Childhood Toys

[Miko]

The old thread was nearly as old as the toys I'm gonna mention so I thought I'd just make a new topic.


Anyway, what were your favorite childhood toys? Any classics like Legos or My Little Pony? Teddy Ruxpin perhaps? Did you have one toy in particular that you just absolutely loved to actual falling-apart pieces?



I caught the nostalgia the other day when my mom & I were chatting about how I used to love unicorns and how I used to have a special Beanie Baby (or in this case a Beanie Buddy) named Sparkles I loved her so much so that she ended up with permanent tilt in her neck from being slept on so much. I actually still have the original Sparkles downstairs in my basement somewhere, crudely stuffed into some plastic bag with some other mementos. Whenever I come across her I just get this soft little happy feeling in my jellies. My brother & I used to collect them (the best we could as young pre-teens) and play 'Beanie Babies' in one of our rooms. This usually consisted of us laying out our 50~ Beanie Babies on the floor, sitting upright, and essentially do some role-playing.

Spoiler: Sparkles & Example of My Love of Unicorns

7 year-old me really rocked the spelling bee that year.

Anyway, I had my fair share of playing with Legos, Hot Wheels and Pokemon toys. I didn't dabble with barbies much but there was a tiny bit of that when I was younger. I also recall being super excited over Furbies when they first came out and also really loving an E Babies teddy bear toy that had a digital face. I really want to get a hold of one but they're really expensive if & when you can find one floating around out there.

And also - Kitchen Littles. Affectionately called Chicken Littles by yours truly.

I still have one of those grapefruits and eggs.


There's like a billion more I could list but these were fairly iconic. Let us know if you have any toy in particular that you loved to death or any you just remember being really into as a kid!

 

[79Tidus]

When I was young, I collected "Masters of The Universe" toys, "MASK" vehicles, and Saint Seiya Myth cloth (Bronze and Gold Saints).

 

[Dionysos]

Ah man.... I loved toys.

Being a kid with a crazy imagination, I'd lose myself in making up stories using my favourite toys. The scenes in Toy Story with Andy aren't far off my time with my own toys.

I had a collection of toy zoo animals and dinosaurs (including some Jurassic Park toys) which I loved, but also loads of random bits and bobs. toys for Alien, Biker Mice from Mars, Toy Story, Street Sharks, X-Men and so on. I'd sometimes give them new personalities and new roles to play.

I would also play with Lego a lot. The pirate ship and Western fort were my favourites. The only problem I had is that once I disassembled them to create random buildings from my own mind, I rarely built them back up in their complete sets again. I once built a lego theme park on my shelves, but they pretty much took up all of my shelves so that project was short-lived.

I actually kept a lot of my childhood toys with the intention of passing them on to any children I might have in the future (not sure if I ever will but that's beyond my control). I couldn't bear to throw them in the trash or give them to charity, but I also got a bit too old to play with them.
They were kept in boxes. Unfortunately, a house fire destroyed a lot of them but I did manage to salvage some.

I've loaned my dinosaurs and surviving animals to my little niece, but I think the rest have mostly gone. Even so, I've kept a few charred pieces and twisted, melted plastic in a sealed box as there are some I recognise and have memories of. I'm probably too sentimental.

 

[mothcorrupteth]

Ever since I was three and saw Land Before Time, I was a dinosaur nerd. Normal people only loved Jurassic Park. I was obsessed with it. But all that's to say, in 1987 Avalon Hill came out with a board game called Dinosaurs of the Lost World. My dad was a big war gamer at the time, so he scored a copy for me. I LOVED that game. Based on the classic novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you led an expedition onto a plateau in the jungles of Africa that contained several species of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. You started the game by picking out your equipment. And if you picked wrong, you were in trouble; you always wanted to have at least a rifle. The plateau was set up as a grid of interlocking hex spaces, and you had to go exploring to find interesting locations. Once you had a location, you explored deeper into it through the use of these comic-book-style side boards printed on card stock. It gets a mediocre rating on BGG today, but this was back before Settlers of Catan had ushered in the board game renaissance. Of course, as a child I didn't take care of the game. But recently, I picked up a used copy that was in very good condition. For me, it's the one possession that emblemizes my early relationship with my father.

Dinosaurs of the Lost World

Seek fame and adventure among the dinosaurs of the secret plateau.

boardgamegeek.com

My mother I associate more with Ninja Turtles. She was always the one who went headhunting for the latest action figures. And boy, did I love them! I think my favorites were the versions that came out to coincide with the second movie. As opposed to all the other figures, these had photorealistic coloration, and the arms and legs were rubbery instead hard plastic. It made it easier to pluck off the appendages and pretend the turtles had gone into their shells. Long after I had grown too old for turtles, those were the figures that I always included in the grand narrative that swept through the universes of Jurassic Park, Power Rangers, and finally Final Fantasy.

Which brings me to the toy that most reminds me of my best friend growing up: A pen and strips of paper. My friend Jay showed me this comic book he had designed one day while our moms were coordinating a yard sale. I loved the idea, and I made my own. Naturally, the star was my favorite Ninja Turtle, Michaelangelo. I don't remember too much of the plot, but I do remember that it started with a very Mario RPG-eque scene of Mike walking out his front door.