When you were a kid, what did you play with (other than yourself)?
I loved G.I. Joe. I also liked Transformers. He-Man was cool too.
When I was a wee boy my mother got this idea in her head that she would make me into a collector of clown themed objects. She set me well on my way towards clown obsession. My room has clown curtains, clown pictures, clown dolls, clown banks, and just about any other clown based object that you could imagine. The only snag in this otherwise perfect plan was that my mother never bothered to ask me if I had any interest in clowns, which unfortunately for her plans, I did not.
Now I suppose that I am lucky in that clowns never bothered me, they just bored me. Yet there was at least a single clown toy which did interest me. I cannot say what made this clown toy special, other than I remember that it fit nicely in my hand. He became the hero of all adventures in my toy land. Eventually it came to be that he was me, and I became someone else. It is at that point where I became incredibly cruel and vindictive to this toy-who-was-me. I tortured him rather mercilessly until I eventual lost the toy. At some point, probably a few months later I found the toy behind my bead. I had forgotten about the game of playing as if the toy was me but after a short time of playing with him I remembered it.
It was then that I had a surprising moment of clarity. As moment like none I would experience until many years later. Although the toy had become me and that I have absolute power of it, I realized that I could still choose to be kind rather than cruel. In that moment I was stuck by the intense reality of the toy. It became more real than anything I have ever touched in my entire life. Everything else became magical in the field of this one real object.
Nice story, X-man.
I never liked clowns…they scared me.
The rest of you suck. You’ll come in here and play “word association,” quite possibly the most pointless activity I can imagine, but you won’t talk about you favorite toys.
You kids are growing up too fast these days. Computers and video-games and stereos and gadgets…have ruined you.
Awesome…time to bring in some girliness.
My favorite was this teddy bear, I think he was called Rox Teddy…? or Terry Rox something…Anyway, he had a little tape player in his stomach and he would tell stories. I had that thing for way too long. I think it was even the same tape that I would listen to over and over.
Then there were those cupcake dolls, which I totally loved. They had long rubbery dresses, and when you flipped the bottom of the dress up it just looked like a cupcake. Totally weird in retrospect. They were different colors (cupcake flavors) and were scented and everything.
Normal Barbies bored me, but they were always coming up with cool different ones. My favorite was the one that came with stuff that looked like colored shaving cream. It was meant to be played with in the bathtub. I don’t even remember what the shaving cream stuff was for, but for a little kid anything that makes a mess is great.
I also had way too many Cabbage Patch kids, those ugly little things. And a whole collection of Care Bear stuffed animals. Care Bears was my absolute favorite cartoon, along with Strawberry Shortcake. My room had strawberry shortcake wallpaper.
And board games! Candyland ruled!! That, and chutes and ladders. That game’s pimp.
slinkys, silly putty, legos, models (mostly WW2 aircraft), lincoln logs, magic kits, comic books, slot cars, rockets, pinball machines…
et.al.
-Imp
p.s. words are excellent toys… cheap too
teddy ruxpin
-Imp
Imp,
You are a G. I will hereafter refer to you as pImp.
WHO REMEMBERS POGS???
Hello F(r)iends,
As a child I had so many toys: three in fact.
Optimus Prime! - My first toy.
My brother and I would create fantastic battles between our toys (he had a Sgt. Slaughter G.I. Joe and something else… I can’t remember.
VOLTRON!!!
I loved that friggin’ toy–it’s my Rosebud, (or Bobo) if you will.
I had the Gold colored Voltron and the standard multi-colored Voltron.
Man, even thinking about the gold colored Voltron hurts… memories!
P.S. At some point I got into Garbage Pale Kids or something… but those were trading cards–do they count as toys?
-Thirst4Voltron
Noe I definately remember pogs! I had like this whole hallogram 8-ball collection…
but my fav toy when i was like 12, (and I know this is gonna be nerdy) was my old comp, but in particular the MUD (multi user domain) I used to play on over telnet… it was like I could write my own stories, and have real people respond… I loved it
Anyone else heard of ‘The Wheel of Time’? it was based on those books
BOOKS… another good toy
Matchbox cars! (I’m old enough to remember the ones with steel wheels). Do they even still make them???
