What toys did you play with as a kid?

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At some point along the way, my mother gave/threw away most of my toys. Still makes me a little sad every now and again, because I had some really cool stuff, most of it in great condition.

Transformers and Go-bots literally made me froth at the mouth from excitement.

I loved my He-Man toys. He-Man with Battle Cat, Skeletor, Beastman, Merman, Man-At-Arms, and Ramman, among others, were all beloved. Of course Castle Greyskull was the prize of my He-Man collection.

GI-Joe - At one point I got an allowance of just $5 a week. I would routinely spend it on new GI-Joe action figures, which at the time cost $4 + tax. I could spend the remainder of my allowance on candy or something (great financial discipline I had back then, I know). I cherished each and every GI Joe toy, down to the tiny plastic guns they came with. I went to great lengths to ensure that I never lost any of their gear.

The toy that I lament losing the most was my 5 cat, diecast metal Voltron team that joined together to form (an admittedly clumsy) Voltron! I really loved that toy.

I could go on and on. Star Wars toys were another huge fascination.

What toys did you play with as a kid? Do you still have them? If not, where'd they go?

On a final note -- I thought that being a dad of boys would be a great way to have an excuse to mess with some of these toys again. And I guess it is to an extent, but it's not quite as I imagined. The latest generation of transformers, for example, are a lot of work to learn how to transform -- way more complicated than they were when I was a kid. With young boys, I tend to be the only person in the house who can handle the transformations, so I end up with crying children if I don't stop what I'm doing and turn Ratchet into a truck from a robot... + Blackout, + Megatron, + Bumblebee, + Ironhide, ad nauseum (they all have to be in the same mode at the same time, right?). Not to mention that my kids, predictably, end up all but destroying them, losing parts here and there, etc. I eventually decided that these were just too much hassle and don't buy them anymore. My 3 year old received a very cool, highly complicated Jetfire toy. I let him look at it for a minute, then put it back in the box, and hid it in my office closet until he's older.

It just kills me how my boys destroy their toys. Starwars clonewar soliders? That's safe enough right? Yesterday I saw one of those on the table with a head made out of legos sitting on its shoulders. The original head was nowhere to be found. /heavy sigh

 

Wow DMC, I didn't realize you were our resident 104 year old, grouchy old man board member!

Back when I was kid, toys hadn't even been invented yet! We spent our days running from T-rexes. Average life expectancy was 13 years. And that's how we liked it!

 

Well, I did always have the ONE toy....

 

He-Man, Transformers, Action Force (G.I.Joe), Legos, Playmobil. Ohh and plastic guns. I guess my old commodore 64 could be considered a toy too.

 

Being a Britlander, I had Action Man rather than GI Joe, though as I understand it they're largely the same thing. Also had Zoids, Lego, Meccano, errr.. Oh, matchbox cars too. Never had any plastic guns though, mom was adamant against them. I remember once I bought a BB gun off a mate - The second she found it, it disappeared and I never saw it again. Such a shame.

 

You have pretty much named them all. TBH there were some pretty darn complicated transformations back in the day as well.

 

Mostly LEGO. I never had any Action figures really. Had lots and lots of Lego though.

 

Girly stuff...

Then when family realised I spent more time sat down with pen and paper and reading books I'd get ornaments and expensive toys designed primarily for display, my mother and aunt used to get me dolls house miniatures (the collectable stuff) which would sit in a glass cabinet or the three story edwardian terraced style house we have that my mother has reclaimed.

I used to be more interested in collections than playing. So I have a basket full of marble eggs (which actually looks quite nice), at one point I had a huge collection of My Little Ponies that were all bought second hand (my dad picked up this massive black bag from an ad in the paper full of them) and I'd just arrange them according to colour gradient. Polly Pockets I think my mother enjoyed a bit more than me - I pretty much played a zombie apocalypse styled scenario with them

Aside from that I got a laptop when I was seven that had a game on it called Peas that only ran if you rebooted to DOS and had microsoft word on it that I used to write poetry and stories (and would be kidnapped by She Who Plays Solitaire) and had the obligitary toy kitchen ("Are you going to cook me dinner?" "No." "Why not?" "It's plastic!")

