Poked eyes, adoption and the Law of the Playground! (Favourite Childhood Toys)

Member Name: dididave

Product:	Favourite Childhood Toys
Date:	20/11/08 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everyone a much loved classic

Disadvantages: So many not available or re-invented in shoddy fashion.

In no particular order...

Transformers

"Robots in disguise". I remember when toys were made of metal. They had sharp pointy bits that could take an eye out and were built to list millenia. Transformers were such toys. The cartoon series was one of the first created to sell the inevitable toys that would follow but when the toys were so damn good I truly did not care. I had Optimus Prime, a large metal truck that converted into a robot as well as its back end becoming a base a small buggy came out of. I also had Jazz, a racing car and Starscream, an evil Decepticon fighter plane that could easily have been used as a lethal weapon. Each toy was die cast metal and would surely be banned in the plastic world that toys seem to exist in today. I loved them though and the new release are flimsy and cheap in comparison.

He-Man and Castle Gray skull

He-Man was perhaps the campest cartoon on television. This leather-clad, blond-haired warrior was every child's hero as boys wanted to be him while girls had a secret crush on him I think this was the first toy I actually asked Father Christmas for and was ecstatic to receive. Castle Gray skull was a big plastic castle which opened up and had traps for the evil Skeletor and his minions as well as a working drawbridge. I was very excited at the time and would spend hours reconstructing battles from the cartoon. The figures all had one spring operated action whether it be the He-Man's weird snake hips or the hilariously named Fisto with hammering fist action. The entertainment value was virtually endless.

The Millennium Falcon

None of this new fangled Star Wars/Transformers crossover nonsense. I had the original 1980's Millennium Falcon and was the envy of all my friends. It was an absolutely massive piece of toy genius with a gun turret for Chewbacca to sit in, satellite dish, secret panels it truly was the dog's wotsits. We would endlessly have battles with this and my mates AT-AT walker and it never became dull and of course when on your own you could pretend the bath was the trench from the "Empire Strikes Back"!

Monopoly

What other game turns a relatively reasonable family into a bunch of angry lunatics who argue the finer points of bankruptcy and re-mortgaging to the point of divorce and adoption! Every household has it's own variation on the rules making it an impossibility for any visitors to play and win and it is one of those games that never seems to end. It amazes me that an eight-year-old can suddenly became a vicious negotiator as they try and sell you Mayfair for ten million and all your red property! The vicious capitalism this evokes as you take ridiculous amounts of pleasure as your mum lands on on one of your properties is just nuts. This game is everything bad and good about capitalist society in one.

Hungry Hippos

This is such a ridiculously simple but repetitive game. For hippos, a load of balls pretending to be food and some snapping mouths operated by your rapidly slapping palm. Another one of those games that caused endless argument as you debated whether it was okay if you relentlessly banged on your lever or if you were supposed to take your time. It was also a game were you argued everything from whether the table was straight to whether that last ball should count because it got stuck. I am beginning to see a trend here. Maybe it was just that my family was argumentative and dysfunctional?


Meccano

Meccano or Lego? Lego ultimately seemed to win the war but I was a Meccano lad growing up. It was great stuff. Loads of bits of random metal to screw with other bits of random metal. You could make a racing car, helicopter and loads of other bits of crap. Best of all you could bend it and it was virtually indestructible. I remember spending months building a working crane and thinking I was a boy genius. Meccano made you feel like your Dad!

Screwball Scramble

Okay so we all know it was a fundamental impossibility to complete without cheating in the time limit. The stupid up and down bridge would send your ball into the air and under the couch or just stay firmly rooted into the grooves so you just had to pick it up and do not even get me started on the maze! You had to love it though, it was a devious and ingenious labyrinth that had everyone from child to granddad shouting and ranting as you dropped the ball once again down the gutter. The game was an irritating piece of genius.

Top Trumps

What an incredibly nerdy game Top Trumps was and is. How random statistics on a pack of cards was interesting to a child of seven I do not know but we were fascinated by it. Some of my mates had Superhero cards in which compared strength and intelligence amongst other things to win their card. However, I reveled in some of the more obscure packs having such bizarre ones as Monster Trucks and Battleships. Nothing more bizarre than hearing a child in a playground shouting with glee "Tonnage: 3000, I win!"

Marbles

Our school went through recurring phases of marbles being incredibly popular. I had them all in a big roses tin. Steelies, Pearlies, Glassies (I was eight or so and my imagination was poor ok!) there was no end to my obsession. The games were incredibly competitive and were played in the schoolyard and on the streets in a winner takes the marble style way. Despite growing up in a particularly vicious school marbles were one of few games were we honoured our victories and losses whether we were big or small and there was a strange "Law of the Playground" feel about the whole thing. Marbles were never stolen they were only ever won, lost and losers were to be commiserated with. It is a shame that they seem to be out of fashion in today's electronic era as it worked wonders for my hand/eye co-ordination and was to be the start of a successful run of victories at "pigeon toss" in High School. Something that proved quite profitable!

So, there you go. No doubt my toys are very much held up as glorious due to my rose-tinted views of childhood and you will often find my moaning about the lack of ambition in toys today. However, I am no doubt not the only one. Any more children of the eighties out there lamenting the passage of their childhood?

Summary: Can you tell when I was born?