Childhood Toys

[Ranched]

Yes ma'am!

Walking the dog.......

Lol. I couldn't do either. Came close, but no cigar. Paddle ball was one of my favorites as well. How the years have past us by my friend.

 

[nobody]

 

[YosemiteSam]

I had the Rubik's cube (and the much bigger cube), snake and pyramid.

I still have two Rubik's cubes at home.

 

[Runwildboys]

Of all of those you listed micro machines is what I had as a kid. I was really into construction so I also had a huge set of heavy duty tools for kids. Made of metal not that cheap plastic crap. Had my own tool belt workbox and work bench with a peg board to hang up on my tools. Aside from those few things we didn't have much. So our favorite toy was the tree in our backyard. Until our old landlord cut it down because we fell out of it too many times

Well that explains a few things!

 

[Runwildboys]

I still have my glow in the dark yo-yo. Also still have my Duncan light up butterfly yo-yo.....the red one. And a wood Duncan.

Do you remember Click Clacks?

I remember them, but you probably have a different use for them now.

 

[Ranched]

I had the Rubik's cube (and the much bigger cube), snake and pyramid.

I still have two Rubik's cubes at home.

Never solved one.

 

[Ranched]

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

 

[nobody]

I also had the super simon

 

[nobody]

 

[nobody]

Anyone remember these ping pong ball guns?

 

[Melonfeud]

Man, I saw this thread the other day& made a mental 'note' to jump in & participate,,, but apparently became distracted to the point of forgetfulness,,,

I remember being about 4 or 5 years to young for this one Christmas gift my dad got me, it was produced by Mattel & consisted of like a 1,000° F hot plate,w/ moulding outfits ,that had 3 or 4 different die-casting 2-piece molds ,in where you could inlay a wire skeletal structure & make your own army men by squirting in this mixture of different "goop" compounds,,, I remember burning holy hell outta' my fingers ( and dad ,lhao,,,and Mother& my sisters bi***in' about the possible toxic poisonious fumes I was letting roil off thruout the house,direct from the kitchen table,,, it was really pretty cool, as I recall you could make guns& webbing gear/ helmets for them,too,,, but,,, I'd ran out of wire to where they would be bendable & then the magic liquid squirt goop after just a couple of days of fun with it.


Another 'toy' within the realm of that bb-gun's greatest but not even close to equaling the B-B GUN ,,, was a "Billy-blast-off blue&white colored spacefaring astronaut that took a couple of AA batteries in his space suit back pack that powered an hexogonal twisting drive shaft ,,,er,,, kinda' projecting outta' his off planet venturing Coolio, that would power his lunar speed buggy, some kinda' big red two wheeled crawler w/ dragging tripod tail, Ray gun that would light up when plugged into his pack& some kinda' t.v .gizmo that would light up as well,,,, but, without a doubt,,,, the Daisy single cock lever action , gravity feed, bb-gun, that would flat smoke the life outta' anything of sparrow sized &smaller type of varmint,that I'd learned to draw a bead upon .

 

[nobody]

Oh wow, speaking of old Mattel caster toys, my brother had this:

 

[Runwildboys]

Man, I saw this thread the other day& made a mental 'note' to jump in & participate,,, but apparently became distracted to the point of forgetfulness,,,

I remember being about 4 or 5 years to young for this one Christmas gift my dad got me, it was produced by Mattel & consisted of like a 1,000° F hot plate,w/ moulding outfits ,that had 3 or 4 different die-casting 2-piece molds ,in where you could inlay a wire skeletal structure & make your own army men by squirting in this mixture of different "goop" compounds,,, I remember burning holy hell outta' my fingers ( and dad ,lhao,,,and Mother& my sisters bi***in' about the possible toxic poisonious fumes I was letting roil off thruout the house,direct from the kitchen table,,, it was really pretty cool, as I recall you could make guns& webbing gear/ helmets for them,too,,, but,,, I'd ran out of wire to where they would be bendable & then the magic liquid squirt goop after just a couple of days of fun with it.


Another 'toy' within the realm of that bb-gun's greatest but not even close to equaling the B-B GUN ,,, was a "Billy-blast-off blue&white colored spacefaring astronaut that took a couple of AA batteries in his space suit back pack that powered an hexogonal twisting drive shaft ,,,er,,, kinda' projecting outta' his off planet venturing Coolio, that would power his lunar speed buggy, some kinda' big red two wheeled crawler w/ dragging tripod tail, Ray gun that would light up when plugged into his pack& some kinda' t.v .gizmo that would light up as well,,,, but, without a doubt,,,, the Daisy single cock lever action , gravity feed, bb-gun, that would flat smoke the life outta' anything of sparrow sized &smaller type of varmint,that I'd learned to draw a bead upon .

I had the Crossman pump action BB rifle. Ten pumps and you could put it through a squirrel's head from thirty feet away....Then the cat would grab it when it hit the ground and run off with it, and you'd be chasing the cat down the road, trying to shoot him in the *** without really injuring him.

 

[SlammedZero]

It is long folks but I gotta tell it.

I was lucky that I got to relive my childhood when I went to work for Mattel as a salesman in 1969 in the Wheels, as in Hot Wheels, division for 3 years. My childhood toys had consisted of Silly Putty, Slinky, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs and my favorite, my Lionel train set with smoke pellets which was a precursor to airplane glue because you could get buzzed on those pellets but you had to slow the train down and get positioned just right to catch the smoke. Years later, that would come in handy taking shotguns, but that's a story for another time.

