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TOYS/GAMES/BOOKS YOU HAD AS A CHILD.

Started by retrorussell, December 04, 2016, 04:31:23 AM

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retrorussell

Now that we're grown up, let's dust off the nostalgic vibes and think back to things we can remember owning as a wee one.

Going way back here..
I had this little music box where you turn the dial and it plays "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" until it either runs out in its rotation or your parents' eardrums bleed.  Probably got this at age 4 or 5.

This was my very first book!  A BARGAIN FOR FRANCES.  Frances (a badger) appeared in a number of kids books.  I probably got this when I was 1 or 2.

I had this dull PONG-like handheld game BLIP, pretty much right when it came out, that  meant I was 6. 
! No longer available
This was one of the COOLEST toys!  It required a whopping 6 AA's but you could play 6 different games: Tic Tac Toe, Music Machine, Echo, Blackjack 13, Magic Square and Mindbender.  I was so proud that I saved up 37 bucks to buy this when I was 7.  MERLIN!!!

And another toy guaranteed to give parents migraines.. MAGICAL MUSICAL THING!  It was like a little synthesizer with a long neck.  I got it at age 8 or so.  I think my mom spilled coffee on it so it sounded all gurgly and eventually died. :)

Give me time and I can think of a LOT more!  In the meantime, what can YOU remember?
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

RCMerchant

This book-In 190-when I was 8-I got it for Xmas. It had art by Dell comic hack Tony Tallarico. You can see it in my hand in the bottom photo-








One of my favorite books-and one I still have a copy to this day-I got on my 12th birthday in 1973-



Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

retrorussell

^ Cool RC!  I looked like the kid on the trike when I was that age.  Young and impossibly cute, and then I grew up, lost my hair and got fugly.

More stuff I had:
TOMY ATOMIC ARCADE PINBALL (1979)
Fun little pinball game with noisy sound effects.

RUN YOURSELF RAGGED (1979)
Really cool marble game in which you try to guide a ball through a maze to the exit before the buzzer goes off.

LI'L PROFFESSOR (1976)
Cute little calculator-type toy that taught math to elementary schoolers.

GNIP GNOP (1971)
Fun little table top game where you try to fire all 3 of your plastic balls into the 3 holes on your opponent's side, via 3 buttons, while the opponent tries to do the same to you.
! No longer available
MR. MICROPHONE (1979)
Got this for Christmas of '79.  You plug it into your car and sing with an amplified voice to the AM/FM radio, or at least that's how I think it worked.  Never really used it much.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

RCMerchant

My sister had a MR.Microphone-she usta screech Shaun Cassidy songs at the top of her lungs. UGH! That was about 1978.

"Hey,good looking! We'll be back to pick you up later!"
Good-that will give me time to go get MY GUN.

http://youtu.be/gqZQmS8KeLM

I usta have this game-I got this for X-mas about the time I got the Monster book-about 1970-



I don't recall how to play it-I do remember that I used the glow-in-the-dark set of fangs that came with it,though.
I didn't like most board games-except,Battleship,Stratego,and Monopoly. Checkers and chess too. I DID have a lot of games,though-I just didn't play them too much.Life,Pay Day,the thing with the marbles-I forget what it was called-there was a bubble in the middle-and you pressed it down and it popped and rolled the dice.I dunno. Maybe It didn't have marbles.

I had lotsa Marbles! I had boulders and peries and cat-eyes and steelies...! We had fun at the playground at school-we played marbles for keepsies! Can you imagine kids nowadays-with all there electronic s**t-playing with marbles?

Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

Trevor

Quote from: RCMerchant on December 05, 2016, 12:23:03 AM
My sister had a MR.Microphone-she usta screech Shaun Cassidy songs at the top of her lungs. UGH! That was about 1978.

"Hey,good looking! We'll be back to pick you up later!"
Good-that will give me time to go get MY GUN.

:buggedout: :buggedout::bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:

I had - and still have - the same Denis Gifford book, RC: cost my folks 25 Zimbabwean dollars, a whole $2.50.  :teddyr:
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

Trevor

I still have my first toy: a rather grubby and elderly Teddy bear who's been with me since the first day and the first book I ever bought as a kid:



That book is about three post WW2 kids who get involved with silver thieves in rural England: its' falling apart but I still have it.  :smile:
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

retrorussell

RC-- the game you're thinking of is TROUBLE (1965).  I was fascinated by that "pop-o-matic" bubble.

