Marvel stickers were fun; I had the whole set (but it took a lot of packs to accomplish that, duplicates abounded). In the same mold, Wacky Packages were another favorite. Had those stuck to notebooks and walls all over. When I see certain products on the supermarket shelves, some of those stickers still come to mind ( "Hostage" Twinkies, "Crust" toothpaste, "Top Slob" cleanser).
As for toys, I had some of those 'hard hair' G.I Joes that HB mentioned, unfortunately mine all suffered destruction long ago. Blown up by some foolish teenager. Oh wait, that foolish teenager was me...
Another cherished item was a set of Marx plastic dinosaurs. T-Rex, Brontosaurus, Styracosaurus- those and more, all produced in glorious plastic. Not painted, monochromatic, like the superhero figures you illustrate. But I loved those dino's, and still haunt ebay trying to replace them...
I have fond memories of my Planet Of The Apes, Star Trek and Space: 1999 action figures. Also Lego plastic bricks and Meccano which had to be bolted together. Airfix self-assembly kits of the Mars Viking Lander, various airplanes and ships, R2D2 and an X fighter and TIE fighter from Star Wars. Board games such as Connect 4, Hangman (with Vincent Price on the box), Cluedo and Monopoly. And lots and lots of toy cars - my mother bought me a new one every week.
I had several of these items, including the G.I. Joe playset and lots of the Mego figures from POTA, Marvel, and DC. I didn't have the Johnny West figure, but I had the knights and vikings that were made by the same company....used the same horses, I'm pretty sure.
Did anyone else have any of the Big Jim figures/merchandise? He started out as an athletic type. You could press a button on his back and his right arm would go into a throwing/chopping motion, and you could bend his arms and he could "make a muscle." In the latter years, he was the leader of a group called P.A.C.K. and it was him, a guy with a whip (Whiplash), a dude with a steel hand, and I forget the other one. I remember seeing the ads in comic books and it looked like Jack Kirby's work.
Bigfoot was my "Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time," if you will, the thing I wanted most of all when it came out. I played with it for several years and loved it as much as anything I ever owned. Then one day the arms fell off. One of the saddest days of my childhood. Of course I still have bigfoot and his arms, I always dreamed of getting some elastic and reattaching the arms. Maybe I'll get around to doing that someday.
J.A., I bet. . . I bet that would prove to be a TOTALLY easy fix, once you really looked at it. You should go ahead and realize that dream-!
HB
Well, I still have some G.I. Joe stuff (the small ones, from the 80s) and some of my Star Wars figures, though not nearly as many as I used to. I had a bunch of Megos, but the only one I have left is Robin and he has to run around naked because his costume is long gone. I had tons of Fisher Price and Tonka stuff, and like Colin Jones, I had plenty of toy cars: Matchbox, Hot Wheels, Corgi, etc.
I never had any Buck Rogers stuff, but one of my cousins had quite a few, and a friend of mine had the Steve Austin doll where you could look through his "bionic eye". I was never into Micronauts, but for some reason I had a couple of the toys; the vehicles were cool, very modular, so you could tear them apart and build new stuff.
Mike Wilson
Hey Redartz, I think I might have had those plastic dinosaurs too.
My favorite toys were the Micronauts, they were unbelievably cool but very fragile. I had to use masking tape to hold some of them together after a while. And of course, the little pieces get lost. But they sure were fun!
M.P.
I had a whole box full of those green little plastic army men, as well as assorted cowboys and indians. As a kid I really, really coveted the SMDM Steve Austin doll, er, action figure. I envied those kids who had them, and it blows my mind to see how they have become such an expensive collector's item in the intervening years.
- Mike 'now plays with grownup toys' from Trinidad & Tobago.
I loved Bigfoot in the 6 Million Dollar Man. Redartz, in answer to your question, he didn’t actually ‘have’ bionics so much as he was a robot. In a superb piece of reverse logic, he was built by aliens in order to create an atmosphere of fear around the area where they hid, thereby deterring investigators. Yup, because no one goes looking for Bigfoot!
Over in the UK, GI Joe was ‘Action Man’ complete with gripping hands and swivelling eyes. I had a variety of kit for him including an armoured car and a tank. We used re-enact war films like The Eagle Has Landed and A Bridge Too Far with Action Men. In retrospect, I can only admire our fearless ambition.
Richard
The Mego action figures were the best! Absolutely loved them as a kid. Still, do! Recently I was able to re-obtain a circle suit Spider-Man and an Iron Man - my two favorite!
I had most of those things pictured when I was a kid. I was really into Megos the most. I still have my original Spider-Man mego I got when I was like 9.
My brother had Johnny West while I had Erik Vyking. We had Evil Kinevil, Shogun Warriors and that GI vehicle as well. I think Johnny West was made by Marx.They made a lot of great toys how did they ever go out of business. I guess in the 70s is when stuff started to be made overseas. What a great time to be a kid.
Shogun Warriors were the best! Some of the most durable plastic toys ever. Mine are still in great shape.
Great memories I had Loan ranger and Tonto on horse in the 70s-80s. I can remember having the bionic man and his rocket.And Evil kanevl.Think I was spoilt in the 70s-80s.Wish I had them now...
Post a Comment