Toys In The Attic

[crowschmo]

Or basement, or garage, or "rec" room.

No, I'm not talking bats in one's belfry or voices in one's head. I'm talking TOYS!!! Actual TOYS!! Since Christmas is almost upon us, once again, as it hurdles toward us unmercifully, I'd thought I'd bring up a little nostalgia. After all, part of the appeal of our favorite show is that nostalgia factor. A lot of us were of that same generation as the Brains when the show first came out and we latched on to it and "got" it. They brought up a lot of memories with the commercials they mentioned, or movies, TV shows, books, pop culture references and whatnot.

And TOYS!!! Creeple People, Easy Bake Oven, Stretch Armstrong. The list goes on.

So, I thought I'd get the ball (Super Ball!) rolling and mention some toys I remember fondly. Obviously, I'm not going to mention every single one in just one post. I'll spread it out a little and give others a chance to put in their memories of birthdays and Christmases past. (Who else couldn't wait until that two ton Sear's "Wish Book" made it's way to our front porches?).

I'll start off things with the queen of all toys - Barbie. Yes, I had Barbie dolls when I was young. Don't judge. Boys play with dolls, too, they just call them "action figures". 'Kay. BTW, I had a G.I. Joe doll, also. (He dated Barbie a few times, though he was a bit shorter).

I had that Barbie camper with the sliding door. It included a vinyl sleeping bag, a fake plastic camp fire, and I don't remember what else. I had that green sports car of hers as well. And the horse that she could ride. It came with a stand and you could lever it back and forth and it made a "clopping" noise. They sold Barbie clothes separately, I didn't have to buy a whole new stinking doll every time I wanted to change an outfit. I had Ken, Mod-hair Ken (heh), and some other brunette woman doll, I forget her name (Stacey?). I had Skipper. (Or, maybe that was my cousin who did). I had a Tuesday Taylor doll (Barbie sized version of Tiffany), she was the same size so she fit right in with the gang. I had a Dynamite doll (who was possibly a gymnast or something? ). Yeah, I think I had her and not Skipper. I think either I or my cousins had a dog of some sort that went with them, a collie maybe? I'll have to look that up, don't remember if there was a dog for Barbie or not. My cousins had the Dream House.

I didn't call her "Barbie" when I played with her like those stupid commercials they had of girls playing with her. (I know, it was a Barbie commercial and they had to emphasize the name). I wasn't part of the "gang" - I didn't say, "Hey, Barbie, let's go to the store" or whatever. My friends or cousins and I would just "become" the dolls and disappear behind the curtain. We would just act out our little stories. I didn't worry, like those idiots some years ago, if the DOLL had a JOB or anything, that was part of the whole "imagination" thing. She didn't have to come with a damn career all set to go. I didn't worry that her figure was "unrealistic" and I could never achieve such perfection, those thoughts never occurred to me.

I remember being encouraged to be creative and not having every little thing out there for me to buy. There was a book or something that showed how to use household things to make furniture and stuff for one's little world. Like taping Q-tip boxes together with decorative shelf paper and making little dresser drawers. A clear toothpaste cap stuffed with a bit of cotton stood in for a cup of milk, that sort of thing. I don't remember what else. But it was fun using my own imagination to get all this stuff and not have to have every little accessory ready made and that I needed (or my parents, rather) to shell out money for.

I had other dolls, I'll get to that, this is getting long. What toys or games did you all have that you remember playing with as a kid? Include pictures if you want. And - is there anything that you wish you'd kept? Anything that you still have?

[Afgncaap5]

I always liked the odd board game. A couple stick out in my mind...

Forbidden Bridge was weird and wacky fun. Play an explorer trying to steal a gemstone from the paw-like hands of an idol in the middle of a jungle, but every time you roll the dice there's a chance that you'll have to push down the idol's head, causing it to angrily sway the bridge leading up to it back and forth! Completely harmless if you're just starting the game, but if you're on the bridge approaching the idol or running away from it after picking up the gem, there was a solid chance it'd knock you off! Some of the bridge slats had little hooks that might secure your character more, but sometimes not even those were enough!



