Specific Toy Memories

[Flack]

Have a specific memory of a specific toy? Share it here! Don't just say, "Oh, I had this toy once and it was awesome." Really try and share your memory with us -- take us back to that time with you!

...

I was 11 years old in 1984, the year Transformer toys hit stores. Transformers were huge and they were everywhere and everybody wanted them. I mean, I can tell you that I never read a Transformers comic book in my life and I don't even think I watched the cartoon or if I did it was because it was on before or after something I liked, and I still wanted a Transformer. In a way they were like Rubik's Cubes that did something, you know? I mean, you could twist on a Rubik's Cube for hours and even if you solved it, it was still a cube ... but a few short twists on a Transformer and you could turn a car in an ass-kicking robot that you could play with for a long time. Of course there were Go-Bots (my friends called them gay-bots) which were like the ghetto version of Transformers and even worse little cheap transforming things that usually only had like three steps to transform and usually about the third time you did it an arm or leg or wheel would break off and that would be the end of that.

Christmas morning, 1984, I awoke to find not one but two Transformers underneath the Christmas Tree. One was Optimus Prime (the big 18-wheeler one) and the police car, Prowl (?). I think even kids like me who didn't watch the show knew that the good guys "rolled" and the bad guys "flew" -- even so, sometimes I would pit the two of them against each other. Other times I would pretend like Prowl would roll up the ramps of the semi trailer and hide in there, a'la Spy Hunter. And sometimes they would team up and kick all the Go-Bots asses. That's just the way they rolled.

As a kid we had this Christmas tradition where after we opened presents, had breakfast and took a nap, we would all pile into the car and drive over to my grandma's house, 30 minutes away. As a kid, this tradition sucked because right after getting a million new toys we were whisked away from them and had to go to another house. (For the record, my grandma's dead and I would trade every toy in this house to go spend an hour with her.) To make it suck a little less, my parents had a rule where my sister and I could bring ONE toy with us. That year, I brought Optimus Prime.

We arrived and saw grandma and then my parents said we could go off and play and I did. I remember lying down in the floor and spreading out those instructions in front of me, going through the motions and trying to memorize the series of twists and turns that would get ol' Optimus into a robot and back. It always seemed pretty easy on the commercials and some of the knock-offs only had a few moves, but those early Transformers (at least in my memory) had a hundred thousand moves to remember. Twist this, slide this, rotate that ... and everything had to be done in the right order or you would end up with a semi-truck with a robot head sticking out the front of it, or a robot with jacked up legs. And trust me, no one is winning the robot wars while being pushed around in a robot wheelchair.

At one point during the morning I remember my Grandma coming in the back bedroom and asking me a million questions about Transformers and Optimus Prime. In retrospect I'm sure she couldn't have cared less and was just curious as to what this thing was that had me so interested in it, but I told her what I knew and she nodded a lot and smiled and then went back to talking to my mom or cooking us grilled Spam sandwiches (one of her favorites) or whatever it was she was doing.

I have no idea whatever happened to that toy and now that the old toys are so expensive I doubt I'll ever own one again, but whenever I run across one at a toy store or a picture of him on the web, I always think about that first day I got it and sitting down in my grandma's carpet, reading the instructions and trying to figure it all out.

[y-bot]

Well, I'm not quite the story teller that you are Flack but I'll give it a shot. In about 1980 when I was about 7 or so I got some Silly Putty for Christmas at my grandparents house. I played with it for awhile and when I was bouncing it around it went behind one of those giant console radios that everybody's grandparents used to have. We looked and looked but never found it. Fast forward to the mid 90's and my grandparents are getting new carpet. That Silly Putty somehow got under the carpet and migrated to the center of the room. I have no idea how that happened.

y-bot

[mnbren05]

I remember primarily getting a junior toy electric guitar when I was six. I spent the day sliding in and out of our kitchen (smooth tile floors made for excellent sliding) hammering away on the thing. Made god awful sounds (as I had no idea of how to play the thing) as I did so. My parents video taped me doing this as I wore neon orange/green sunglasses, a camo hat, a "Cowabunga Dudes!" TMNT shirt, snake print blue pants, and TMNT socks. I defiantly thought I was cool and my mother says I kept it up for a few weeks until my guitar mysteriously vanished one night when I went to bed. I now know that my dad got rid of it one night because my parents were tired of my antics, that came to a boiling point when I began swinging the guitar against the ground/doors.

