Your Favorite Christmas or Kid Toy

[Prunepicker]

I had so many I can't say only one. King Zor was a fave as was Big
Loo. Robot Commando was probably my fave and Ho Ho was the Guest
of Honor at my birthday.

[RadicalModerate]

Thank goodness eddie murphy wasn't around at the time.
(w/thx and a tip o the hat t' In Living Color =)

[Mel]

I would spend hours looking at the Holiday Sears catalog back then. Looking at rich kid toys and wishing.

[Prunepicker]

I would spend hours looking at the Holiday Sears catalog back then.
Looking at rich kid toys and wishing.

Fantastic. Oy the age of modern mail order.

Mom was a fan of Spiegle and we'd have it all marked up with what we
wanted.

[Prunepicker]

Thank goodness eddie murphy wasn't around at the time.
(w/thx and a tip o the hat t' In Living Color =)

I'll have you know that James was one of my childhood heroes.
Aretha was the other. Then came the Duke, McQueen, Davis, Al
Slobinski and most recently some chick named Anya that doesn't
speak Russian.

[OKCisOK4me]

I'd say my favorite was anything that had to do with Transformers, Legos, Micro Machines, remote control cars, even classic Lincoln Log Cabin pieces! All kid Christmas' are just great memories for me. One of my favorite Christmas Eve trips was after an annual trip up to Tulsa at Grandma's, both my cousin and I received laser tag guns and reflective vests. Our parents were driving back in separate vehicles on the Turner Turnpike side by side and my cousin and I were shooting at each other through the windows and the guns actually worked off of each other! Great times...

[oumartin]

A Stretch Armstrong or the Godzilla with flaming tongue that you activated with a red lever on on the back of his neck

[ctchandler]

Well, I am having trouble deciding. On the one hand, the Erector set gave me many hours of pleasure when I was very young, but the one item that really sticks out was the black leather jacket that my mother gave me when I was 14. She knew a policeman that purchased it at a uniform shop where he bought his uniforms. My mother told me later that he got a very good discount on his purchases since he was a policeman. This jacket was real leather and it was the kind that motorcycle policemen wore. All my friends were jealous.
C. T.

[kelroy55]

wow... tough decision. When I was around 8-9 I got a robot that fired missles through it's mouth and it's arm swung around and fired little balls. It had a wired remote control and it was the best, until I got a Stingray bike when I was 13 I also liked my erector set I got one year a lot too.

[Richard at Remax]

Lego Pirate Ship

[OKCisOK4me]

Lego Pirate Ship

...and all this time, I thought you were 50-60 years old.

[Richard at Remax]

nope. 29 going on 30. Getting a super NES was a big deal too

[Martin]

[Prunepicker]

Didn't the bag double as a space helmet?

[Roger S]

I would have to say it's a tie between the Marx "O" Scale train and the Ideal TCR Racetrack

I still have my train. The original transformer quit but I was able to find a replacement for it at the train show about 10 years ago.

[SoonerDave]

I would spend hours looking at the Holiday Sears catalog back then. Looking at rich kid toys and wishing.

OHYEAH!!!

It was officially the start of the CHristmas season when the "Wish Book" arrived.

I basically took all the toy section and circled....everything.

Best toy? Wow, lots of choices...but my NFL electric football and its spinning players (lol) has to be up there. Lincoln logs and tinkertoys close behind. Loved those things....no HDMI connection or Internet required...just imagination...

Great times.

[Pete]

I would spend hours looking at the Holiday Sears catalog back then. Looking at rich kid toys and wishing.

Wow, did this spark some nice memories.

[SoonerDave]

Ward's had a decent Christmas catalog, too - I think at one point they aspired to be what Sears was in those days.

They had what I'd call a "Toy That Never Was," only it really wasn't a toy at all. Years before gaming systems and PC's hit the world, Ward's Christmas catalog (circa 1974-1976 I'd guess) offered an *awesome* video game called a "Bally Console." It had a ten-key pad on the front, accepted cartridges through a front game slot, had two controllers, full color, and looked *miles* ahead of just about everything else that was really just variations of black-and-white bouncy Pong games.

Sad thing is that it was never available. You could order it, but it just never came in. Back ordered, unavailable, unstocked, and as I recall someone at Ward's actually telling me that Bally never really made the thing work and never actually delivered it. They never even had a demo one in the store.

But man it looked cool. For its day, it aspired to be a cutting edge game system. Wonder if any were ever actually sold?

[LuccaBrasi]

Almost brings tears to my eyes. I guarantee I spent hours looking through that very same catalog after my mom put it down. I bet I marked that very page for the race set, which I think finally came a couple of years later.

[Prunepicker]

Christmas Catalogs

[Prunepicker]

...but my NFL electric football and its spinning players (lol) has to be up there.

With a fumble on every play! Did you ever complete a pass?

[Pete]

What's amazing is how expensive things were back then when you adjust for inflation.

That $70 bike in 1968 would be $470 in today's dollars.

Of course, we tended to get far less back then; as in one big gift and maybe a few smaller ones.

[SoonerDave]

With a fumble on every play! Did you ever complete a pass?

LOL heavens no. There was just something about those great old electric FB games. In fact, there was kind of a renaissance of sorts for them a couple of years ago - they were available for at least a while during Christmas at Hallmark stores if I recall correctly. Some guy opened up a novelty toy company, licensed the rights to them from Tudor electrics (I think that was the name) and reissued them.

Wish I'd picked one up!

[Pete]

This is a very nice version of that old table-top hockey game that I really loved:

[Mel]

Christmas Catalogs

Great link Mr. Picker.