Another game that appealed to the same speculative adventure fan in me, but was a *bit* more serious in nature was Omega Virus. It was also one of the earliest times when I'd played a board game where the primary goal was actually defeating the game, not beating the other players. Having said that, even if everyone beat the Virus, there was still usually a definite "winner" in the form of whoever did the most to beat the virus, if memory serves. Basically, you all played astronauts sent to an orbital defense station; an evil virus had taken over the station and was slowly overwhelming its defenses, and you had to destroy the virus before it could use the space station's weaponry to destroy all life on Earth. The winner was the one who could claim the station for the nation they represented.



Ah, 90s commercials of lots of kids surrounding toys or games...

My sister and I recently watched some Disney XD and saw that 90s commercials are making a comeback, this time having a few girls in the mix, which is good.

[crowschmo]

Wow. Why have I not heard of EITHER of these? ^^^^ They looked pretty cool.

Games I remember having: The infamous Gnip Gnop, mentioned on MST3K. Plastic housing divided in half by three rings and containing ping pong balls. You had to slap some buttons and get the ping pong balls through the rings and onto your opponents side before they did it to you.

Ker-Plunk. A plastic tower with some holes at the middle in which you put some sticks. On top, a bunch of marbles. You had to remove the sticks while getting the fewest amount of marbles to drop into the bottom as possible.

I'm guessing most people know most of these games, anyway. Too many to describe here, if you don't know them, you'll have to look them up.

Hungry Hungry Hippos, Twister (of course, who DIDN'T have that one?), Trouble, Headache (same exact damn game, except with cones instead of cylinder game pieces ), Alley Up, Rebound, Ants in the Pants, Barrel of Monkeys, Don't Break the Ice, Operation (take out wrenched ankle, hah hah), Aggravation, and Perfection (?) I think it was called.

More activity oriented games: Lite Brite, Etch-a-Sketch, Spirograph.

My cousins had Mouse Trap.

Games I still have: Dark Tower (awesome!), Sorry, Connect Four, Clue, Monopoly, Battleship, PayDay, Life, Stay Alive, Careers, Yahtzee, Scrabble, Boggle. More modern games: Trivial Pursuit, Taboo. (Do I PLAY them? No. They're just collecting dust).

I also still have a pocket Simon.

A lot of these retro games are coming back into vogue, like Rock-em-Sock-em-Robots, as I see in a lot of stores. Somebody I knew had that one, cousins maybe. And a friend of the family had one of those electronic football games.

Ah, good times.

[Mod City]

Fun thread.

I was a big first generation Transformers kid, I had a bunch of them. Of course, they were taken out of the box and enjoyed, so they're all worthless now, but I had a lot of fun with them. I still think they're pretty cool. My dad recently sold my childhood home so I had to move a lot of boxes of that stuff to my house (where it remains hopelessly disorganized).

I'll admit I don't remember either of those board games, Affy, but I did play a handful of them back in the day. I remember having some weird ones like The Smurf Game, and my grandmother having an odd Monopoly rip-off called Easy Money. I wish I still had those.

Oddly enough, I happened to take my Nintendo Gameboy to bed with me last night to play a few games before dozing off (yes, I'm single). Video games were me and my brother's toys of choice back in the day. We got our an Atari 2600 for Christmas in 1980. I still own it, still works. It's a nostalgia trip.

Here's an Atari 2600 commercial featuring a young Jack Black at the beginning:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfLgSdAAHMA

An old Nintendo commercial. Between these and Affy's board game commercials I'm starting to feel a little dated

[Mod City]

Fun thread.

I was a big first generation Transformers kid, I had a bunch of them. Of course, they were taken out of the box and enjoyed, so they're all worthless now, but I had a lot of fun with them. I still think they're pretty cool. My dad recently sold my childhood home so I had to move a lot of boxes of that stuff to my house (where it remains hopelessly disorganized).

I'll admit I don't remember either of those board games, Affy, but I did play a handful of them back in the day. I remember having some weird ones like The Smurf Game, and my grandmother having an odd Monopoly rip-off called Easy Money. I wish I still had those.

Oddly enough, I happened to take my Nintendo Gameboy to bed with me last night to play a few games before dozing off (yes, I'm single). Video games were me and my brother's toys of choice back in the day. We got our an Atari 2600 for Christmas in 1980. I still own it, still works. It's a nostalgia trip.

Here's an Atari 2600 commercial featuring a young Jack Black at the beginning:



An old Nintendo commercial.



