TOYS/GAMES/BOOKS YOU HAD AS A CHILD.

Paquita · December 07, 2016, 09:48:12 PM

Quote from: retrorussell on December 04, 2016, 04:31:23 AM

I had a 90s version of Merlin! I really liked it, but this version kept your scores and one day I got an impossibly high score on one of the challenges and I just didn't know what to do with it anymore after that so I put it under my bed and never spoke of it. When the batteries started dying, it would occasionally sound off: "Welcome, Apprentice, to the 10th Quest!" and people would ask what that was and I would cryptically say "Don't worry about it, you'll never beat my high score."

I was obsessed with Speak & Spell for a while when I was a kid. I used to sneak and play it for hours in the middle of the night.

retrorussell · December 08, 2016, 06:32:52 AM

More stuff:
AVALANCHE (1965)
Marble/Plinko-type game. Also a toy I received way later than its release date.

We had a bunch of those FINGER POPS, which were simple reinforced chunks of styrofoam that you pinch and they "pop" at people.

SKEDOODLE (1979)
Drawing toy, with an ugly bubble screen that you steer the drawing utensil from underneath. You get various shapes to design with. Shake to erase. I remember getting this right around the time my brother was born.

We had some books that were way older than when we first got them.
RABBIT AND HIS FRIENDS (1953)

I remember the platypus often had a lollipop in his possession.
THE MARSHMALLOW GHOSTS (1961)
A ghost woman and her 3 ghost children. It's never explained how they all died. :)

BUNNICULA (1979)
Cute, funny kid's book about a vampire bunny.

My dad would make Aggravation boards.

We had this weird old board game, SUPERSTITION (1977), in which you move around the board, hoping not to spring traps. Creepy but interesting.

And this wasn't ours but my grandparents had this at their house specifically for us:
SLEEPING BEAUTY board game.

retrorussell · December 17, 2016, 06:51:35 PM

I had one of those Snoopy movie viewer things, where you pop in a toy reel of a Snoopy cartoon and turn the crank to move it frame by frame. I think I had a yellow one with a reel of "It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown".

Oh man.. I got this when it was new. Probably 1976 or so. POP UP PINBALL!
! No longer available
I had this audio book: THE SELFISH GIANT. Classic Oscar Wilde children's story. The cover may not have looked like this, I can't remember.

STAY ALIVE (1971)
Classic game where you pull slides and try to keep your marbles from falling through.

Two toys I had when I was REAL little:
Playskool Counting Eggs! Eggs that came apart in 2 halves and taught counting.

And a Tupperware (!) puzzle ball toy. Fit the pieces into the toy. Pull the handles to open it up and spill out the pieces.

ER · December 18, 2016, 01:54:12 PM

I know a family----serious here---who gives each newborn an actual gun as a birth gift, and it gets set aside for a few years, but they consider guns that important in life, a birth right, and something everyone should have. I mention this because once when I was a long way from home I was talking to the person who told me this, an incredible marksman, and I made some remark about all the things I missed and one is this talking book I got when I was about four, how I'd love to hear it read me the story of Peter and the Wolf, and he told me how his favorite childhood toy, even before school, was his gun.

Absolutely true story.

AoTFan · December 19, 2016, 01:14:41 AM

I had a puzzle map of the United States, with each state being a piece of the puzzle (well, mostly, I think they combined some of the smaller ones like New Hampshire and those other small states between Maine and New York.) Anyway, being the kid with an overactive imagination, I didn't quite "play" with the puzzle as it was meant to be. Sure, I put together the picture a few times, but I played around with the individual pieces a lot.

For instance, I always liked Virginia because the left tip of it looked like a spear to me. So, I'd used it to "stab" the other states.

Kentucky always remind me of a key.

Idaho, you turn it on it's side and it looked a bit like a gun.

And it always fascinated me what neat, nearly perfect rectangles that Colorado and Wyoming were. And how neatly Tennessee and North Carolina fit together.

RCMerchant · December 20, 2016, 05:12:52 AM

I had lotsa GI JOE's. Not the little tiny things they called GI Joes's in the 80's either.Some even had Kung Fu grip,and they talked! Some even had "life like hair and beard!" that feel out in patches-so it looked like they had radiation sickness!
And you could shoot them with a BB gun,and throw them out of trees and stick bubble gum or Silly Putty on they're faces like they were being attacked by an alien blob thingy!

http://youtu.be/WLL67CN2hnw

retrorussell · December 20, 2016, 07:19:08 PM

I had this emergency hospital playset from Fisher Price.

And this classic toy record player. Shortly after we had a real one in our bedroom (me & my sisters).

