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

[UCweCONN]

Star Wars figures. Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker did some very bad things together. Who knew they were brother and sister?

 

[ThetaZoo]

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?

Mattel Fanner 50 cap guns with twin holsters. I killed a lot of guys with those bad guns.

 

[UCweCONN]

Stretch Armstrong.

 

[IndyMutt]

When I was a youngster, the family was too poor to afford toys. Dad would cut holes in my pants pockets so I'd have something to play with.

 

[UCweCONN]

When I was a youngster, the family was too poor to afford toys. Dad would cut holes in my pants pockets so I'd have something to play with.

Strange, my parents sewed all of my pants pockets closed so I would play with my toys....

 

[seanmc94]

We used to take rolls of caps and smash them with a hammer. Or we'd fire caps in a gun really fast and inhale the smoke

 

[cto44]

I am so old .. that there were no computers when I was a kid.... and no "action figures" or any stuff like that. I was like IMind... my favorite plaything was the great outdoors... we just ran around out there all day... and made up all kinds of silly games. In the winter, my favorite "toys" were my classic "Flexible Flyer" sled (all wood and metal -- no plastic) and my ice skates (which I used on ponds .... never on an indoor or outdoor rink, mainly because there were NO rinks in my small semi-rural hamlet). Wow, it sounds like I grew up in the 19th century.

 

[temery]

I am surprised nobody has mentioned marbles. I still have bags from the 60's.

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?

 

[Dove]

Our attic was the place to be all-day AFX slot car racing. Loved painting the cars to outdo the neybahood kidz.

Also, green army men and the Revolutionary War set. Plastic dinosaurs, too, as previously mentioned.

Daisy bee bee gun was vital for partaking in the war games out in the back woods.

A tobaggan. And a Rupp mini bike.

Ice skates.

Trac Ball. Frisbee.

Stratego, Monopoly, Battleship, Gnip Gnop, Mille Bournes (card game)

NFL Strategy game, StratoMAtic and APBA baseball games and of course...Wiffle freaking Ball !!

 

[temery]

BB guns were long before paintball. We'd chase each other around using a metal garbage can lid as protection. No eye protection, which kind of seems dangerous, at this point. The trick was pumping your gun without dropping your shield.

Our attic was the place to be all-day AFX slot car racing. Loved painting the cars to outdo the neybahood kidz.

Also, green army men and the Revolutionary War set. Plastic dinosaurs, too, as previously mentioned.

Daisy bee bee gun was vital for partaking in the war games out in the back woods.

A tobaggan. And a Rupp mini bike.

Ice skates.

Trac Ball. Frisbee.

Stratego, Monopoly, Battleship, Gnip Gnop, Mille Bournes (card game)

NFL Strategy game, StratoMAtic and APBA baseball games and of course...Wiffle freaking Ball !!

 

[ctchamps]

Anyone love the game Parcheesi?

 

[Dove]

BB guns were long before paintball. We'd chase each other around using a metal garbage can lid as protection. No eye protection, which kind of seems dangerous, at this point. The trick was pumping your gun without dropping your shield.

We wore many layers. No shields.

 

[temery]

We wore many layers. No shields.

Didn't help much once the CO2 guns came out.

 

[temery]

Anyone love the game Parcheesi?

Yup. Four months a year I lived with my grandmother on a lake in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of things to do outside, but if it rained, we'd all meet up and play board games. I still consider Parcheesi and Yhatzee as my favorites (although not considered board games by most). I now have Yhatzee on my iPad and iPhone, and play all the time.

 

[temery]

I remember as a kid in the winter going to Barney's Hill in Forest Park. We had a flexible flyer and a toboggan. My memory was of Barney's hill being huge. I drove by Barney's a couple years ago and could not believe how small it was. Great memories though.

I am so old .. that there were no computers when I was a kid.... and no "action figures" or any stuff like that. I was like IMind... my favorite plaything was the great outdoors... we just ran around out there all day... and made up all kinds of silly games. In the winter, my favorite "toys" were my classic "Flexible Flyer" sled (all wood and metal -- no plastic) and my ice skates (which I used on ponds .... never on an indoor or outdoor rink, mainly because there were NO rinks in my small semi-rural hamlet). Wow, it sounds like I grew up in the 19th century.

 

[joober jones]

My favorite board game would have to be Scrabble. Growing up we'd always play it after Thanksgiving dinner (which is a Monday where I hail from). I was one of six siblings and my parents played too, so we had to buy 2 Scrabble sets just so there'd be enough of those wooden letter-holding bars to go around.

 

[DaddyChoc]

the "Green Machine"... hook-sliding was great

 

[AZHuskiePop]

If you grew up in the 40's or 50 toys were few but playmates were everywhere. We had 25 boys within my age group.
you had baseball games with every position filled plus a few.

We played war a lot.The Nazis or Commies were the bad guys. One of my friends older brothers made wooden guns on a jigsaw. My favorite was the Thompson. The kid was talented.
Guns. were assigned before the game and turned in afterword.
I owned a baseball glove I iused from little league until high school.
Even though I was a varsity baseball player I never owned a bat.
My best buddy actually made one in woodshop which we used.
I wasn't allowed near machinery.
When wiffle ball became popular we used old broom handles for bats with electrical tape on the handles
My older brother, sister and myself all peddled papers. My brother bought a Daisy Red Rider (wooden handle) which I inherited along with some other stuff.

I saved enough money and bought a 3 speed German Bike.
That was a life changer.
we played football in the fall. My neighborhood had team when I was in Jr High that played other nrighborhood teams. We didn't have the material things but we had a lot of friends.

We rented ice skates when we went .

 

[mauconnfan]

We used to take rolls of caps and smash them with a hammer. Or we'd fire caps in a gun really fast and inhale the smoke

Hammer or a rock..............

 

[RichZ]

All toys were non-computer toys when I was a kid.

I'm going to list Lincoln Logs and an Erector Set as one item, because we had a big box with all the parts mixed together, and often built things that combined the two. Mostly Erector Set machines that knocked down Lincoln Log buildings.

A little pink rubber ball stamped "second". It was the default stickball/handball element of my youth, but we actually had a game everyone called 2nds, which was usually played 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, but could be played 1 on 1 in a pinch. The guy who was up faced a building wall from about 8 feet away and threw the ball just short of the crease at the base of the wall so it would bounce up and back. then he ran like hell for the base. Yeah, one base. If he defender(s) caught it on the fly he was out. If not, they had to tag him with the ball before he reached the base. Otherwise, he scored. There were variations with 2 bases and rundowns were involved, but mostly we played 2 on 2 with one base.
Every corner variety store sold those balls and I remember paying $0.16 for one. Obviously, they were rejects, but I can't recall ever seeing a top grade one for sale anywhere. Everyone thought they were the cores for tennis balls at the time.

U-Control airplanes. Nothing fancy. Whatever we could build from kits or by combining parts from ones we'd already crashed.Walked around with a cut up knuckle on your right hand all summer from backfires when trying to start them. And the fuel burned like hell when it got into the cut. Ah, the good old days!

Toy guns of all shapes and sizes. Mostly cap pistols, I guess. Epic battles between the forces of good and evil took place in factory lots all over the east side of Bridgeport, and the Korean war was won by the US on a weekly basis.

Fishing gear. Never really thought of it as a toy, but I spent more of my free time fishing than playing. Still do.

And all this made me thing of THE PARACHUTE. Saw a big orange parachute come down on a neighbors roof one day. Called the fire department, who came and got it down. It was a weather balloon radio. FD took the radio, and gave me the parachute! We used to climb to the top of a billboard with the chute and a 5 gallon bucket full of trap rock from the rail yard, and throw it off. Until the neighborhood idiot decided he didn't weigh any more than the bucket of rocks, and tried jumping with it, with his feet in the bucket. Broken leg, collar bone, ribs, wrist, etc. The cops took the damned chute away then.

 

[ZenConn]

Little did we know back then ....

Also had an original huge Millennium Falcon which my mother gave away after a few years ...

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 2

 

[RichZ]

I am surprised nobody has mentioned marbles. I still have bags from the 60's.

I inherited a bunch from an uncle. Got involved in a cut throat game of marbles and lost some. My parents took the rest away and grounded me.

 

[Revrat]

Finally, someone mentioned AFX cars. I spent every cent I made from my paper routes buying attachments for that thing. I still remember that smell when the cars burnt out.

STP racers (those are the ones with the pull cords)
Erector sets
Plastic army men for fun and fires
baseball cards
Then Pong came and ruined it all

 

[ctchamps]

Hammer or a rock..............

Both

 

[IndyMutt]

A spaldeen.
Growing up in NYC, a spaldeen was a must for stick ball and stoop ball.