The recent TG&Y thread got me to thinking about this. What were your favorite toys growing up? Any fond memories of them? Their pros and cons?

My Favorites: Hot wheels...
Legos
Army men
Radio flyer wagon
My Scrambler bike
Daisy red rider BB Gun
Lincoln logs
Lite Brite
Jacks and marbles
Monopoly
Life
Soaring Sam (styrofoam glider)

Their cons: Hot wheels...the track made a good weapon
Legos....sharp corners..you ever step on one?
Army men...cheap, cheap, cheap..a lot of mine had "war injuries"
Radio flyer wagon....how many times did we crash?
My Scrambler bike....crashing, the sissy bar, shoestrings-n-chain
Daisy red rider BB Gun..never shot my eye out but close
Lincoln logs...We'd built forts then bomb them with golf balls
Lite Brite...how many things could go wrong here? burns, choking
Jacks and marbles....you ever step on a jack?
Monopoly....someone always got pissed and tossed the board
Life..I like kids; but when you need two cars thats 2 many
Soaring Sam.....broke on its maiden flight

One of the best "toys" my folks ever gave my brother and me was 50' of rope and a pulley. lol We used it to make zip lines between any two structures that would hold our weight or else we'd tie the rope to a tall tree over a creek bed and use it to swing on.

That is too funny, I'm currently online buying a ZipLine for Christmas! and an Umbrella policy..lol.

My favorite toy?

Hands Down, Barbies and all of their accessories!

I'll never forget when one of them became pregnant years ago and OK was one of the states to protest.

Barbie!!....I started to mention her earlier. My sister had several, and my brother and I always got into trouble for smashing her chest in to tease our sister. So many accessories (my sister had hundreds) I think Barbie had a shopping problem.

The zipline reminded me of our slide when I was a kid......it had wood rails!! wtf were they thinking? Not to metion the killer jungle qym 2 man deathtrap swing. <---also a wasp haven for added fun.

lol, I don't know how we survived!

One of our favorite things to do was blow up a waterbed mattress with air and then lay on it... the other kid would run and jump and the one laying down would be airborne!

ha.ha.. I did the jumping.

Creepy Crawlers. You baked plastic critters. Burnt myself so many times I lost count. It would raise blisters. They don't sell 'em like that, anymore. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepy_Crawlers

Wham-O - the big magnet.

Superballs

Mousetrap - the board game.

Ouiji Board - scared the crap out of me.

Easy bake oven. It didn't have nearly the power that the creepy crawlers had. Don't recall ever burning myself with it. It cooked with a light bulb for the love of god.

B B gun (my husband's choice)

Sorry - board game

Yahoo - board game

Bicycle. I didn't have a schwinn but that didn't stop me from loving my bike.

Hotwheels

Ball, bat and glove for sandlot ball. As a girl, I wasn't allowed to play on a league because I could get hit in the chest and get cancer. Yes, I am serious.

I blame my entry into the design & architecture profession on my affection for Legos. I built nearly everything imaginable from castles to a spring-powered cannon that would destroy any Lego creation in its path.

We had a 150' rope and a pulley. We would jump from tree branch 30' in the air and cross two backyards to the next tree.

My BMX and later mountain bike left me with many a scar from huge ramp jumps gone wrong.

My sandbox was also the source of many fun hours. My sand cities had everything from expressways to power lines (sticks and kite strings) to canal and flood control systems that I would test with a 100-year flood (waterhose).

I hated board games and still do to this day.

Kites, most of which ended up in trees.

I collected Transformers, particularly the sets that went together to create one huge robot.

Don't forget the rock sockem robots
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41S84D9WABL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
And those cheap wood gliders planes they never lasted very long but they where cheap enough to just buy news once the old plane fell apart.
http://www.oldwoodtoys.com/gliderfamily.jpg

My sandbox was also the source of many fun hours. My sand cities had everything from expressways to power lines (sticks and kite strings) to canal and flood control systems that I would test with a 100-year flood (waterhose).



