What were/are your favorite toys?

  • Thread starter Evo
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In summary, Moonbear got me to thinking about the toys I played with when I was little. Some of my favorite toys when I was growing up included Superball, colorforms, lincoln logs, etch a sketch, spirograph, creepy crawlers, erector set, lego, barbie, Mr potato head (back when you used a REAL potato), cootie, scrabble, monopoly, play doh, thingmaker set, silly putty, slinky, The Game of Life, and Water Wiggle. My absolute favorite toy was my Flinstone playset, which was the entire town of Bedrock. My favorite toy from the present was getting my nephew Weebles, which
  • #71
Evo said:
Thinking about my childhood reminded me of "fizzies", fruit flavored carbonated tablets that you dropped into a glass of water to make a drink.

Sounds like Alka Seltzer. :smile: I was in the Pop Rocks generation.
 
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  • #72
Moonbear said:
Sounds like Alka Seltzer. :smile: I was in the Pop Rocks generation.
You kids missed out on some neat stuff. :biggrin:
 
  • #73
Evo said:
Slingshots were fun.

Who here (as a child) had a

- microscope

-telescope

-invisible man or woman model that they built
When I was 10, my aunt bought me an "edu science" set. It came with a microscope and a telescope. The telescope was powerful enough to see craters on the moon. But both aren't that powerful though.
 
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  • #74
play doh when I was about 6 or younger, but I was all about lego up until 6th grade. lol
Lego is THE BEST toy ever.
 
  • #75
Fizzies were AWESOME! :biggrin: So were Pixie Stix.

Anyone mention Operation yet?

Jacks, jump rope, bike, skateboard, any surfboard I could get my hands on.
 
  • #76
Moonbear said:
I caught my first boyfriend in Kindergarten when I helped him catch bugs for his bug jar (he had a very elaborate looking plastic one, not just a mayonaisse jar with some holes poked in the lid). :approve:
(Yeah, I guess I started pretty young).

Once you've played doctor, jacks just never seemed as interesting.

I got my first kiss from a pretty girl while under the pig at nursery school; from Donna Butler. [I can't believe I still remember her name. It must have been love]. :!)
 
  • #77
GI Joe was by far my favorite toys. I had so many different guys as well as numerous vehicles. Great times!
 
  • #78
Evo said:
My absolute favorite was my Flinstone playset, it was the entire town of Bedrock, it was in mint condition until I gave it to my kids to play with and they destroyed it. :cry:

Haha... I remember that thing! It had the big plastic mat that had all the roads and grass, and you put the plastic "rock" houses in the lots... and yeah.

I don't remember destroying it, though. Lies! It's all lies!
 
  • #79
meowxorz said:
Haha... I remember that thing! It had the big plastic mat that had all the roads and grass, and you put the plastic "rock" houses in the lots... and yeah.

I don't remember destroying it, though. Lies! It's all lies!

Just blame it on your little sister. :biggrin:
 
  • #80
Hi Evo's daughter! I was out of town when you first popped in.

We all love your mom.
 
  • #81
...and some of the stories that we have heard about you are just too much to believe! You have a lot to explain.

:biggrin:
 
  • #82
Eeeh... well, I guess I'll have to address each anecdote as it arises. But for now I'll just go with "innocent until proven guilty."
 
  • #83
One of my favorites was a game called Run Yourself Ragged. I just looked it up and apparently, it's now sold as "Screwball Scramble".
 
  • #84
meowxorz said:
Eeeh... well, I guess I'll have to address each anecdote as it arises. But for now I'll just go with "innocent until proven guilty."
All I know is that I can only find a few pieces. The mat vanished. :cry:
 
  • #85
Remind me not to go to sleep in the middle of a conversation. You guys added 4 pages to this thread rather quickly. Here's a good make it yourself toy. Long cardboard tube carpeting comes on, inner tube, nails, walnuts. You want an amazing slingshot here it is.
Ivan, you kissed Donna Butler under the pig too? Actually my first was Teresa Jones. We were forced to kiss behind the school and I went the rest of my life with feelings for her. 4th grade-kiss, 6th grade dance, senior prom, sex after graduation about once a year for the first 5 years. It's probably a good thing she's a thousand miles away, she was trouble. I always remember her as the cute 4th grader, no matter how much she's changed. And I refuse to call her Jeff now.
 
  • #86
Evo said:
Slingshots were fun.

Who here (as a child) had a

- microscope

-telescope

-invisible man or woman model that they built
All of the above

My most anticipated toy was a Cap Gun for my birthday, since it was just a few days before the 4th of July, I was armed and ready!

There are lots of memories in this Thread!