[boatofcar]

Until I was 11 or 12, every year my dad's company, Union Carbide, would host a Christmas party for the employees. They would buy a ton of new toys and line them up against the 4 walls of a banquet room, turning it into a big toy store. All the employee's kids could choose one toy for free. Man, it was awesome. I got some great gifts, but the best one was....

http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/WOW_Basic_Set_Web.jpg

Lazer Tag. I only had one gun and one target, so instead of playing one on one, I set up elaborate shooting galleries with mirrors and other obstacles. My basement became like the Assault event on American Gladiators, with me darting from one place to another to get off a few rounds of the target. For my birthday the next year, I got this:

http://i11.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/2b/07/ad5a_1.JPG

which laid out elaborate plans for neighborhood battles. I never did any of it, but it was great for my imagination.

[y-bot]

Until I was 11 or 12, every year my dad's company, Union Carbide, would host a Christmas party for the employees. They would buy a ton of new toys and line them up against the 4 walls of a banquet room, turning it into a big toy store. All the employee's kids could choose one toy for free. Man, it was awesome. I got some great gifts, but the best one was....

http://home.comcast.net/~ferret1963/WOW_Basic_Set_Web.jpg

Lazer Tag. I only had one gun and one target, so instead of playing one on one, I set up elaborate shooting galleries with mirrors and other obstacles. My basement became like the Assault event on American Gladiators, with me darting from one place to another to get off a few rounds of the target. For my birthday the next year, I got this:

http://i11.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/2b/07/ad5a_1.JPG

which laid out elaborate plans for neighborhood battles. I never did any of it, but it was great for my imagination.

I can't find any better pictures than these but the kid on the lower left corner of the box went to my high school.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1986-2-Worlds-of-Wonder-Lazer-Tag-Kits-With-Guns_W0QQitemZ170307703257QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_De faultDomain_0?hash=item170307703257&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A16%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

http://cgi.ebay.com/Worlds-Of-Wonder-Lazer-Tag-Original-box-Complete_W0QQitemZ280317877120QQcmdZViewItemQQptZL H_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item280317877120&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A16%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

[RJ]

STOMPERS!!! The AA-battery run 4x4 vehicles. Xmas 1982 I got one of the playsets w/ the adjustable brown "dirt" linked tracks. Each end had a red turnaround w/ an arm that forced oncoming Stompers to the right, & out the left, then it would run the track again. The set had 2 90 deg turns & a bridge. Every track piece was slightly textured to add realism but didnt push the 4x4's capabilities.

Later on when Stomper tanks were introduced, I think they used some leftover track sets & put machine gun nests & armymen w/ them. The tanks were too big to fit the turnarounds so the track's ends were left open.

There's a pic somewhere of me setting it up in the hallway- I'm wearing my brand-new E.T. shirt w/ the long black sleeves, the left sleeve said "Phone Home" down its length.

[y-bot]

STOMPERS!!! The AA-battery run 4x4 vehicles. Xmas 1982 I got one of the playsets w/ the adjustable brown "dirt" linked tracks. Each end had a red turnaround w/ an arm that forced oncoming Stompers to the right, & out the left, then it would run the track again. The set had 2 90 deg turns & a bridge. Every track piece was slightly textured to add realism but didnt push the 4x4's capabilities.

Later on when Stomper tanks were introduced, I think they used some leftover track sets & put machine gun nests & armymen w/ them. The tanks were too big to fit the turnarounds so the track's ends were left open.

There's a pic somewhere of me setting it up in the hallway- I'm wearing my brand-new E.T. shirt w/ the long black sleeves, the left sleeve said "Phone Home" down its length.

