Toys R Different

[BrainyBeauty]

I went shopping last evening looking for a gift for a friend's child and was a bit taken aback by the vastness of the store, the great number of choices available but mostly at the type of toys now on the market. It got me to thinking about the toys I played with during my childhood.

Does it seem that children today are not satisfied with simple pleasures? Do they demand instant gratification when playing nowadays? Is this perhaps because of a lack of imagination that they require their toys to be more 'advanced', more technology based?

What are your memories of toys and games from your youth? While I rarely got new or unique toys (most were hand-me-downs from my older brothers or cousins) I did have a few favorites:

*My etch-a-sketch - to this day remains a perennial favorite although I stink at drawing!
* I had a Skipper doll (the cheaper, younger version of Barbie!)
* A Charmin Chatty- or was it Chatty Cathy- doll that had a string to pull so you could hear 5 different expressions!
* My Casper the Friendly Ghost doll
* A little red scooter- which I wish we hadn't thrown away since it would be quite valuable today I'm sure. (Oh goodness, that reminded me of all the comic books we had back then too- I could have been a millionaire by now if my Mom hadn't thrown all those away too! )
* A hula hoop
* A slinky
* My brothers had the Lincoln Logs thingies and guns and cowboy hats and Indian headdresses and bows and arrows and the like.

Point is that we had to use our imaginations to play with these things. Today, everything has a computer chip that makes the toy move, talk, interact etc. What do you guys think of this? What did you play with? Err..., let me rephrase that! LOL What toys and games did you play as children?

 

[Guest]

I was at Toy's R Us with Ezzie just a few days back, and was surprised by the selection of toys today. (And I'm not even that old!! I was born in 77 and grew up in the 80s.)

I had my Dukes of Hazard big wheel
A BOY'S mountain bike
Hot wheels
Legos
Few barbie dolls

(Yes, I was a tom boy growing up. )

 

[Purple Haze]

I would have killed for one of these electric vehicles kids have now. I see a lot of the same board games that were around when I was a kid, "Operation" "Twister" "Clue" classics. My favorite toys:

Mortimer Snerd ventriloquist doll
Hot Wheels
Electric Football
Rock'em Sock'em Robots

My G.I. Joes were always covorting with Malibu Barbie.

 

[teresafannin]

I was a tomboy,as much as I could be in the 60's with no organized sports for girls in area. I had a few dolls, but loved to play with Legos. My favorite "girl" toy was movie star paper dolls from the 30's & 40's. I wish I still had them. I hated Chatty Cathy, I remember the talking doll episode of Twilight Zone & that doll scared me to pieces. I also hate life size porcelain baby dolls, they creep me out. I had a Francie doll, she was Barbie's cousin & had hair & eyes the same color as mine. Living in a small town, my favorite games were Red Rover, Kick the Can,Over the Roof Tennis Ball, all played in the street in front of my house with the neighbor kids. I still love to play with Legos & have every Lego set that I bought my son. As recently as last summer, he & his friends were building Legos all over the living room. I guess you are never too old for Legos.

My sister was always stealing my brother's GI Joes to be Barbie's boyfriends, Ken has always been pretty lame.

[Edited by teresafannin on 10-24-2000 at 03:45 PM]

 

[OUTSIDER]

my favourites were.....

Action man
mecano
lego
my foot ball, cricket ball, rugby ball.

 

[Stormystarr]

I had this doll that would learn to speak to you, if you said her name she would say "yes mommy", or if you told her to sing for you she would ask "which song mommy, and will you sing it with me?". She had a porcelin head, hands, and feet. She looked real, and to this day I will not allow anyone to bring a porcelin doll into my house, they look too real! They scare the hell out of me!!!

But to anwser your question, when I was little I was sort of a tomboy so I used to steal my brother's G.I. Joe stuff and torture Barbie with it. I was an evil child at times.

 

[Mustang Sally]

The absolute BEST was the Easy Bake Oven. Oh, the pride of presenting a miniature batch of cookies or a brownie or cake made all by your five-year-old self! And they were always so yummy! It's still around in some shape or form. I think now it might be the Easy Bake Microwave.

Another big one of my childhood was Cabbage Patch dolls. Unfortunately, I never owned a real one. Mine had pink hair and often lost her head - literally. *sob*

 

[Cheyenne]

Easy Bake oven, hands down #1 favorite
Chatty Cathie (original of course)
Barbie dolls
playing cards to play canasta and Kings' corners (don't know that I remember either of them now)

 

[Adoratrice]

!. Lightbright
@. Easybake oven
#. Holly Hobbie Colorforms
$. The very first bendable posable Barbie
%. Sit & Spin
^. Spiro-Graph(?)
&. Weeble-Wobbles
*. Pick-up-sticks
(. etch-a-sketh
). Mad-libs

HEY! I think I just made out my kids Christmas list!

 

[Mustang Sally]

I forgot about Lightbright! I had one of those too. Ooooh pretty colours!

 

[forgetunome]

My favorites were:

Betsy Wetsy
My little blue tricycle
and all my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy Mystery books!
Skipper doll
Dark Shadows board game
clackers
pogo sticks

Awww the memories!

 

[Adoratrice]

ohhh I forgot my Baby Alive....I took her head off to see what made her work...ummmmmmm uuhhh nevermind.

 

[CW]

Favorites as a youngster,,,

Lincoln Logs,,, none of that plastic stuff,,, real wood ones,,, my kids still give a set every couple of years,,,

Electric trains,,, Lionel was about the only thing out then,,, my cousin and I used to have a huge set

Tonka trucks,,, road construction sets were my favorite

AND, when my son reached 8 I started buying HIM Legos for Christmas,,, now that he is an adult, he buys ME Legos each year as well,,, talk about two kids on Christmas morning!

 

[goddess_euphoria]

Litebrites! YES!!! (still have mine!)

Atari (think it's in my parents basement somewhere)

Legos (a timeless classic)

Dolly Pops (the little dolls that had hard plastic clothes you could pop on & off )

Barbie (I had this old toy jeep that wasn't even supposed to be for barbie, but it fit her quite nicely! So she'd be on safari in the back yard!)

Hotwheels! (yup, I was a bit of a tomboy too! Used to play with them in the dirt pile that was our front yard, making highways & stuff!)

 

[BrainyBeauty]

Ohohoh! Yes. Doggone it. I always wanted an Easy Bake oven and never got one. I am soooooo envious.

Also I always wanted that Playdoh thing where you could turn a crank and the stuff would come out in all different shapes.

 

[Alyrahh]

I could never keep toys. My older brother was horrible, he would break my dolls heads off, drag my stuffed animals through the mud puddles, and broke every hard plastic toy I ever had. As a result I turned to reading, and hiding my books so he wouldn't rip the pages out of them.

I think I'll go drive past his house and ball-bat his mail box.

 

[*Eve*]

When I was a kid, my favorite toys were my easy bake ove, my cabbage patch kid doll, and my barbies. Toys that are actually still quite popular so I think that most kids do enjoy the simple things.

 

[goddess_euphoria]

Oh! I always wanted some of those cool play-dough things too!!

 

[OUTSIDER]

Buckeroo and Kerplunk