Gokart & Forts! OMG

My best friend (our backyards were joined at a corner only, of course the field/orchard which we had to cut through to get back and forth was owned by the neighborhood witch, but that is another story!) Ok, now back to my friend! His dad was a logger/mechanic/inventor/drunk who had a shop stuffed full of amazing mechanical junk. Our go-carts started as EVO described boards with wheels (guess where we found some old soap box derby wheel!) we eventually went motorized with motors found in that wonderfully old shop!) Our neighborhood was a boys dream land, we lived at the top of a bluff, down one street was a steep hill with a 90 degree corner (or into the driveway and front door of a Ma and Pa Brady style shack).

Oh yeah, Forts! as I said my Buddy's dad was collector of amazing junk, this included a pile of 10'-12' long edges of "peeler cores" a peeler core is what is left of a log that has been peeled into veneer for manufacture of plywood. So someone must have squared off a bunch of these leaving boards were flat on side and radiused on the other. We used this to make forts of all sizes and shapes, these were forts could hold off attacks of dirt clods, apples, and well the imagination was king.. God what fun we had.


EDIT: Oh yeah, I think my buddy should be considered for co-inventor of the skate board. The first I ever hear or saw of one was a 2x4 and an old pair of skates (the key was long gone!) This was somewhere between 1960 and '63. I was never able to master them but Everette Alan was a master.
 
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  • #87
Integral said:
Gokart & Forts! OMG

EDIT: Oh yeah, I think my buddy should be considered for co-inventor of the skate board. The first I ever hear or saw of one was a 2x4 and an old pair of skates (the key was long gone!) This was somewhere between 1960 and '63. I was never able to master them but Everette Alan was a master.
I have not seen a single kid in this neighborhood attempt to build anything, ever. I rarely even see a kid outside anymore.
 
  • #88
Evo said:
I have not seen a single kid in this neighborhood attempt to build anything, ever. I rarely even see a kid outside anymore.
Same here, I guess I just grew up in a different era. 99% of my childhood memories are outside. Few involve store bought toys.

I was lucky to be brought up in, as I already said, a kid wonderland. Not in the country, but not in a city, open land and even a nearby river for fishing and swimming. If I could do it over again I don't think I'd change a thing.
 
  • #89
I only had a lump of coal to play with when I was a child :frown:
 
  • #90
jcsd said:
I only had a lump of coal to play with when I was a child :frown:
In my neighborhood that would have become a projectile!
 
  • #91
Integral said:
In my neighborhood that would have become a projectile!

I had to share it with my 12 brothers and sisters though
:cry:
 
  • #92
jcsd said:
I had to share it with my 12 brothers and sisters though
:cry:
My older brother "shared" many apples and Cherries and other projectiles with me!
He threw, I dodged!
 
  • #93
Evo said:
I have not seen a single kid in this neighborhood attempt to build anything, ever. I rarely even see a kid outside anymore.

We didn't build stuff, but we had great fun using our imaginations. We could play 9 innings of baseball without a bat, ball, or glove. We used trees and shrubs as bases. Ocassionally there was a heated argument about whether a fly ball was a home run or pop fly. But, it was hard to take your ball and go home when there was no ball, so we had to just go on with the game.

I also had a lemonade stand with no stand and no lemonade. :biggrin: My neighbor and I were standing outside yelling, "Lemonade, 10 cents!" when some jogger stopped to buy some. :blushing: We had to admit we didn't have any, but we did get him a glass of water because we felt bad. :smile:
 
  • #94
Moonbear said:
Those were also good places for playing "If I show you mine, you show me yours." :smile:

I still try to play that game whenever I get a chance. :biggrin:

Not under some homemade fort in my kitchen though. But, :devil: I might mention this thread we have going sometime to a potential 'victim' and see what happens. :devil:
 
  • #95
Moonbear said:
We didn't build stuff, but we had great fun using our imaginations. We could play 9 innings of baseball without a bat, ball, or glove.
Now that's just crazy.
I'm always the popular adult in the neighborhood cause I make a lot of stuff. I let the kids have it when I'm done, they don't realize that I'm making stuff for myself. Example: I made an extending boxing glove like you see in cartoons.
 
  • #96
Averagesupernova said:
I still try to play that game whenever I get a chance. :biggrin:

Not under some homemade fort in my kitchen though. But, :devil: I might mention this thread we have going sometime to a potential 'victim' and see what happens. :devil:

Well, if you don't want to make a homemade one, I saw a "Color Your Own Fort" in the store today. It's basically blank cardboard with markers. :smile: The sad thing is, parents will be spending the $10 on it when they could get a free refrigerator box from behind the appliance store. :confused:
 
  • #97
tribdog said:
Now that's just crazy.
I'm always the popular adult in the neighborhood cause I make a lot of stuff. I let the kids have it when I'm done, they don't realize that I'm making stuff for myself. Example: I made an extending boxing glove like you see in cartoons.