I just sold a 1984 Schaper catalog with tons of Stompers pics:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&item=150328779265

That E.T. shirt sounds rad. When I was a kid I had a long sleeve t-shirt that said "AWESOME" down the sleeve. I think it was Seattle Blues brand and they made pinstriped jeans.


y-bot

[RJ]

From that catalog it looks like what I had was the Action Track but the turns & round ends were much more orange/red, & it didnt have those yellow bumps/logs on it. I had mine in '82 so I mustve had an earlier set; the military sets didnt come along until later too. I was trying to think of the manufacturer- Hasbro? Kenner? Never wouldve remembered Schaper. Are they even still around?

Would it help my story if I admitted flicking the lights on & off in my 6th grade classroom & announcing "hey everybody, I'm getting a Stomper set for Christmas!" to the whole class. Im sure the girls were really impressed. What a loser I was...uh...yeah...was...back then.

& yes, the Playmobil sets! I had one big Playmobil construction set w/ 8 guys, a truck & tons of tools.

[Flack]

When I was a kid we had this outlet store in town that sold all the open box/returned stuff from other stores. I remember getting a lot of toys from there that had TG&Y price tags on them. My parents took me there one day after a soccer game and bought me a Stomper, only it was jacked up and the rear wheels weren't hooked up and my mom lied to me and told me it must be a front-wheel drive model. My friends would make these elaborate tracks in the dirt in their backyard and mine could never make it up the hills because of its gimpy rear wheels. True story.

[RASK1904]

When I was..... like 6 my older brother was messing with me and he'd call Snow Job, Blow Job. I was 6 and didn't know what this was. So one day we where in the car going to town and he took Snow Job from me. And I yelled out give my Blow Job back! My mom looked at me like I was crazy. She said what did you say. I said Blow Job, that's his name. She didn't explain anything. So I never understood what had happened until a couple years later.

[PentiumMMX]

I'll go over 2 I can think of at the moment. I've had more, though these are the ones I remember the most.

The first one I can think of would be my remote-controlled Dodge Viper, which I received as a Christmas gift sometime in the mid '90s. It was awesome; it may have lacked off-road capabilities like the big, expensive Tyco R\C vehicles of the era, but the light-weight and aerodynamic design of the full-size version carries over to the battery-powered toy version. Unfortunately, I couldn't have a race between it and my Dad's vintage remote-controlled Ford Mustang, because they operated on the same frequency. It's floating around in my room somewhere...
--
One I remember was with a toy police car I had circa 1994 (I was 3 at the time). I remember how the lights would flash when you pressed the button, and it had a sticker showing a cartoon police officer with a dog where the windshield would be. Being curious about everything as a kid and how I liked to figure out how things worked (About around the same time as this story, I figured out the child safety outlets that where in my room in less than an hour following it's installation), I found a screwdriver and decided to open it up and see what made it tick.

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to put it back together after taking it apart, and the upper part got broken shortly after.

[slapdash]

When I was..... like 6 my older brother was messing with me and he'd call Snow Job, Blow Job. I was 6 and didn't know what this was. So one day we where in the car going to town and he took Snow Job from me. And I yelled out give my Blow Job back! My mom looked at me like I was crazy. She said what did you say. I said Blow Job, that's his name. She didn't explain anything. So I never understood what had happened until a couple years later.

Ha ha, you remind me of a story my mom used to tell me, though I don't remember it directly -- too young. Apparently, when I was like 4 or 5 (younger??), my favorite toy was a big red metal fire truck. Only, I had trouble pronouncing "fire truck", and called it my "fire fuck". So, one day Mom & Dad are expecting our preacher to stop by, and they look at each other and discuss how it's almost a certainty that I'm going to bring out my favorite toy to show it off, and certainly it will be embarrassing when I call it a "fire fuck". So, they hide it on me. Well...

Preacher shows up, and sure enough, I want to show off my favorite toy, only I can't find it. So I walk into the room and ask, "Where's my fire fuck?". Ha ha, oops. The best-laid plans of mice and men... Or mom & dad...

[namzep]

The only real specific toy memory I have is this really creepy clown doll that my aunt and uncle had at their house. I hated that damn thing and always hated going into the room that it was in. I've always wondered if maybe I was molested by a clown in a previous life as I really hate the damn things (though Killer Clowns is an awesome movie).

[Felixthegamer]

I have many fond memories of toys. It always took a large negotiations to get certain toys though. If it was something over 10$, forget about it, unless it was my Dad. He often traveled and I was at the mercy of my penny pinching Mom.