Between these and Affy's board game commercials I'm starting to feel a little dated

[crowschmo]

Holy crap! I remember that Pitfall commercial! (I didn't remember I remembered it until I saw it again). Games: Forgot about CandyLand and Chutes and Ladders.

I remember I had a Pop and Fresh Doughboy finger puppet. There was a case, shaped like a house, and it contained him, a female version, two kids, (a boy and a girl) and a dog and a cat. Don't remember if they had names. I think they did. I'll have to look that up. I think one was Biscuits or something.

[foreign object]

I'm a bit older school than you folks (about the age of the original MST3K crew) so one of my earliest toys would've been a Fireball XL5 playset that I actually brought to kindergarten (when kids would bring their toys to school). The most memorable and most used toys I had were the Strombecker and Scalextric slot car sets and the electric football game where you would design brilliant ground game plays only to watch the players go wherever the hell they wanted. The king was the rod hockey game that EVERYBODY played . When I watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians I always like to see the "Big Bruiser" tow truck by Marx (the white truck on the floor of Santa's Martian workshop). That thing took about 6 D batteries and two of my neighbourhood pals had one. I wanted one but never got. Oh yeah, and I blew 400 bucks of some college grant money on an Intellivision Game System in 1980.

[crowschmo]

My sister had an Easy Bake Oven. I had a Pizza Hut Oven. The pizza was good, the sauce was not. It was dried sauce in a pouch that you had to add water to. Blech.

Always a good idea to give kids control so they can have cake whenever the hell they want.

[crowschmo]

I had a few Matcbox and Hot Wheels cars. I had a track that was just a couple of hills, gravity driven, no electricity needed. And I had a case for the cars, when you opened it up it was a little town with a road and a hill going through it, so you could drive your cars around it.

[crowschmo]

Anyone remember years ago when McDonald's made their soda lids with characters on them so you could pour some plaster of paris in them then paint them? Also, the character glasses they used to sell.

I had a Fischer Price or Playskool McDonald's. It was like the Fischer Price Little People set, like the house or the barn or the school, though I think the people were more square shaped than rounded. It sat on a mat that was the parking lot, with a play land or whatever you called it off to the side with the French Fry Guys and a merry go round thingee. It had the drive-thru painted on the mat, so you positioned the building just right. The people had areas under their chins where you could attach the trays of food. It came with a couple of families and a couple of cars and some employees. Don't remember what else.

I had the Little People house with some Little People, a mother, father, sister, brother and a dog.

Also had Weebles. (Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down). I had the boat with those guys, that you could take in the tub.



Edit: It was Play Skool I guess there was no drive-thru. At least I don't see it in this picture.

[crowschmo]

I had a figurine of the robot from Lost in Space.

[crowschmo]

I had a Snoopy Sno-Cone machine. And a movie viewer. It had VHS style cassettes you could put into it. It was plastic and had, I think, Snoopy and Woodstock in a car facing the screen as if they were at the movies. You hand cranked it and it showed a very short movie of Snoopy on his doghouse fighting the Red Baron. You could crank in reverse, too. Can't believe I found that entertaining.

[crowschmo]

I had that Zodiac game (still do, wonder if it still works). You punch in information of where and when you were born and it gives you codes and you look those up in a booklet it came with and read your personality. And you could ask it questions and stuff, punching in codes for the type of question.

Slinky. Shrinky Dinks. Battling tops. Clackers! (Clack them and get chipped marble in your eyes! No child safety rules, yea!) Magic 8 Ball!

I had a cap gun when I was younger. I put sand in it, and when I hit the trigger the hammer would clap and it looked like the gun was "smoking". Thought of that one all by myself.

Anyone have Cootie? You make this bug shape with an air dry clay type stuff, and stick on legs and antennae and faces and such.

[timmy]

[crowschmo]

I had a tabletop bowling game. It was housed in a plastic case. The pins hung down over the alley. You knocked them down with steel balls. There was a gun-like thing on the outside that you maneuvered to aim the balls. That part was the only thing that was outside the case. You moved the gun thing to pick up the balls, then positioned it toward the alley and pulled the trigger. The part that picked up and shot the ball was shaped like a little guy. I don't remember ever throwing it out or getting rid of it, I guess my mom must have (or gave it to someone). It was a fun thing, wish I still had it.

Don't know what company put it out. When I try to look up something like that online, nothing like the one I had ever shows up.