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Toys
doubledragon
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in Sports Talk
What kind of toys were popular when you were growing up? I know this is a weird subject for a thread, but the NFL offseason is getting rough!
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doubledragon
Posts: 23,049 ✭✭✭✭✭
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"Toys R Us" was the go to store during my day, there was a Toys R Us right up the street from where I live right now that I went to when I was young, and it recently went out of business.
Voltron was very popular when I was young, there were 4 different lions and you put them together to form the big robot!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were also very popular, I had them all at one time.
I even had the Turtle blimp, you would put air into it and hook the figures onto it and fly around the city fighting crime!
Yes, I was a spoiled kid, I also had the Turtle party wagon. You could put the figures in side and ride around in it, and the top opened up and the side doors opened up.
At one time, I also I had a miniature pool table much like this one in my room.
I also had a bunch of GI Joe figures, Cobra Commander and Destro were my favorites. These go for ridiculous prices on ebay if they're stilll in the original package unopened.
I also had the GI Joe Cobra silent castle, you could put the figures on the inside and outsude and attack the enemy when they arrived at the castle!
And of course, the GI Joe headquarters, the good guys base.
And the GI Joe mobile command
center, it was a vehicle that could ride around and you could transform it into a base.
I loved Lego's as a kid and even more when my kids were growing up. At one point in time I think I bought my son close to all but the most expensive Star Wars Lego sets over a 4-5yr period and eventually all of the pieces just disappeared lol. What were originally 1.5K piece spaceships ended up losing literally all of the pieces over time lol. There was even one time my son asked if we could superglue one of his favorite smaller spaceships and once started that turned into an absolute hour show.
I collected GI Joes when I was a kid too and I actually ended up trading all of my Joe stuff to these three brothers for all of the sports cards. The cards were 85-87ish and mostly beat to crap but I didn't mind because there were plenty of players from our local Boston/NE teams and I wasn't ever going to play with those action figures again so I was happy at the time.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
Only in the US. Toys R Us still exists in Canada
I had a lot of Lego sets as a kid. We had a city set up in our family room with over a dozen buildings plus cars and the like. Spent many, many an hour recreating scenes from the Dukes of Hazzard in that city. I don't buy Lego anymore but I am fascinated by the sets. I watch a couple Lego channels on Youtube. The sets available now are incredible.
I also had an original Rubik's Cube as a kid. Learned from a book how to solve it and had a side business of solving cubes for kids at school. This is one that's never left me - I retained how to solve the cube over the years. About 5 years ago, I read a book that got me interested in solving for speed and now I organize and compete in Rubik's Cube speedsolving competitions. My fastest time in competition is 16.14 seconds - nearly 7 seconds faster than the world record I saw Minh Thai set on the TV show "That's Incredible" back in 1982. Modern cubes are nothing like this one, that's for sure:
GI Joe was my favorite too...but the taller version.
Most fun making rubber bugs and other animals........
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Electric Football was another favorite. I had this set (Cowboys vs Steelers)
.....
I haven't read through the thread yet, but I just opened it and I see it is already popular. Great idea DoubleD! Good work!
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
hey Chicago1976,
Tudor Electric Football was pretty cool…
and still is…
Erector sets, Lincoln Logs, Pick Up Sticks, GI Joe, Hot Wheels cars, Match Box cars, model trains (Lionel and HO), balsa wood planes, sling shots, .22 rifles, mumbly peg, cap guns, army men, various types of cars and trucks made out of metal, space trainers, croquet, frisbees, banana seat Sting Ray bicycles that we would do Wheelies on, baseball cards that we would attach to the spokes of our bikes with clothes pins. magnifying glasses that we would use to focus the sun's rays onto a single point that we would then place over an insect to see it burn, or over a dried leaf to make a fire, or fireworks that we would ignite and throw just for fun (including M-80s), etc., etc.
When I was a kid there was little if any "electronic games" (except for "Operation").
Fun times.
Big Boy Toys, but toys non the less, and what toys they are!
Maybe not a toy but as an only child this was the greatest Christmas gift ever! I spent many hours honing my fielding skills with this. It made my reflexes and reaction times better as well. I could sure hawk a ball in the outfield in my day!
Wrong pic. lol
This is it. lol
Wasn''t really into toys after I got one of these.........
Oh yeah - I remember that when you had that "cotton football" in the QB's "Hand" and then turn the machine off and try to hit the receiver with the cotton wad - how impossible.
Reminds me of being in High School when we played "Paper Football" at lunch time............
If anybody want's to remember how to make one..........
https://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/how-to-make-a-paper-football-flick-football.html
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Transformers were hot at the time, Optimus Prime.
Thank you sir, I love the world of toys, a lot of great posts already!
Had some of these growing up, remote controlled cars!
I remember we had a big Slip and Slide also, and we would turn on the sprinklers on it and keep a flow of water on it and slide downhill on an little raft, it was kind of like this one.
I had one of those...it was called a Pitch Back.
Damn!.....I wore that thing out! Nobody to play catch with here on the ranch......I loved that baby.....I had a dog named Punchie. German Shepherd. He would sit and watch. When I missed .....he would go fetch it. AND......We couldn't afford baseballs.....they were out of the price range for us.....so.......I would throw oranges!
The Old Orange Grove
Still here....the Hydrant Grandsons throw those oranges today just like I did.....Unlimited Supply!
My childhood was good.....no money..... No Big Deal!......I didn't know what money was. Wonderful life!
Who remembers these, the scooters with the big tires!
Hey, guys.....I don't want to high jack this thread but......here goes...If you have never eaten a perfectly ripe orange fresh off the tree at dusk ....you don't know what an orange tastes like. Same with orange juice made from oranges fresh picked on a February morning when the temperature is around 35°.....That stuff is pure liquid candy!.....Knock you're socks off!.....Jet Fuel!...The stuff you buy at the store..... Oranges or juice......Man,...that stuff might as well be turpentine as compared to the real thing....... NO JOKE!
P.S. California Washington Navels are the best!! SWEET!....Florida Oranges are ....SOUR!.....YUK!
I had one of these too, the Gameboy.
I love it Dragon Master!!!!
When I was a kid we sort of did the same thing except we used pieces of cardboard!....Like a desert snow sled! We would go up on that hill in the background of this photo,.... Left side in shadow. It is really steep! AND.....YAHOO!....Bumpy ride down.... but what a BLAST!....!
The Hydrant Grandsons from Idaho were down last week... They have snow, snow, and more snow to sled on......but they couldn't wait to go up on that hill to go " Cardboard Sleding!". They said it was better than doing it on the snow!
Traded a brand new bb gun I got for Christmas for my neighbors beat up green ranger sword. Got a bit of a whoopin for the trade and was forced to trade it back.
I haven't watched it in years, but I remember the kids at the Little League World Series used to slide down that hill on pieces of cardboard, they had a blast, you could see them out there sliding down the hill during the games!
I had a couple of these in the mid 70’s
A lot of great answers here ( not that there are any wrong ones lol). Thanks everyone!
I was born in the 70s. So late enough that I had electronic toys, but not so late that I was playing with a cell phone (like I see kids do nowadays. A lot of what I have seen here I played with. Not mentioned so far are balls..lol
My first electronic game
....
This. This was my favorite as a kid.
I loved playing jarts! A few years ago I wanted to get another set like I had as a teenager in the 80's but didn't realize they had been made illegal.
I had the same exact one!
The View Master mesmerized me as a 5 year old!