Scary...We did almost the same thing. Either we built elaborate golf ball runs on our sand mountain with tunnels and sticks for bridges, or we would build (sometimes taking days to complete) whole towns in our sand box. They had streets made of cement (wet sand), buildings hollowed out with popsicle stick frames for support, and we used branch clippings for trees. Factories with cardboard papertowel holder smokestacks. We even learned to build fires in our buildings to bake the sand and make it more sturdy. Of course we used army men and sometimes blew up our buildings with black cat fireworks. And yes, at the corner of the sandbox (the highest part of town) there was always a lake with a hardened sand dam. We left the water hose on a trickle and eventually the lake would fill up and break the dam and destroy the town. My parents were sometimes very proud of our creations and sometime very worried by them.


And those cheap wood gliders planes they never lasted very long but they where cheap enough to just buy news once the old plane fell apart.


I always bought several at a time. They were so cheap, but they actually lasted better than some toys. Went through a lot of rubber bands with those. Got in trouble alot for flying them in the house too. I may have to go buy some for my brother as a gag gift this christmas. They still have them at Hobby Lobby.

Yard Darts, Silly Puddy, Water Wiggle, YoYo, wooden top.

Evel Knievel Stunt cycle

AFX Slot Car Set

Scary...We did almost the same thing. Either we built elaborate golf ball runs on our sand mountain with tunnels and sticks for bridges, or we would build (sometimes taking days to complete) whole towns in our sand box. They had streets made of cement (wet sand), buildings hollowed out with popsicle stick frames for support, and we used branch clippings for trees. Factories with cardboard papertowel holder smokestacks. We even learned to build fires in our buildings to bake the sand and make it more sturdy. Of course we used army men and sometimes blew up our buildings with black cat fireworks. And yes, at the corner of the sandbox (the highest part of town) there was always a lake with a hardened sand dam. We left the water hose on a trickle and eventually the lake would fill up and break the dam and destroy the town. My parents were sometimes very proud of our creations and sometime very worried by them.

Holy crap...it's as if you were there with me.

I also had the big wheel bike me and my friends would make ramps and see how many coke cans we could jump or just use what ever we could find to jump over.
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:KNnIsiIT2IQb_M:http://www.retropedalcars.com/images/Marx-Big-Wheel.jpg

a pulley .... dang, that woulda saved sooooooo many belts from an early death. :)

My favorites were my best friend's Ginny dolls with about a thousand assessories. It would take us hours to set it all up and then about time to be able to play it would be time to go.

Disney cartoons were a big deal. You only saw them every few years at the movies. I still love some of the old cartoons from the 30's and 40's that you saw right before the movie.

We played outside most of the time. Exploring the woods at Grandmas. Swimming in the creek at Granny's and pretending to be Tarzan swinging on the big vine into the pooled water on a hot Oklahoma summer day.

In the summer standing in front of the water-cooler trying to cool down. Sleeping with the windows open all summer. Trying to warm up standing over a pot-bellied stove at Granny's during a cold Thanksgiving or Christmas. You'd burn on your front and still freeze your behind.

PONG, and those electronic science fair projects from Radio Shack. Not to mention the rockets you would build, (we shot may toads into orbit)
My sister had a Mrs. Beasly doll. And easy bake
The NFL replica helmet and shoulder pads, we would recreate the Dallas Cowboys beating the Packers on the frozen goal line stand. (revisionist history at an early age)

Holy crap...it's as if you were there with me.

Spooky huh? I think the sandbox and the placing of the twigs got me interested in landscape design. To bad the golfball trails didn't make me a golf pro.....I bet it'd pay better.

Couple of more toys I thought of...the original Mattel ( I think) electronic football game....where the players were just blips on a screen. I loved that thing. And maybe someone can help me out with this one. We had a wooden gameboard/maze that had a top attached to a string you pulled then the top would wind through the maze and knock over pins (mini wooden bowling pins?) for points. The gameboard was probably about 18" X 48". I dont remeber its name.