Have you weighed in on my Best Sports Movie thread?
hmm…
i had these play-doh chickens that i made, and i stuck feathers i got from pillows into their butts. i created a play-doh chicken heirarchy, and social system.
i also loved legos. id build houses for little figurines and stuff.
and one of my favourites: BARBIES!!!
i dont remember how i played with them, but i do know that most of my old ones either have their heads torn off, their hair cut off, or their bodies mutilated with magic markers.
and hotwheels whenever i played with boys.
yes, jordan’s series is great
-Imp
Intellivision with the voice expansion.
Atari - combat, pitfall.
Transformers of course, bad ass toys.
Legos. Build your own toy than see whos would stay together after repeated drops to the floor.
I never even got around to finishing the series now that I think about it… if you have, wanna give me the 2 sentance summary? Last I remember I was trying to figure out if Logain was Ishmael…
Anyone else remember yo-yo balls? sings ‘hey man! it’s a yo-yo ball…’
ok I’m done
the series isn’t finished yet… “crossroads of twilight” is book ten (yes I’ve read them all, including the prelude) with another book “the new spring” as a prelude to the wheel series.
2 sentences? the “minor” characters (perrin, mat, the aes sedai, the aiel ect.) do their bits schemeing, politicing and making war to give a nice background. one of the forsaken appears to fight rand. rand gets hurt. rand kills the bad guys. wait a year for the next book. I guess that was more than a few.
Logain was a false dragon who commands his own little army and he fights the whitecloaks mostly I think… and I thought Morridin was Ishmael reborn. His Name as Balzamon was pretty much a declaration of his utter devotion, but I could be wrong about that.
-Imp
Yeah it’s coming back to me now, I meant Mazrim, yeah I wasn’t sure if it was maz or Morridin (I thought morridin might be original for some reason)
man… he’s dragged this on for way too long. I mean I love the picture he’s painting… but he’s running out of canvas
Lawn darts.
to review previous posts…
de’trop, I had She-Ra. My cousin was a He-Man freak… I didn’t have G.I. Joe, but I had those cheap-o army figures that are all green. Plus, I had the ones with parachutes, that you throw up in the air.
xanderman, don’t remember any clowns… had one of those dolls with a face made out of something breakable, though – can’t remember what you call it. Never shoulda gave me that.
Never had any technology until junior high, after I grew out of toys.
Never had Teddy Ruxpin, but wanted one. Wanted Cabbage Patch and Care Bears but got one each, imitation versions. Also wanted one of those cars that kids can drive… never got one… bought my son one, though.
Wasn’t allowed Barbies (their boobs and skinny-ness and mostly blond-ness). Had Raggedy Ann and Strawberry Shortcake, though. Mmm… loved Strawberry Shortcake (you squeeze her tummy and strawberry scent comes out her mouth, if I remember correctly, and her hair smells like strawberries) == but Raggedy Ann gave me nighmares.
Played Candyland. I really liked Connect Four way better, though.
played with a Slinky and Lincoln Logs… Imp is naming off toys that were only given to my brother, who would hoard them, and never let me play with them… like the slot cars… the ones that speed around and around and around the track… damn, I coveted that toy… And Scythekain mentioned Atari…
never had pogs
collected Garbage Pail Kids cards… those were awesome…
They still make Matchbox cars, Jerry
embracestrees… interesting thing with the chickens…
gobbo… don’t remember yo-yo balls… remember yo-yos, though…
Never played a MUD (that I know of), and never played lawn darts.
My favorite thing to do was to climb in and build forts around trees, out of bamboo sticks, and pretend to be Native American. We also used to dig big holes in the ground and line them with tarp and fill them with water and go swimmin’. We also liked to play in the irrigated fields, or go walk down to the canal. Or use the railroad tracks as balance-beams.
I also liked to pretend to teach my toys a lesson from Sunday school.
My brother liked to shoot birds down with his beebee gun (however you spell it) and nurse them back to health. I know, it’s sick. But I helped him nurse them back to health.
One of my favorite toys was these phones (they actually rang) that don’t hook up to phone-lines, but are put in separate rooms, and you can call the person in the other room… for some reason they disappeared soon after we were given them… maybe my mom got annoyed by the sound of the toys, I don’t know.
Another favorite toy was this xylophone type toy.
But my most favorite was a hand-me-down bike that I taught myself how to ride.
But mostly (especially after moving to the city), if I wasn’t goofin’ around outside, I just read a lot of books.
This was too long. Sorry.
That was eh… uh… thorough recap