Part of my job was selling and part of it was sell through. By the time November rolled around, only jobbers had any toys and Mattel was the originator of forced inventory. They'd introduce a new Barbie or Baby Tender Love with a huge ad schedule and force the retailers to stock as much as they could. My hot toys one year were the Sizzler's Race Set, Hot Wheels supercharged with a nickel cadmium battery and would move about 225mph on scale. The other two were the Daredevil Plane and this helicopter that was hard for even an adult to control. That chopper set records for returns.

I set up in the Mall of Little Rock, along with my counterpart in the Dolls division, on Black Friday to do hands on demo since we had about 6 retailers in the Mall and I had my race track, only I'd put 3 of them together and I had about 40 Sizzlers to demo and the plane and chopper. You can imagine the crowd gathered all day in the main mall of Little Rock on Black Friday, it looked like Elvis had shown up to play Santa and they'd put a half page ad of our set up in the paper that day.

Well, my counterpart in the Dolls division was a friend and a drinking buddy so we decide at the lunch break to toss down a few and while I didn't have too many, I did have enough to impair good judgment. At some point in the afternoon, I thought it would be fun to toss a handful of these charged and running Sizzlers out to see what would happen. (I should have recalled what my wife of two years had told me, several times, about not everyone sharing in my opinion of what constituted "fun"). Well, I charged them up, about 20, and my bud and I tossed them out while yelling "hey kids". The "hey kids" was totally unnecessary as pandemonium ensued as these kids were chasing cars and knocking people aside and chasing them into the open storefronts and knocking displays over, it was wilder than I had anticipated and actually do not recall exactly what I did anticipate except it wasn't this. I always recall that scene when some mentions the words "chaos" or "mayhem". I had never seen so many people with that "what the hell just happened" look on their faces. Women that didn't know what Sizzlers were went screaming when one went flying past them in a blur.

The newspaper had a reporter there to cover Black Friday and she covered that as well. This rather large woman had been pushed back into the doll display and knocked everything down and was yelling at the cop, while pointing directly at me, "I want him ARRESTED"!!! My wife, who worked in a clothing store in the Mall, was standing there with her mouth wide open in shock that her husband was responsible for this carnage. I look around and my bud, remember the one from the Dolls division, has ghosted. The Mall Manager is there and tells me to pack up and leave in front of a crowd of at least 1000 people that had gathered by now. I did as instructed and it took some time and I tried to avoid eye contact with the angry parents but some would just stand there waiting to make eye contact and just shake their heads disapprovingly. The other part of the crowd were the people that I knew and they were peeing their pants in laughter.

Well, I think I've cost myself my job and I get a call for my District Manager on Monday and he has my Regional Manager on the line as well and I figure, this is it. I am going to get fired and my wife is already pissed at me because everyone's been coming to her that missed the "performance" for the details. The story is in the newspaper and I am mentioned by name. They do not mention firing me but want the details and tell me to hold on, someone wants to speak to me. I hear "__________, this is Ruth Handler, I understand there was an altercation of some kind at the Mall involving you and our product. I don't ever want to hear of our product being mentioned in a situation like this again, do I make myself clear"? I said "yes mam", she said "good and I understand the promotion was successful, good bye". Ruth Handler was the founder of Mattel out of her garage. Successful?? What I didn't know is that my District Manager, doing his due diligence, had spoken with the retailers and they were ecstatic, complete sell through of the demoed products. So, I didn't get fired but I didn't get a trophy for the sell though either.

So, when you ask about childhood toys, you need to be specific about which childhood. The early one or the continuing one.

Fun story!! Thanks for sharing. I cannot believe that I didn't have Hot Wheels in my original post. I loved Hot Wheels, still buy them actually. They definitely don't make them like they used to but I find ones here and there that are worth collecting for myself.

 

[YosemiteSam]

That top Big Wheel is the one my sister and I had.

Never had a Simon, but I had plenty of friends that had them.
You were a loser if you didn't have a view master! lol

I remember, my sister had a LiteBright

Also, anyone remember the very first hand held Electronic Football game? heh You were just a dot. lol

 

[SlammedZero]

Wow YosemiteSam you reminded me of the Tiger handheld electronic games! Does anybody remember these? I had a few. I thought they were so cool back then. In fact, I had that exact football one.

 

[Tabascocat]

I had the Crossman pump action BB rifle. Ten pumps and you could put it through a squirrel's head from thirty feet away....Then the cat would grab it when it hit the ground and run off with it, and you'd be chasing the cat down the road, trying to shoot him in the *** without really injuring him.

We used to shoot each other with that rifle, paintball style games. My best(childhood) friend still has a BB is his right buttocks to this day

 

[Runwildboys]

We used to shoot each other with that rifle, paintball style games. My best(childhood) friend still has a BB is his right buttocks to this day

We had a three pump rule for playing war... Could you imagine if any kids got caught doing that these days??? Lol

 

[Tabascocat]

We had a three pump rule for playing war... Could you imagine if any kids got caught doing that these days??? Lol

we did too but there was always “that guy”, so we had to keep up

 

[nobody]

Back when you could make real-looking toy guns.