13 Favorite Childhood Toys
Baby Alive- Every little girl celebrating Christmas 1973 wanted Santa to leave Baby Alive under the tree (that's me, as a 4 year old, in the picture). What made this doll so special? You would mix up a packet of the fruit flavored baby food and her battery operated mouth would "chew" it, before she pooped the residue back out in her diaper. For as long as I live, I will never forget the smell of that powdered food...it came in banana, cherry, and lime (I think). Ick.
Stretch Armstrong- Okay, "Stretch" actually belonged to my brother Bart, but I played with him enough to count him as one of my favorites. Poor Stretch met his demise one day when we, like most kids in the 70's, could no longer resist the urge to find out what he was made of. Some reddish, viscous gel. Boring.
Chinese Jump Rope- My grade school girlfriends and I played chinese jump rope every afternoon during recess. Just don't ask me how to play now...I have no clue!
Simon- Simon tested your ability to recall sequences of colors/musical tones on 4 levels of varying difficulty. As a child, I was good up to level 3...nowadays I'd be lucky to get out of level 1! Don't have the attention span that I used to.
Barbie- Yeah, big surprise here. This photo was taken around Christmas 1974, while I was (apparently) in the midst of playing "Camp Out" with Barbie and her friends. Check out that vintage psychedelic Barbie van in the foreground *laughing* Knowing me, I probably had Ken getting it on with Midge in the back. 
LiteBrite- "Lite Brite, makin' things with light/ Outtasite, makin' things with Lite-Brite" Was always fun until pegs started to disappear, and you couldn't use the correct colors to complete your picture.
Easy Bake Oven- Chocolate cake, cookies, and other goodies baked by a light bulb.Mmmmmm. Doesn't get any better than that.
Socker Boppers- Child abuse? Nah, it's just my cousin Michelle and my uncle Jerald mixing it up with Socker Boppers, the popular inflatable boxing gloves, at a birthday party circa 1975. Me? I liked them because I could beat the snot out of my kid brother and not get in trouble for it.
Big Wheel- The best thing about the Big Wheel? Speeding as fast as you could, and then slamming on the brakes so you would do bitchin' 360's. My brother and I all but tore up the hard wood floor in the dining room.
Tape recorder- Hey, it was a toy to me! I used to set up my recorder in front of the tv so I could tape my favorite shows and commercials. Also used it to record my friends, my cousins, my brother, and myself...all our conversations, our slumber parties, and all the stupid things we used to do. My only regret is that I didn't save the cassettes.
Evel Knievel Shock Absorbing Stunt Cycle: My brother Bart (check out those plaid slacks!) received the toy for his 3rd birthday in 1974, and we had all kinds of fun setting up exciting jumps for Evel to perform, including but not limited to: 1) a line of Matchbox cars and my Barbie van, 2) the ditch by the road, 3) my Barbie pool filled with water and plastic animals, and 4) a line of our friends, laying side by side. It didn't matter that he failed most of our stunts. What did matter was having the opportunity to be like our hero and act out our daredevil fantasies without having to worry about cuts, bruises, and broken bones. 37 years have come and gone, yet I can still remember the distinctive sound that motorcycle made when it was being juiced up in the docking ramp.
Toot-A-Loop Radio: The coolest thing about this transistor radio? You could wear it around your wrist as a bracelet, or hang it from the handlebars of your bike as you cruised the neighborhood. AM radio (WLS, baby!)) never sounded so good.
Farrah's Glamour Center: I'd like to personally thank the late Ms. Fawcett (RIP) and the makers of this toy for saving me the thousands of dollars I would have wasted had I decided on a career as a hair stylist. After just 15 minutes in my hands, Farrah was completely unrecognizable. I got bored styling her hair with rollers, so out came the scissors and...let me put it this way...she was rocking the "Flock of Seagulls" look a few years before the band.
I would have completely LOOOOVED Farrah's Glamour Center when I was a little girl. I'm so jealous. And thinking of envy, I never had my own Easy Bake Oven but I played along with my big sister's.
ReplyDeleteI would've loved to have been able to ride a Big Wheel! Alas...too old!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, let me say you look completely adorable in all these old pictures, WT!
ReplyDeleteSome of these toys we shared in common - - I loved Simon, I enjoyed LiteBrite, and I used to play with a tape recorder as well. Much like yourself, though, I regret not having saved those early cassette tapes.
My friend had a Stretch Armstrong but I never got into it much. I did have a Big Wheel at one point but I think I broke it at some point! lol....
Some of my other favourite toys from back then included Trouble (I would have tournaments with my grandfather and we'd keep a running score on the W-L count), Operation, Battling Tops (remember those?) and just about any game involving a tennis ball.
My sisters and I had a ton of Barbies growing up. I must have been about eight and my sisters were six when someone got the brilliant idea to buy us a Ken. We'd been getting along fine without one up until that point so we weren't really sure how to fit him into our usual Barbie games.
ReplyDeleteBeing creative children, we soon discovered that, if you threw Ken against the wall as hard as you could, all his limbs would pop off. Hours of our childhood were spent hurling poor naked Ken (clothes interfered with the limb-popping) at the faux wood paneling in the basement, only to put him back together so the next person could have a turn.
I'm sure if someone had realized what we were doing they would have put a stop to such an anti-Italian activity. I can hear them now, "No, no! Doesn't Barbie want to marry Ken and have a nice baby?"
Gal: You weren't missing much as far as the Easy Bake Oven was concerned :) I would've rather had a Snoopy Snow-cone machine.
ReplyDeleteJanet- I wish they would make adult Big Wheels!
Larry- Thanks WT! I don't recall Battling Tops. I have to Google it!
Aubrey- ROTFLMAO! That's a great use for Ken. I always found him kind of creepy.