ROTJ was out in the theater and I was in the process of trying to get as many toys for it as possible. I already had Luke and the Rancor keeper. It was a week day and we traveled up to Target. My mom must have been in a good mood or maybe my negations were on that day, but I bravely picked up the Rancor. My brother was looking at toys with me and basically was rolling his eyes and telling me to dream on.

My mother was looking else where in the store and finally made her way to the toy section. I bravely asked for the Rancor. She tried to persude me that I could get two or three figures instead of him. She pointed out Jedi Luke. I explained I had him and that the Rancor would complete the scene. I asked if she had remembered the scene where Luke almost was eaten. She probably did not remember.

After what seemed like an eternity, but must have been 5-7 minutes, she said okay. It was a common tactic for me to "wait it out" and refuse to budge until they agreed to whatever toy I wanted, which was usually just an action figure or two. I was pleased as punch and still have the Rancor to this day. Strangely enough, he sits in my old bedroom at my parents house

[Rogmeister]

My toy days were all in the pre-videogames era. One thing I loved was the Etch-A-Sketch. I think I went through about 3 of those suckers. About 2 years ago, I started looking and found my local K-Mart had them so I bought one.

I also remember monster bubbles. It was the typical plastic ring you dipped in this solution and bubbles came out...except in this case the ring was a lot bigger so you got these huge bubbles and they were less stable than the small bubbles so they pulsed and morphed about, if you know what I mean.

I also know that now kids like small toys but in my days we had these huge toys. My brothre had a submarine that must've been at least 2 or 3 feet long. I think one of us had a helicopter toy about that size, too. I also liked a robot toy I had which I think was called Robot Commando or something like that.

[Lady Jaye]

As a kid, I didn't have a ton of toys. Sure, I had some, but compared to other kids, it wasn't a lot. However, I compensated for that by visiting my best friends, who did have a lot more toys. This is how I ended up playing with MASK, Real Ghostbusters and Voltron toys, even though I never owned any.

One day, I was playing with my friend Seb, who lived across the street. Our imaginations ran wild then, as it does for most 12-year-olds (or so it was back in 1988). We were in his basement; upon spotting his mother's stationary bike, we had the briliant idea to use it to torture Luke Skywalker. So there we were, decapitating Luke with the bike. I can't recall whether that really killed his action figure or if we ever able to put it back together properly ever again.

[zektor]

Well, GI Joe, He-Man, and Transformers were my big things back then (very early eighties) although it seemed I could only be devoted to ONE collection at a time. If my brother was collecting GI Joe, I was collecting Transformers. If I wanted to collect GI Joe, we would do an entire collection swap. And then back when I wanted Transformers again. Very strange when I think about it.

Not only were these collections massive, but I do not recall actually *playing* with them much at all. I mean, I didn't keep them in the boxes or anything, but I would open a given transformer, transform it once or twice, and then display it neatly on a shelf with it's weapons and safely store away the cut-out decoder cardboard for the said transformer. I had a little mini closet in one of the rooms in my house that had this shelving inside where I would "display" them. So, they really weren't on display per se, but only on display for myself and the lucky few that entered my "closet of doom".

Yeah, looking back I was a freakin' weird kid. Probably why I was picked on so much...haha.

[Sonicwolf]

I remember all of the Ghostbusters toys my sister and I had in the early 90s. I was born in '90 so I really dont know how we got them all LOL

I remember we had Mr. Stay Puft, The firehouse, all of the characters, several of the ghosts, the Ecto 1 vehicle and even a bunch of Real Ghostbusters View master slides.
We used to play with all of it so much as we watched the cartoon regularly.

[IronBuddha]

A few memories I have were my army men, Tonka dump truck and loader. Right when you stepped out my parents back porch there was a long row of bushes dividing us from the neighbors. I remember spending all kinds of hours playing with my Tonka toys in the dirt. Scooping dirt with the loader and filling the dump truck, I remember my parents getting upset because of the holes I would leave. Or even attempting to ride the dump truck either skateboard style or sitting on it but never got far because the bed would rise up and I'd fall on my ass.

