I raced my matchbox cars in single elimination tournaments.
The Toys That Made Us
- Thread starter Admiral2
- Start date
Depends on how you shoot 'em. I never saw a difference when I was stunt ramp shooting them out my window.
I had a LOT of Hot Wheels & Matchbox cars. All long gone, sadly.
70's era Tonka trucks too. All probably worth a fortune now.
70's era Tonka trucks too. All probably worth a fortune now.
Cool. Sounds like a nice collection.
I'll never forget that Christmas morning when I got my first Daisy BB gun. Looked like an old Winchester model 94 lever action.....so cool. We had some orange and grapefruit trees in the back yard. My Dad was sure mad when he was eating a grapefruit one morning and had to spit out a BB.
You'll shoot your eye out!
Only if you pull the trigger with your toe.
The Brits were lucky...SWORD...Manta
http://www.mantaforce.co.uk/index.html
http://geoffstoys.blogspot.com/2017/02/superman-needs-spaceship-to-fly-now-old.html
https://www.hos-ting.info/6c6974746c65/little-people-astronaut.html
https://geektyrant.com/news/12-toys-from-the-1980s-you-might-not-remember
Don't forget the STARBIRD
http://www.mantaforce.co.uk/index.html
http://geoffstoys.blogspot.com/2017/02/superman-needs-spaceship-to-fly-now-old.html
https://www.hos-ting.info/6c6974746c65/little-people-astronaut.html
https://geektyrant.com/news/12-toys-from-the-1980s-you-might-not-remember
Don't forget the STARBIRD
My brother and I were definitely in the thick of the 3-inch action figure era. In addition to Star Wars of course, there were Fisher-Price "Adventure People" mentioned by auntiehill, and some that never caught on big like Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. Those figures could quick-draw with spring-loaded arms if you pushed a little catch on their backs. Of course the guns were soon lost. They also had horses which could be made to gallop by pushing a little button on their sides. I had pretty much aged out when the 3-inch GI Joes came out, but I did have a one or two.
We combined all these figures into our own world, where they all interacted in elaborate plots and schemes, and where the Star Wars characters weren't necessarily Star Wars characters anymore.
Kenner came out with a Star Wars TIE fighter but no TIE pilot, they actually expected you to stick a white stormtrooper in there! Well that was not acceptable, I took a can of glossy black spray paint to a spare stormtrooper. When they actually made a TIE pilot figure I was too grown up (c. 12 years old!) to play with them anymore.
We had the first issue, my brother had the Viper and I had the Raider. The tiny pilot figure barely looked like the TV Cylons. IIRC we could have sent them back and gotten non-shooting replacements, but we liked firing off the little missiles until they got lost.
Those were great. They stood a lot of abuse. My brother had one set with a forest ranger and a fine-looking collie dog. We just assumed it was Lassie and Ranger Corey, which I suspect was the intent. There were some dune buggy-riding figures called "Dune Busters" who, in my brother's conception of them, became disreputable borderline-criminal types. He had great fun playing them as total low-lifes. We lived on top of a hill and would take the Adventure People skydiver and fling him off the deck to land on the street below. The parachute worked well until one time it didn't open, and the parachutist figure shattered into its basic components. We found all the parts and tried to glue his torso back together, but the model glue didn't take well and he was prone to falling apart. Also the motorcycle rider had knee joints so he could straddle his bike, but the pins that held them together broke so we wired his legs together. Sometimes we would loosen the wire for a dangerous stunt so his leg might fly off.
My brother also had little plastic cowboys and Indians. In some convoluted storyline he came up with, the Indian chief was melted, but he kept the little red plastic puddle, which continued on as the chief character, Ben Kenobi-like, with strong and spooky powers.
We combined all these figures into our own world, where they all interacted in elaborate plots and schemes, and where the Star Wars characters weren't necessarily Star Wars characters anymore.
Kenner came out with a Star Wars TIE fighter but no TIE pilot, they actually expected you to stick a white stormtrooper in there! Well that was not acceptable, I took a can of glossy black spray paint to a spare stormtrooper. When they actually made a TIE pilot figure I was too grown up (c. 12 years old!) to play with them anymore.
We had the first issue, my brother had the Viper and I had the Raider. The tiny pilot figure barely looked like the TV Cylons. IIRC we could have sent them back and gotten non-shooting replacements, but we liked firing off the little missiles until they got lost.
Those were great. They stood a lot of abuse. My brother had one set with a forest ranger and a fine-looking collie dog. We just assumed it was Lassie and Ranger Corey, which I suspect was the intent. There were some dune buggy-riding figures called "Dune Busters" who, in my brother's conception of them, became disreputable borderline-criminal types. He had great fun playing them as total low-lifes. We lived on top of a hill and would take the Adventure People skydiver and fling him off the deck to land on the street below. The parachute worked well until one time it didn't open, and the parachutist figure shattered into its basic components. We found all the parts and tried to glue his torso back together, but the model glue didn't take well and he was prone to falling apart. Also the motorcycle rider had knee joints so he could straddle his bike, but the pins that held them together broke so we wired his legs together. Sometimes we would loosen the wire for a dangerous stunt so his leg might fly off.