It wasn't a toy really, but the coolest Christmas present I ever got was a unicycle that my uncle built. He took the front forks off a bicycle, straightened them out, then put a tricycle wheel and seat on it. That started a bit of a trend in our family because my brother and my cousin also learned to ride unicycles.

http://bestuff.com/images/images_of_stuff/210x600/happy-fun-ball-87411.jpg?1188068084

Saturday Night Live - Happy Fun Ball - Video - NBC.com (http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/happy-fun-ball/229058/)

my childhood toy was the ninja turtles pizza gun. And anything race car track by hot wheels..

the gyro, lincoln logs, hot wheels, yard darts, slinky, bag of green army men, car and plane models, erector sets made of metal, evil water wiggle, rat fink, and others i know i have forgot.

We played with a lot of Mainway toys like Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set, Mr. Skin-Grafter, General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit, and Doggie Dentist. My brother had a Johnny Switchblade doll but our favorite toy was the Bag O' Glass.

I blame my entry into the design & architecture profession on my affection for Legos.
I would say that is probably a true statement for most of us in our age range that are in this profession. I know that Lego's and Matchbox/Hot Wheels were my favorites, I also spent a lot of time drawing and on the drafting board well before I started my drafting classes in 8th grade.

Atari 2600 or the Commodore 64

the gyro, lincoln logs, hot wheels, yard darts, slinky, bag of green army men, car and plane models, erector sets made of metal, evil water wiggle, rat fink, and others i know i have forgot.

Wow, General, there's some overlap between you and me in that list.

I loved Legos back when Legos were creative toys, not the packaged, build-one-thing-only things they've become. My mom still has some Lego components that haven't been made in years - operable garage doors, roof tiles, shrubs, virtually all the sets I had as a kid that they just don't make anymore. I used to build model buildings with them. They were awesome, and they just sold big boxes of assorted pieces, not "build a spaceship" kits.

I also had *original* TinkerToys, the original, smaller wooden ones; built elevators, windmills, even a record player (that worked, if you got close enough to a record to listen to it). Now all they have are the big ones you can't do squat with.

Licoln Logs were and are one of the most underrated toys ever. I loved 'em. I used to build huge bulidings with them to see how much I could cantilever on those logs as the building grew up and out.

I hate the way toys have stripped imagination away. Everything has *just* the parts to build exactly *one* thing *one* way. I used to imagine I built a camera out of Legos, and put together "flim packs" out of other Legos. I got a certificate from Tinkertoy for a carwash design I sent them. It was incredbly cool, imaginitive stuff.

Also had TONS of crayons and coloring books, and was forever building things out of contstruction paper - and tinkertoys made GREAT frames for construction paper "coverings." I used to build model buildings by taking yellow construction paper and cutting them into "studs," gray construction paper as my concrete "foundation," and black paper as the "sheathing." It was a wonderful era.

I just don't thik we cultivate imagination anymore. If it doesn't beep, blip, require batteries, or hook up to the Internet, no one likes it....I really lament the "passing" of truly creative, "blank canvas" toys...


-SoonerDave

I noticed children this past Christmas playing with the empty boxes and styrofoam peanuts.
I sure could have saved a lot of money.

My favorite gifts were Hot Wheels and Hot Wheels accessories, track, tire shaped carrying case, car wash, etc;
Hot Wheels are now very collectible, my son and I went to a large Hot Wheel Convention last summer in California, there were several old Hot Wheels priced anywhere from $500.00to over $2500.00. The record for one Hot Wheel $75,000.00.

This tells you how poor we were.. we didn't really have many toys but did we ever use our imagination!

One thing that really stands out is putting Ketchup all over our mouths and faces and instead of Tag, chase each other all over the yard at dusk playing 'Night of the Living Dead!' lol, scared the bejeezus out of all of us!