In the back corner of the back yard I would play with my army men, why this specific corner you ask? Because the clothes drying pole was there, I would climb up it and throw my parachute squad off it. First ones I would always kill off was the guy holding the binoculars because I always thought he was the most useless. I would always forget them there and remember my dad running over them a few times with the mower. I would always try to find cool spots for my snipers and forget where I put them as well. Then I got into action figures and that was probably when I stopped playing with them, I remember a few times playing Army Men vs. Transformers but they slowly died off. My mom sold the house in 97, I always wanted to go back and see if I could dig anything up at those bushes and back cornerLOL

[boatofcar]

That Silly Putty somehow got under the carpet and migrated to the center of the room. I have no idea how that happened.


From Wikipedia:

"It can also flow like a liquid and will form a puddle given enough time."

Maybe it liquefied and flowed there :)

[Icarus Moonsight]

My father saved some of his childhood toys so that he could pass them on to his son(s). He kept two Fort Apache sets complete with the little plastic US Calvary, Indians and other accessories. Some sheet metal buildings like The Alamo, some old west saloon, general store, sheriffs office etc. A southern plantation with white plastic columns that snapped on the front. More little plastic guys, Mexican Army, Union and Confederate soldiers, Texas militia, American GIs and Japanese/German WW2... Tanks, half-tracks, transports, wagons, horses, tee-pees, defensive barriers... The whole nine yards. All that and his old Lionel train stuff. It was awesome.

The memory that has stuck with me for all this time was when we set up the train and put out the old west stuff all around it. It was a big deal to me at the time. We monopolized the entire living room! We played out a train robbery, an Indian skirmish or two and other western cliches. When my dad took control of the Indians he got clever and set them up on the couch for a tactical high ground. Pelting my guys with colored toothpicks/arrows. LOL

He saved this stuff for 20 some odd years, just for that day, or so it seemed. I did not have the grasp of that span of time or what it actually meant to save something for that long and such back then, but in hindsight, that was quite a grand thing he pulled off.

[mnbren05]

My father saved some of his childhood toys so that he could pass them on to his son(s). He kept two Fort Apache sets complete with the little plastic US Calvary, Indians and other accessories. Some sheet metal buildings like The Alamo, some old west saloon, general store, sheriffs office etc. A southern plantation with white plastic columns that snapped on the front. More little plastic guys, Mexican Army, Union and Confederate soldiers, Texas militia, American GIs and Japanese/German WW2... Tanks, half-tracks, transports, wagons, horses, tee-pees, defensive barriers... The whole nine yards. All that and his old Lionel train stuff. It was awesome.

The memory that has stuck with me for all this time was when we set up the train and put out the old west stuff all around it. It was a big deal to me at the time. We monopolized the entire living room! We played out a train robbery, an Indian skirmish or two and other western cliches. When my dad took control of the Indians he got clever and set them up on the couch for a tactical high ground. Pelting my guys with colored toothpicks/arrows. LOL

He saved this stuff for 20 some odd years, just for that day, or so it seemed. I did not have the grasp of that span of time or what it actually meant to save something for that long and such back then, but in hindsight, that was quite a grand thing he pulled off.

Sounds like a blast! Reminds me of my grandfather who had a collection of similar items and would once in awhile set them up and let the "kids" look at the collection. He even had some civil war figures he would set up in different recreations of battles like Gettysburg etc to teach us about history (he was a history teacher). Fond memories of them and the intricate hand painting on all the pieces.

[mathew154]

I remember primarily getting a junior toy electric guitar when I was six. I spent the day sliding in and out of our kitchen (smooth tile floors made for excellent sliding) hammering away on the thing. Made god awful sounds (as I had no idea of how to play the thing) as I did so. My parents video taped me doing this as I wore neon orange/green sunglasses, a camo hat, a "Cowabunga Dudes!" TMNT shirt, snake print blue pants, and TMNT socks. I defiantly thought I was cool and my mother says I kept it up for a few weeks until my guitar mysteriously vanished one night when I went to bed. I now know that my dad got rid of it one night because my parents were tired of my antics, that came to a boiling point when I began swinging the guitar against the ground/doors.