My brother also had little plastic cowboys and Indians. In some convoluted storyline he came up with, the Indian chief was melted, but he kept the little red plastic puddle, which continued on as the chief character, Ben Kenobi-like, with strong and spooky powers.
So let's try to get the thread going again by talking about the Toys That Eluded Us.
Here's what I mean. When GIJOE and The Transformers came out I was one of the bajillions who bought in whole hog, especially Transformers. Watched the cartoon, read the Marvel comics and of course, desperately wanted the toys, specifically my two favorites:
AUTOBOT JAZZ
and DECEPTICON SOUNDWAVE
Now I come from a poor family, so getting anything less practical than socks for
Christmas or birthdays was a genuine treat, but I did get such things, as all of the toys i've talked about so far were gifts, and I even got Transformers as gifts. These ones:
ULTRA MAGNUS
JETFIRE
SHOCKWAVE
and METROPLEX
Now I can't say that my family didn't come through for me. Not only are these great toys in their own right, they're all bigger and more expensive than the ones I actually wanted. But...I was left with that unfulfilled desire all the way until I had a full time job and could start bidding on ebay.
So, while you're thinking about the toys you got to play with, are there any you always dreamed of having but never got until you could gift yourself with them, or never got at all?
Here's what I mean. When GIJOE and The Transformers came out I was one of the bajillions who bought in whole hog, especially Transformers. Watched the cartoon, read the Marvel comics and of course, desperately wanted the toys, specifically my two favorites:
AUTOBOT JAZZ
and DECEPTICON SOUNDWAVE
Now I come from a poor family, so getting anything less practical than socks for
Christmas or birthdays was a genuine treat, but I did get such things, as all of the toys i've talked about so far were gifts, and I even got Transformers as gifts. These ones:
ULTRA MAGNUS
JETFIRE
SHOCKWAVE
and METROPLEX
Now I can't say that my family didn't come through for me. Not only are these great toys in their own right, they're all bigger and more expensive than the ones I actually wanted. But...I was left with that unfulfilled desire all the way until I had a full time job and could start bidding on ebay.
So, while you're thinking about the toys you got to play with, are there any you always dreamed of having but never got until you could gift yourself with them, or never got at all?
The computer on Wonder Woman did look like a Lite-Brite.
I had some of the cheaper, smaller Transformers, such as the ones that turned into cassette tapes that you could put into Soundwave.So let's try to get the thread going again by talking about the Toys That Eluded Us.
Here's what I mean. When GIJOE and The Transformers came out I was one of the bajillions who bought in whole hog, especially Transformers. Watched the cartoon, read the Marvel comics and of course, desperately wanted the toys, specifically my two favorites:
AUTOBOT JAZZ
and DECEPTICON SOUNDWAVE
Now I come from a poor family, so getting anything less practical than socks for
Christmas or birthdays was a genuine treat, but I did get such things, as all of the toys i've talked about so far were gifts, and I even got Transformers as gifts. These ones:
ULTRA MAGNUS
JETFIRE
SHOCKWAVE
and METROPLEX
Now I can't say that my family didn't come through for me. Not only are these great toys in their own right, they're all bigger and more expensive than the ones I actually wanted. But...I was left with that unfulfilled desire all the way until I had a full time job and could start bidding on ebay.
So, while you're thinking about the toys you got to play with, are there any you always dreamed of having but never got until you could gift yourself with them, or never got at all?
Kor
Also the time I fully collected Ultrazord and they changed them out for new robots taught me about capitalism.
They made a version for bridges, too. I had that one.This isn't about the Netflix series, though it is the inspiration as it's been on my mind lately.
The Netflix series was mainly about toy lines that have a broad effect on the culture as a whole. This thread is really about the toys that made you. What were your favorites to play with? Which ones occupied your imagination? Did you have any that might have inspired your current career?
When I was really young I liked building things, so I had a ridiculous number of model kits, mainly of warplanes and warships. There were also two building sets that I was obsessed with. The first, of course, was LEGO. This was back in the day when there weren't a whole bunch of specialty sets. I had a bare bones one, where you just got a pile of bricks and made whatever you pleased.
The other is probably less well known nowadays but I could spend hours with it. It was the Girder and Panel playset.
The idea was that you could take a box full of snap-together girders like this:
And some plastic panels with windows and doors drawn in them and make skyscrapers of all types, some beautifully designed:
or that make no kind of architectural sense:
While Girder and Panel does seem to have a nostalgic following I doubt it could compete in today's franchise-obsessed toy marketplace, which I think is too bad.
What toys do you remember fondly?
![Mattel_4401[1].jpg](https://www.trekbbs.com/data/attachments/11/11398-a577d78fbbc97f1595f72f7745e74ad5.jpg "Mattel_4401[1].jpg")
Kept seeing that one in the Sears Holiday Catalogs (I think) during the 70's and wanted it bad...
Somebody else mentioned Bridge and Tunnel in the thread. i didn't even know about until this thread.