I had these board games:
GAMBLER (1975), in which you--well--gamble.

BONKERS (1978). 
! No longer available
THE MAD MAGAZINE GAME (1979).  The object was to LOSE all your money!

STOP THIEF (1979)
Way the eff cool game!  Use an electronic scanner to give you clues to a thief's whereabouts and try to reach him on a game board and make an arrest.

And I had this weird game, COMPUTER PERFECTION (1979).  It had NOTHING to do with Perfection and it was more like a multiple-games-in-one type of toy.
! No longer available
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

Trevor

Another toy I have from my youth - when was that exactly?  :wink: - which I still have is a Kermit hand puppet. If you're one of my FB friends, I have the puppet on my hand in my profile pic.  :smile:
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

Skull

#8


I remember playing with this toy, I'm not sure when I got the toy but most likely it was before I was 7.

Because I do remember getting this when I was 7 and I recall having the ghost gun before it.


bob

I had a ton of board games back in the day like Risk, Monopoly, Sorry!, Trivial Persuit

I used to have a lot of The Boxcar Children books and Goosebumps
Kubrick, Nolan, Tarantino, Wan, Iñárritu, Scorsese, Chaplin, Abrams, Wes Anderson, Gilliam, Kurosawa, Villeneuve - the elite



I believe in the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

retrorussell

Another board game we had:
THE HAWAIIAN PUNCH GAME (1978)
Based on the commercial for Hawaiian Punch with the guy who literally punches people into orbit (lovely gimmick).  Uses a Play-doh "pineapple maker" to make the players' markers.  At certain moments an opponent can SQUISH your marker and you have to start over or at an earlier space on the board; I can't remember for certain.  But it was a scream!

This game terrified the absolute bejeezus out of me:
OPERATION (1965)
We got it way later than the original date (I wasn't born then).  Something about that angry dude and the loud buzzing sound and his freakish glowing nose.. just put me in an incurable state of panic!  And this 70s commercial was on ALL the time to reinforce my terror..
! No longer available
DIGITAL DERBY (1978)
Little handheld game in which you steer a car at the bottom out of the way of oncoming traffic.  Lap counter and timer included.  A buzz and a red flash is shown during a collision.
! No longer available
I think I got this for my 10th birthday.. what a cool LCD game/calculator/stopwatch/more handheld!  I recently bought it at a gaming expo!
EPOCH MAN (1981)

Not a toy per se but I may have gotten this the following year for Christmas.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 99 (1981)
Mine was white, had no floppy drive and ran on a black & white tv.

And my grandparents (rip) got me this handheld version of a game I was nuts about back in the day:
CRAZY CLIMBER (1981), by Bandai
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

ER

I think still one of my favorite Christmas presents ever was when I got all the "Little House" books in one boxed set. I still remember the smell of the paper, and I was the right age to get lost in that long-ago world.

I'm buying my oldest a set for Christmas this year and hope she likes it as much as I did.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

RCMerchant

Quote from: ER on December 07, 2016, 10:04:34 AM
I think still one of my favorite Christmas presents ever was when I got all the "Little House" books in one boxed set. I still remember the smell of the paper, and I was the right age to get lost in that long-ago world.

I'm buying my oldest a set for Christmas this year and hope she likes it as much as I did.
I'm a guy-so I didnt have the "Little House" Books......
I was fortunate to have my 4th grade teacher read us EVERY single one of those books aloud-ALL OFTHEM-even obscure ones like the Plum Creek stuff-all the way to the end-I knownLaura Ingell Wilder's life-from day one. in class-and I love them.
Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

AoTFan

Quote from: RCMerchant on December 04, 2016, 01:45:27 PM


Wow, all those blonde haired kids!  Did everyone in your neighborhood fall asleep one day and then all the women woke up mysteriously pregnant?  :smile:

RCMerchant

Quote from: AoTFan on December 07, 2016, 08:00:13 PM
Quote from: RCMerchant on December 04, 2016, 01:45:27 PM


Wow, all those blonde haired kids!  Did everyone in your neighborhood fall asleep one day and then all the women woke up mysteriously pregnant?  :smile:

I'm Norwegian.
Oh-and yes-we were all evil-and we did kill our parents-and our eyes glowed in the dark.  :wink:
Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant