The possibilities were elatingly endless. Back in the late ’60s or early 70’s, I had a helicopter toy that ran along a twine that was strung around the room. The biggest problem with this toy is that it didn’t have any real padding, so kids and adults were basically hurling themselves onto a thin piece of plastic over pretty hard grass. He also bought me this teeter totter that was for 2 to 4 kids – you rocked it back and forth it and it would start moving all over the grass, several times we flipped the thing!! Damn that was dangerous, but the burning wood smell lives on in my memory! But this page has some similar cereal premium figurines. This toy used a totally different type of goop and plastic molds, into which the heated Plastigoop was poured. http://www.angelfire.com/biz/toysoldierhq/Premiums.html. Features. A resin cast is formed when resin and a chemical catalyst are combined to form a hard, plastic-like material. Kids, including your truly, would get their jollies (mainly during school recess) by swinging them up and down so they banged against each other, making a clacking sound. I just discovered a company in Michigan revived this toy in 2010 and they are available online. I cannot believe I had a resin pouring kit when I was 10 or 11. Speak & Spells stopped being produced in the '90s, and now there are hundreds of apps that kids can use that do the same thing — but without the weirdly endearing robot voice. It was a swing seat but one child climbed a ladder and sat on a top seat while the kid on the bottom stabilized the whole thing. Learn how your comment data is processed. Two colorful acrylic spheres measuring about 2 inches in diameter were suspended from two strings. We’d end up in the grass and that was the end of the ride. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . Another great Mattel toy my brother and I had was the Strange Change Machine. They were SO loud once you got them going. I will bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. They would NEVER go back to the original shape once they were uncompressed. They were whitish in colour on a flat bottom, any idea were they came from? Another favorite was pulling you out of the room by your ear. I also had Creeple People and Incredible Edibles, but neither of these was as cool as the original Thingmaker. Beloved '90s Stores That No Longer Exist. Below are some of the toys we played with in the 60’s that were “must haves” for kids: • G.I. Steel dollhouses were first introduced around 1948 and dominated the 1950s decade, continuing into the 1960s, before being replaced with plastic or wood. After that, you rolled into the grass. Gobots. Pressing a handle on the side of the unit created a vacuum, which caused the plastic to be sucked down over the mold and form a shape. Sometimes we would get under it and pretend to be turtles. My best friend had one, and also a four-seater Whirly Bird. Here are a few familiar names that might have delighted you as a kid, but that no longer exist. While modern dolls put these to shame, they retain a sense of nostalgia we can't quite shake. We had a backyard roller coaster set from Montgomery Ward. The tube could be attached to any ordinary garden hose so water would project down the surface and create a slippery surface. Eventually our school banned them, no surprise. I never saw the roller coaster, however, that sounds like it would have been fun. I cannot remember anyone wearing a bike helmet when I was a kid and somehow my friends and I all escaped with minor injuries. It dropped about 6 feet then went over a little hill and then the track ended but the wheels were rubber with flanges inside the rubber tires to ride on the tubular rails. According to the 1993 CPSC recall, “Because of their weight and height, adults and teenagers who dive onto the water slide may hit and abruptly stop in such a way that could cause permanent spinal cord injury, resulting in quadriplegia or paraplegia. OK, you probably didn’t own this exact Luke Skywalker action figure with double-telescoping lightsaber when you were a kid, because there are only 20 known toys in existence. Their popularity could be attributed to their emotional manipulation — their hangdog eyes and sad face hanging out of a cardboard doghouse were impossible for kids to ignore on the shelf. Micronauts, as established by a Marvel comics storyline, are too small for the naked eye to see and are constantly raging war against the evil Acroyears. Between 1973 and 1991, seven adults and one teenager reported injuries suffered while using Slip ‘N Slides including neck injuries, bone fractures, quadriplegia, and paraplegia. Clackers were popular in the '60s and '70s and were very simple: just two acrylic balls attached to each end of a string, meant to be smacked together loudly. For the new millennium, this was a huge deal. They were such a hot toy that Wham-O could hardly keep up with the demand, at one point churning out 170,000 balls every day. Our Whirly-Bird eventually rusted out and my parents tossed it, much to our dismay, as well as Joan’s. However, after a mail-in campaign by fans, Tiger Electronics created a real version of the Talkboy, which debuted in 1993. My friend Joan absolutely loved this wondrous backyard toy and we would play on it endlessly during the summer. You could finally take your favorite video games with you on the go. The mixture would dry in minutes without heat. According to The Guardian, the earlier iterations of the Game Boy were discontinued in the early 2000s, and the Advance followed in 2007. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The reformulated Plastigoop did not work well, the bugs and insects were shoddy, and the process was painfully slow, so it went kaput fairly quickly. I too had this roller coaster and it was great! And I had an incident with younger boys in the neighborhood chasing me on their bikes and trying to knock me off mine. When you tired of them, you would heat them up again, and cram them into a little vise that compressed them back into a cube. Here are 49 once-beloved stores that don't exist anymore. I had this! Making resin casts is a fun and popular craft project that can be done at home. I don’t remember anyone getting hurt, do you? That’s certainly the case with the awkward … It was an exciting time for play for all ages – not only were classics like dolls and teddies getting clever new updates, games consoles were appearing, giving us new technological addictions too. Share the love. The top child would lean over to start the motion and the whole thing would rotate like a Ferris Wheel, shooting the kid on the bottom to the top and around and around. I recall the tubular tracks being a dull orange color, with a total drop of about five feet, and one good “hill” after the initial shallow drop, before the flat run-out. It is a sad lesson: the things we love will come and go, even beer. In retrospect, I cannot believe I was allowed to play with a tin toy with sharp edges, not to mention the paint likely contained lead. I don’t know what to call it, but it does have Marx embossed on it. Too many bells and whistles have changed why this simple toy was so popular to begin with. The product is intended for children, not adults. (us old folks) . I have no idea where my folk’s got ours but we lived in Greenwich, Connecticut at the time, and they probably bought it in 1962 maybe. The came in small packets of puffed rice. Thank you. And biking continues to be a dangerous activity, but at least far more kids are wearing helmets now. I had one of these and lost interest after using it a couple of times. One huge problem was stopping the thing. I wonder if today’s kids really enjoy this as much as we did – perhaps late Baby Boomers are the primary customers. Some of this might be for the better, like discontinuing Clackers, but others toys are still sorely missed, like Pound Puppies. You pushed a release and down you went, all of five or six feet at a gentle slide angle. I had one and thought it was the greatest. There's something cute and retro about their bubblebum pink ears and digital eyes. my web blog … norske spilleautomater (Lily). Halili was afflicted with infantile paralysis, no one from his sons took over the business, hence the death of the brand. Boys still loved to play war. It could recognize your voice, perform tricks, and even talk to other Poo-Chis. It needed to be "fed," and would have a different personality depending on how often you trained it. Some of the better antique towns have issues of the old catalogs from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. In comparison, Barbies are 11.5 inches. Louis Marx was among the manufacturers of these super cool steel houses. It is said that when Gov. Before television was 24/7 and five-hour marathons of Law & Order and Hoarders didn’t exist, people used to go to bed no later than 1:30 am, when television programming ended for the evening. See more on this topic Comments. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. I’m thankful I’m not a parent since I absolutely can’t stomach the insanely overprotective style of parenting nowadays. People looked at me like I was crazy. Even though you can do pretty much everything a Talkboy could do on your smartphone, you won't look as cool as Kevin McCallister and his gadgets. I had the wood burning set too. Ridiculously dangerous!! The only problem was that sometimes the balls would smack together so forcefully that they'd explode. since. First developed in 1978, the Speak & Spell was a must-have for any kid learning how to spell. Because molten plastic is totally skin-friendly. The company that manufactured them, Galoob, received 170 complaints before recalling them. Plastic toys eventually overtook the metal Erector Sets, which were discontinued in the '80s. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Overnight Camp Ushers in the End of Carefree Days and Childlike Innocence, http://boingboing.net/2015/07/20/why-the-strange-change-machine.html, http://www.angelfire.com/biz/toysoldierhq/Premiums.html. It was a lot of fun, but no way it would pass modern safety standards today. A bunch of us almost killed ourselves that summer until the whole apparatus collapsed! It attached to a water hose and when turned on, allowed you to run around underneath the falling water. I had something like Dip-a-Flower, think it was called Flower Drops, used it once, hated the smell of the liquid used to form the flower “skin”. Thanks much – I changed the verbiage accordingly to reflect that! Who knows, maybe the film will inspire a new version of the toy. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. I have this and wondered how much it would be worth? The metal doll house which I had. Considering the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) didn’t exist before 1972, late Baby Boomers got away with playing with a lot of toys in the 1960s-early 1970s that would never pass muster today. There were a lot of “hot” must have toys in the 1960’s. Cigarette ads featured babies and parents together. These toys will make you wonder how these toys ever made it to stores or maybe why we don’t have these toys anymore. But all good things come to an end. Now, Skip-Its are hard to come by in their original form, if not impossible. I recall there was a lot less violence and no gang activity way back then, and I grew up in Orange County, CA. I haven’t been able to find any information about this toy since. You wanted your ride to continue as long as possible down the driveway, which as someone mentioned, was a good deal. Leggys were 10 inches long, with legs that consisted of at least 75% of that. It needs some fine tuning, but is a great workout! I completely forgot about it but I’d spend hours heating those little plastic pieces and watching them unfold. I still have the original 4-seater Whirly Bird riding toy and am wondering if anyone can direct me to an owners manual? Sky Dancers, introduced in 1994, were dolls attached to a plastic base. As long as there have been kids, there have been toys: in fact, kites and yo-yos have been around since 1000 BCE. The faster you pushed and pulled the bar, the faster it would spin. there's always some toy kids are obsessed with, kites and yo-yos have been around since 1000 BCE, smack together so forcefully that they'd explode, received a makeover as well as Nickelodeon commercials, inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998, popularity of Pound Puppies was declining, enduring doll brands of the past six decades, earlier iterations of the Game Boy were discontinued, Echo dolls were only produced from 1962 to 1963, 22 photos that people born after 1999 won’t understand. A quick glance at a 70s-era toy catalog looks a whole lot like a 60s catalog. While HitClips were digital, Pocket Rockers were like carrying miniature 8-Tracks in your pocket. Kids have been made into wusses because everyone is so ridiculously overprotected. The '60s was the golden age of the tan–and no UV protection. The toy was a long sheet of thin plastic with a lengthwise heat-sealed tubular fold running down one side. HitClips were mini stereos … But who knows? Pam – Isn’t it fun to see these relics of our childhood. So glad I grew up when I did. By 1988, the popularity of Pound Puppies was declining and they eventually disappeared from shelves. Does anyone remember a toy that you sat in and rocked forward and backward until it went head over heels? Micronauts were Transformers-esque action figures with their own interesting backstory. Meccano, one of the original competitors of Erector, bought the company in the 2000s and currently sells its own version, but it's just not the same. They were off the market by 2000 — but let's be honest, all the best toys have a little edge to them, and watching the Sky Dancers fly was super fun. Even though Cathy could be considered unnerving today, she was downright innovative in 1959, and there are plenty of kids who grew up in the '60s that love and miss their Chatty Cathy dolls. Many of the toys that were popular during the 60s are still being played with today; things like the Barbie and Ken dolls, Troll dolls, Disney plush dolls and LEGO bricks can still be found in most American homes with small children. Creepy Crawlers taught valuable life lessons like "try not to burn the shit out of yourself" and also "toxic things exist". Your email address will not be published. Wow – think I had the same roller coaster when I was a kid in the 1960s; even have a family movie of me riding it. When iPods and other mp3 players hit the scene, HitClips were suddenly obsolete. Poo-Chis were the dream gift for any kid whose parents wouldn't let them have a living and breathing pet. It was little more than a tubular slide set. You could really get it going, over and over very fast. I was so excited to read comments about the roller coaster. There is no way this toy would pass muster today because the surfaces were quite hot and children could easily burn themselves. Still, according to the CPSC, there were 276,425 children 18 and younger treated for bicycle-related injuries at U.S. hospital emergency rooms in 2012. What used to be a local industry, with certain brands dominating a state or few, turned into a national industry, and many ubiquitous beers -- your Ballantines, Rheingolds and Falstaffs -- went out of business or were swallowed up. And even though we would get bruised and scabbed, we never said anything to our parents cause we wanted our toys … so we would just take the pounding and keep playing with them. The '60s were all about teens having fun in beach movies. Maybe that's why they haven't stood the test of time: Leggys were only around from 1972 and 1973. I hope to visit Granbury Texas some day to look for one of those catalogs. After the plastic softened, the holder was moved to the other side, over a mold of the object to be formed. They came from the 60s. 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