Did I ever claim to be sane? Huh, huh, did I? Muwahahahaha! :-p
 
  • #98
Moonbear said:
I also had a lemonade stand with no stand and no lemonade. :biggrin: My neighbor and I were standing outside yelling, "Lemonade, 10 cents!" when some jogger stopped to buy some. :blushing: We had to admit we didn't have any, but we did get him a glass of water because we felt bad. :smile:

Too funny. I was given a woodburning set when I was about 6. Included in it was flat pieces of wood with drawings on them you could follow and burn. Nobody explained woodburning to me, so one day I just took those pieces of wood with drawings on them and went around to the neighbors selling them. They, of course, were nice to a little kid and bought them.

That summer was most eventful, I'll never forget it. My favorite toys were all discovered or homemade. I was born in East St. Louis, and lived there in the early '50s in a very old neighborhood. On the way home from school earlier that year, my sister and I had found an abandoned house which was packed with things. A lot of it was in a huge pile on the living room floor for some weird reason. We'd climb through a back window and spend hours sifting through that pile, and exploring the rest of the house. Great fun.

My parents moved to an apartment above a cafe. My partner in crime (sis) and me discovered it had an attic. In the attic were little wax paper bags, thousands of them. We found we could fill them with water, and bomb kids who walked by our apartment on the way home from school. :devil:

Soon after that my dad gave me a bike. He called it a "hotrod" because it didn't have fenders or a chain guard or handlebar grips (good psychology for selling a kid on a used, cheap bike). He showed me how to attach a piece of cardboard with a clothespin to my wheel so the spokes sounded like a motor. Loved it!

Bored one day, a friend and myself went to the middle of an empty lot overgrown with weeds. The weeds were tall with thick stalks and produced milky bulbs, and had gotten so dense you could hide inside all the weeds. We discovered if you pulled them up, a big dirt clump stuck to the roots. We broke off the weed tops, and then used the bottoms like hand grenades, innocently lobbing them at cars driving by as we played "war." That led to my first (and only) childhood ride in a police car.
 
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  • #99
East St. Louis? Early 50s? Wow, what a coincidence. I almost lived there. We bought a house and were in the process of moving all our stuff, it took two cross country trips. When we brought the second load we discovered that some kids had broken in and ransacked all of our precious belongings. My dad said forget living here we need to find a crime free neighborhood. So we moved to Arizona.
 
  • #100
tribdog said:
East St. Louis? Early 50s? Wow, what a coincidence. I almost lived there. We bought a house and were in the process of moving all our stuff, it took two cross country trips. When we brought the second load we discovered that some kids had broken in and ransacked all of our precious belongings. My dad said forget living here we need to find a crime free neighborhood. So we moved to Arizona.

LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story. :-p
 
  • #101
Les Sleeth said:
LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story. :-p

Les, don't believe him, he's just trying to fix the election! He wasn't even a twinkle in his parents' eyes yet in the 50s! There are other much more deserving (cough, me) candidates in the race! :biggrin: (How can you not vote for someone with a smile like that?)
 
  • #102
Les Sleeth said:
LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story. :-p
golly, Les. I'm so honored. I can't believe someone as awesomely brilliant and amazing as you are would consider voting for little ol' me. :shy:

I never bought any 2 cent candies, but I used to buy Cherry Chan and Lemonheads for 10 cents a box. oh, yeah - and atomic fireballs (jawbreaker size) - those were so dang good! I still love 'em. Fire-flavored Jolly Ranchers, too!
 
  • #103
Les Sleeth said:
LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story. :-p
Bazooka (or Double Bubble)
Pixie Stix
jawbreakers
and um
Twizzlers
and um
Sweet Mammoth Jerky?
edit:
oh yeah, you are smart and cute and a truly outstanding physics genius.
 
  • #104
Moonbear said:
Les, don't believe him, he's just trying to fix the election! He wasn't even a twinkle in his parents' eyes yet in the 50s! There are other much more deserving (cough, me) candidates in the race! :biggrin: (How can you not vote for someone with a smile like that?)

Good points, all. Hey, are you up for math guru? If so, please help me understand why they say there are three kinds of people . . . those who can add, and those who can't.
 
  • #105
Les Sleeth said:
Good points, all. Hey, are you up for math guru? If so, please help me understand why they say there are three kinds of people . . . those who can add, and those who can't.

Nope, my hair's too blonde to be nominated as a math guru. :smile: What were the choices again? giggle
 

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