One time my younger sister gets the bright idea to pour ketchup all over herself, lay in the gutter and have her friend run to get me to tell me she was hit by a car! We were so warped!

My favorite gifts were Hot Wheels and Hot Wheels accessories, track, tire shaped carrying case, car wash, etc;
Hot Wheels are now very collectible, my son and I went to a large Hot Wheel Convention last summer in California, there were several old Hot Wheels priced anywhere from $500.00to over $2500.00. The record for one Hot Wheel $75,000.00.

Darn darn darn. As mentioned before we use to like to destroy things when we were kids. Disaster movie syndrome I guess. I'll credit it to the movie "Gone in sixty seconds" (the original). We use to blow up our hot wheels with fire crackers. DOH!!!

But the accessories were what made hot wheels so much fun. We had so much track we use to make a ramp from the top of our roof to the backyard (about 60' with a 20' drop) Unfortunatley the power pack (little staion they went through that kinda resembled a car wash to speed the cars up) wasn't strong enough to get the cars back on the roof.

One more cool toy I almost forgot about.....All Tonka Trucks and tractors. <---They were tuff.

Darn darn darn. As mentioned before we use to like to destroy things when we were kids. Disaster movie syndrome I guess. I'll credit it to the movie "Gone in sixty seconds" (the original). We use to blow up our hot wheels with fire crackers. DOH!!!

But the accessories were what made hot wheels so much fun. We had so much track we use to make a ramp from the top of our roof to the backyard (about 60' with a 20' drop) Unfortunatley the power pack (little staion they went through that kinda resembled a car wash to speed the cars up) wasn't strong enough to get the cars back on the roof.

One more cool toy I almost forgot about.....All Tonka Trucks and tractors. <---They were tuff.

I had one of those little power station boxes - two spinning shafts with a spongy styrofoam "gasket" that pushed the cars through; the only problem was that the "gasket" got squashed and couldn't "grab" the cars pretty darned fast.

And my original, flawless red Tonka cement truck is still at my mom's house, in mint condition, too.

Some other similarly great Tonka toys were GIVEN AWAY accidentally by my aunt when we lent them to her for use by her nephew. She thought we were giving them to her, and she in turn gave them away. Probably a fortune in lost Tonka toys....original, all-metal toys... *sigh*

-SoonerDave

I hate how most new toys are made of plastic. Tonka re-released many of its original metal toys and they were (and are) fantastic. Somewhere along the way, we lost our minds and allowed the safety folks to get way ahead of common sense, and some great, perfectly safe toys got lost in the shuffle.

I'll never forget some safetynik on one show a few years ago telling parents never to buy Tinkertoys at a garage sale - YES, original, time-honored Tinkertoys - because they were a choking hazard. She called them a "terrible" toy, IIRC. I about came unglued. My kids played with the same tinkertoys I had (and this lady was telling parents not to use), and they never choked on 'em, either. The only new Tinkertoys you could buy were these ridiculous, oversized things you couldn't build much of anything with - they were just too big. I remember building a record player with my original Tinkertoys, one that could actually play a record if you got close and listened to it.

I wonder when we changed so much that we let the worrywarts take over...alas...that's another thread, I suppose...

I wonder when we changed so much that we let the worrywarts take over...alas...that's another thread, I suppose...
Product liability lawsuits, that's when. With the manufacturers it really isn't about "safety", it's about protecting themselves from lawsuits.

I was reading this thread the other day and didn't have time to post. Nobody had mentioned Tonka Toys when I read the thread. Thank God it's since been mentioned as I don't know what my childhood would have been without my Tonkas. I remember having the dump truck, a big shovel truck, a plow and more. I played in the dirt all the time! I got to thinking, with video games, computers and 700 channels on cable TV, do kids play in the dirt anymore? If not, they're missing out! I built some pretty awesome freeways and neighborhoods right in my backyard.

Tonka Toys, Verti-bird fights and Hotwheels Oh yea!!