 

I preferred wood, mud, stones and in particular my bow and my slingshot. I also played with LEGO and playmobil. Had some star wars figures and spacecraft, too (which my mother idiotically disposed of at some later point).

 

Playmobil, matchbox cars and modelkits and ofcourse the one and only "Crossbows and catapults". No need to mention that the projectiles from the catapults usually landed to my sister's head .

 

Oh yes, I remember building a miniature siege catapult using wood from orange crates and a heavy rubber band. On the first shot the thing disintegrated I have to add that later models had a far more advanced and robust framework

Oh yes, and inevitably, we had a little fire here and there. For instance, did you know that a bucket of tar burns for several days?

 

Gee - I'm almost a carbon copy of Marceror in terms of my toy collection. The only difference I'd say is that I wasn't much into GI Joe, but I was really into Star Wars. I'd say I have almost every piece associated with the first three movies. My two particular favorites were the Millenium Falcon (which seats about 10 action figures comforatably) and the AT-AT Imperial Walker. All of them are far from MIB condition, but none of them have been thrown away.

I also was into Transformers, and I definitely had a Voltron. Jack also likes the transformers, but isn't nearly as into action figures of any type, but it's probably best that he not play with the Star Wars stuff yet anyway.

I had that as well. You definitely had to change out the rubber bands for something with a little more hitting power if you didn't want the game to take a week and a half. My brother and I went a little overboard though - we eventually hooked up half-inch rubber bands to the crossbows and turned them into weapons of mass destruction. With that kind of tension on the rubber bands, the discs fired so fast that you couldn't visually follow their flight path...

 

While Star Wars, Transformers, Go-Bots and Voltron was out there and I loved all of them, Plastic little Army Men were my favorite. Especially once I got my first Red Ryder Bee-Bee Gun. BWAMO!

 

I can't remember what I had as a kid. Nothing expensive though!
Rob was (and is) mad about Star Wars, Lego (Star Wars models) and Transformers and our house is full of all the original figures as well as the majority of the new ones. There must be tens of thousands of pounds worth of stuff in the house. I keep telling Ashley to learn about it as it's going on ebay the second I push Rob down the stairs!

 

I had the Millenium Falcon and the AT-AT Imperial Walker. That Imperial "Walker" sure was a pain in the butt to make walk. Okay, move the first leg, then the second one, don't let it fall over... then move the third leg, then the 4th. Then straighten all the legs so it will stand upright again. After a while, you just stop making the thing walk, and let it glide from place to place. The battery operated lasers in the head never failed to entertain, though.

I wonder where that Falcon and Walker of mine are right now....

 

The usual stuff for a boy in the 60's - Hot Wheels, toy guns, Barbies, Easy-Bake ovens, etc.

 

Lego mostly, games consoles.

The back garden was the best playground though, my father always had ladders, pallets, car parts, wood, pipes, tarpaulin, felt.... amongs other stuff, me and my brothers always found stuff we could build.

 

Micronauts.

 

dmc going on the Four Yorkshiremen note


I mostly did Lego. Loads of it and fairly long too. If i remember right, i meddled in them well into doubledigit age.

Other than that, i had loads of fun building stuff out of natural materials that were always lying around the house. Rural environment and building a new house provided plenty scrap material. Rocks, gravel, earth (clay-like, perfect) and sticks and leaves and the like. Plus, there's a small stream nearby for water environment.
Then i read Lord of the Rings and went off on Middle Earth building quests. Hobbit lairs, dwarven mountain fortresses, Rohan longhouses. Towers were somewhat less successful, since i preferred not to dabble in mortar much.
All of it miniature of course, nothing got past a grown man's knee height.