And some board games:
PAC MAN

DONKEY KONG

FLAT CAT (1978)
Weird game where you move cats up a board and hope you don't trigger the dog that knocks you back down to the bottom.

And this toy rescue helicopter.

And a weird air hockey-type game called Bop Bop 'n Rebop (1979).

RCMerchant · December 21, 2016, 05:12:57 AM

Quote from: retrorussell on December 20, 2016, 07:19:08 PM

And this classic toy record player. Shortly after we had a real one in our bedroom (me & my sisters).

Oh wow! We had one of those dam things in the basement! I don't know who's it was! It made little creepy tinkling ....music. Sounded like something from a horror movie.

sprite75 · December 21, 2016, 10:23:33 AM

Quote from: retrorussell on December 20, 2016, 07:19:08 PM
PAC MAN

DONKEY KONG

Yeah I had both the Pac Man game and Donkey Kong. No idea what happened to them. Kind had to be careful with the Pac Man game with all the young children around who might swallow the dots. I was about 8 at the time, I had a lot of 3 and 4 year old cousins then.

retrorussell · December 21, 2016, 03:13:09 PM

Quote from: RCMerchant on December 21, 2016, 05:12:57 AM

Oh wow! We had one of those dam things in the basement! I don't know who's it was! It made little creepy tinkling ....music. Sounded like something from a horror movie.

Yeah, kind of like a jack in the box when it comes to the "pop goes the weasel" part. You expect something to jump up and kill you.

I had a few Transformers:
DIRGE

DEAD END, one of the Stunticons that merged into the giant MENASOR

BUZZSAW and FRENZY, cassette tape robots that belonged to SOUNDWAVE:

Frenzy is the one on the left-- Rumble is the one on the right.

SEASPRAY

WARPATH

The great battle station set for OMEGA SUPREME:

And this great TRIPLE CHANGER (they could change into 2 different things and back to a robot): BLITZWING!

And my grandma got me the whole set of robots (er, GOBOTS) that formed a giant robot-- can't remember its name.

javakoala · December 21, 2016, 04:55:12 PM

Used to have this when I was a little kid. Yes, I got burned a few times, but I learned to be VERY careful around hot things as a result.

Had this one as well. Maybe my parents were hoping I'd set the house on fire or something

RCMerchant · December 21, 2016, 06:06:26 PM

Quote from: javakoala on December 21, 2016, 04:55:12 PM
Used to have this when I was a little kid. Yes, I got burned a few times, but I learned to be VERY careful around hot things as a result.

Had this one as well. Maybe my parents were hoping I'd set the house on fire or something

I had something like that circa 1969-only it was called Creepy Crawlers,I think-It made bugs and s**t.
Sometimes the cheapest toys were the best. I had more fun with those little plastic army guys-ya know-the green ones and the Nazi grey ones-! You could bomb them with rocks,throw them in mud puddles,set them on fire! All sortsa cool s**t!

AoTFan · December 29, 2016, 09:04:10 PM

We had this and it was AWESOME!

Star Wars Play-Doh molds! It had molds of Luke, Leia, a stormtrooper, Darth Vader and R2-D2. (May have had others, not sure...) I had a TON of fun with this! I remember I loved to mass produce R2-D2s and then flatten them all in various crazy ways. Or sometimes I'd put just enough Play-doh in the Vader mold so I'd only have his head, and I could recreate the scene from Empire Strikes Back with his severed head rolling on the Dagobah floor.

Course, thinking about the awesomeness of this toy, begs the question... why don't they have cool Play-doh stuff like this TODAY? No, seriously, I did a search, and, yeah, they still have Play doh Star Wars toys, but most of them are weird crap like stamps, Giant face stuff, or cartoon junk based on the Clone Wars.

I mean, seriously, compare the pic above to this...

Again, awesome:

WTF?!

Well, okay, maybe that TIE Fighter mold isn't too bad, but still...

retrorussell · December 29, 2016, 10:46:44 PM

We had a WILLY WATER BUG!

We also had the incredibly aerodynamic AEROBIE. I think it set record distances for Frisbee tossing.

We had a weird toy that had a plastic football-like item you scooted back and forth to each other on a line, by pulling the handles apart.

We had a lawn darts set.

I had all these McDonalds toy racers!

retrorussell · January 07, 2017, 07:33:18 PM

Oh wow. I totally forgot we had these.. rubber finger puppets of Sesame Street characters. A "friend" of my sisters' took a lighter to Grover. He was then known as "black 'n crispy Grover" and I was upset for a while, then found it to be rather funny.

Big Bird looks stoned..