Very OT: Favorite non-computer toy(s) growing up

[Kitaman]

Was lost in youtube the other day and checked out old toy commercials of my time. And I remembered playing with (pre-computer days):

Colorforms
Silly Putty
Etch a Sketch
Mouse Trap (my favorite)
GI Joe

Just a few going back memory lane. I'm sure young kids nowadays would probably last 10 seconds with some of these.

Anyone out there remember their non-computer toys when they were a kid?

 

[alexd]

This is an original thread...thanks kitaman. First of all, to give some perspective, I was born in 1963.

• The Real, full size GI Joe (specifically the mobile support vehicle and associated pieces)
• Battleship game
• Tonka trucks...(the metal ones that you could slam around and even injure other kids with)
• magnifying glass (for burning paper & ant hills with the sun's rays) he, he
• I loved building models (Revell) - mostly battleships and aircraft carriers.

 

[61cygni]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures
LEGOs


I bet I can guess the favorite toy for the old bastards on this board:

 

[seanmc94]

Evil Kinevil wind up rocket cycle
Super Jock
GI Joe
Wiffle Ball(college too)
Tyco Race Tracks

 

[Husky25]

Love this thread...

Legos
Adventure People (anyone else remember them? They were GI Joe sized and came with vehicles like motor boats, pick up trucks, vans, and dirt bikes).
Star Wars figures (As a kid, if I'd know how valuable the originals would be in their vacuum wrapped package...we still would have ripped them open...)
Matchbox cars
*M*A*S*K* toys (There was an after school cartoon right after GI Joe).
Whiffle ball/Catching the tennis ball off the side of the house (to the chagrin of my father, I broke many a clapboard siding pieces in my youth).

Then I turned 9 and we got a Nintendo for Christmas.

 

[mauconnfan]

Wiffle Ball/Mad up cotton ball
Tinker Toys
Nerf Basketball
Tonka Trucks
Colorforms (you reminded me of that one wow!)
And all the GI Joe stuff..........

 

[IMind]

the woods... seriously just screwing around in the outdoors... <- 95% of my time as a kid was spent doing this
baseball and a bat
LEGO
Transformers
I aspired to build models... but usually just end up with mishapen blobs of plastic and glue
GI Joe
Star Wars toys

 

[alexd]

YES!!! and Tinker Toys!!!!

(thanks mau)

 

[BugsyCT]

- Nerf football
- Nerf basketball
- Wiffle Ball (countless games in the backyard)
- billiards & ping-pong (lucky enough to have a table at the house as a kid)
- Vibrating Electric table football game where the players spin around
- that Table hockey game where the players spin around
- Lite Brite
- Big Wheel
- Star wars figures
- Baseball & football cards
- Wacky Packages & Crazy Labels
- can' t believe somebody else here remembered the Adventure People
- Silly Putty
- Play-Doh
- Etch-A-Sketch
- Weebles
- Monopoly
- Stratego
- Mouse Trap
- Scrabble
- Trivial Pursuit
- Chutes & Ladders
- Legos
- Toss Across
- Mad Magazine & Cracked
- Lincoln Logs

Yeah, good times. Then the video game era rolled in and took over.

 

[specialisthusky]

I spent 90% of my time on a diamond back stunt bike and a skate board as a kid. Not sure how I made it out alive but at least I learned not to let my kids have stunt bikes and skateboards.

I was big on Lego sets too.

 

[husky99]

Lego
Risk
D&D
Loved my tony hawk original design
Big wheels
Huffy
Monopoly
Robotech
Voltron
Camping
Fishing with my dad

 

[BearJWS]

A Basketball (duh). Baseball, Bat & Glove. Football. Kickball, Tennis.
Badminton, Croquet, Bocchi, Jarts, Trackball, ZimZam (if anyone remembers that)
Mask, Snorkel & Fins, Fishing pole, Waterski, Snow Skis, Bikes (BMX), Skateboards.
Maybe these are considered sports or activities, but if it was outside, I probably did it.

When I was stuck inside… Hmmm
Those cars that used to have a plastic rip chord that you’d thread through it & pull out and they’d take off & jump them over ramps & smash together in the air, then the pieces would break off & you’d put them back together and do it again. What were they called? Race Car tracks. Matchboxes, Tonka Trucks.

Army Guys, Lincoln Logs, Wooden Blocks, Tinker Toys, Board games (many). Air Hockey. Toy Guns (Cap & Spark kind).

Pong, Atari (not sure anyone under 35 would know them)

Sticks & Cardboard boxes…

 

[Dogbreath2U]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures
LEGOs


I bet I can guess the favorite toy for the old bastards on this board:

Only the rich kids had these.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

We had kickballs, tinker toys, lincoln logs, army men (green vs. grey, civil war and WWII), toy cars and race tracks, softball, toy guns, including the extremely cool and advanced "Johnny Seven One Man Army Gun:"

 

[Husky25]

Dabbled in D&D, but it never took. I remember playing a narrative D&D game on the computer, but there was no dice roll for it.

 

[husky99]

Garbage pale kids and xmen

 

[Kitaman]

Wow, no Erector sets (with the funny wrench)?

Am I the only one who wanted and played with a science kit (microscope and chemicals)? Or one of these:

 

[Coach McGurk]

Does anyone remember M.U.S.C.E.L.things?
Mad Balls?
...I rocked GI Joe (I had 2 friends with the aircraft carier), Transformers (even some GOBOTS; Cy-kill, leader one, etc), I also had adventure people! Mix in many star wars guys, Mask people, C.O.P.S (fighting crime in a future time), about 65 smurfs, my indiana jones (with the spring loaded arm for his gun and whip) and some Marvel Superheros (secret wars, I believe), a few D&D dragons, my robotech cyclones and veritechs, AND a big bucket of wooden blocks! I would make battle grounds!

Intertec Water guns (the look, the feel, the sound...so REAL), Lazer Tag (Photon was better, the sensors were in the gun), I could go on and on....

But I always had an Atari 2600 when I was 3 (not cool enough for Coleco or intelivision) and a PC by the time 1980 rolled around.

 

[Bezzz]

I grew up pre-lego so it was tinker toys, lincoln logs, bricks and erector sets.

Hmm, now I know why I became an architect.

 

[Coach McGurk]

Anyone have any of these obscure things?
I had SKULK.....collest toy. It fit on your hand like a glove.....

 

[CTBasketball]

Lincoln logs and erector sets.

 

[Deepster]

I was big into The 6 Million Dollar Man and loved this:

 

[intlzncster]

GI

Was lost in youtube the other day and checked out old toy commercials of my time. And I remembered playing with (pre-computer days):

Colorforms
Silly Putty
Etch a Sketch
Mouse Trap (my favorite)
GI Joe

Just a few going back memory lane. I'm sure young kids nowadays would probably last 10 seconds with some of these.

Anyone out there remember their non-computer toys when they were a kid?

Second GI Joe.
Star Wars action figures
Transformers
He-Man
Robotech
GoBots
Voltron
Mash

Honorable Mention: KISS action figures

Dishonorable Mention: Cabbage Patch Kids. Most overrated piece of ever.

 

[mauconnfan]

My favorite "stuffed animal" was my Flipper the dolphin!!...........I played Sandy on my bed the floor was the ocean.....LOL

 

[TRest]

Hot wheels
building ship and car models, until they changed the glue to lemon flavor and it wouldn't work
Wood burning kit
Melting plastic army men with woodburning kit
Bobby Hull hockey (players that get pushed on rods over slots on the surface)