When you were a kid, there was always a thing…. It wouldn’t leave you alone, it came to you when you couldn’t go to sleep (stupid eight o’clock bedtime… It’s still light out for fucks sake! ), it made you pine when you saw the other kids playing, it whispered to you when you were in the toy store…. It was the one thing you had to have in order to make your small journey on this planet complete….. It was “The Toy”…. And 90% of the time, as soon as you got it, you played with it for three hours and completely forgot about it until it was time to pack up and move…. Or maybe it was just me…. There were a few, though, that you got and played with until they were completely destroyed…. Paint scuffed, arms falling off, parts missing…. But you still played with them every day… Until it was time to move and you had a 200 lb weight allowance and your clothes and furniture was 180 lbs of that…..
So that’s what we’re on about today… Toys you loved until they no longer remotely resembled what they used to be……
The Six Million Dollar Man doll Action Figure – For a little while, this thing was like the Holy Grail…. I’d see commercials for it on TV and catch small glimpses of it at the PX before I was pulled away from it by a parent who had just come in for “one thing and then we’re leaving”….. I longed to have a Bionic Friend who would let me look through his skull and who would let me roll up his skin so that, I too, could harness the power of Bionics and become the supreme fighting machine I always knew I was….
Whenever my old man went on Temporary Duty (TDY), more often than not, he’d bring my sister and I back something…. Usually something from the airport, or something small from wherever he’d been, but we always treasured these little pieces of places we’d never been. Usually he’d be gone for a week or so, and if he was gone longer, we’d get something bigger…. So, once when he was gone for several weeks, I ended up with a box of 12” Bionic Goodness….
That cool red tracksuit…. The rubbery feel of the skin that reminded me a little bit of rubber cement and that smelled just as bad… And the one soulless hollow eye that allowed me, a kid of seven, to harness the power of Bionic sight for my own intents and purposes…. I ripped him out of the box (no wire ties in those days) and ran headlong into the backyard to study his Bionic bits and start finding scrap metal to construct my own Bionic creations….
Unfortunately, what he didn’t come with was blueprints…. I could look through the Bionic Eye, but not figure out how to make my own telescopic eyeball…. I could study the stickers hidden underneath his roll up flesh, but they would not guide me to making my own Bionic limbs…. It didn’t matter, I loved him anyway….
I lost the top half of his track suit within the first week, but I figured a man who was half machine didn’t need a shirt…. Besides he was more “karate” that way (I watched a lot of badly dubbed martial arts movies as a kid…. Being “karate” was cool….)…. Most of the roll up skin came off after a few months and the stickers stated to peel whenever I got him wet, but he was still Steve Austin and he was still my friend….. Right around the end of the summer I got him, Steve and I were crossing the street, hauling ass to get out of the way of a big truck that was heading through… I dropped him in the street and looked on in horror as a two ton truck crushed him so badly that not even the power of Bionics could save him…. So, after the truck had passed, I scooped up his remaining Bionic bits and put them in a shoebox I buried in the backyard…. I had a little service and threw in a few Adventure People, so he wouldn’t get lonely in the afterlife….. Rest In Pieces, my Bionic friend….
The Cylon Raider - I got the Cylon Raider for Christmas one year (the same year I got the Fisher Price Adventure People Jungle Safari set…. which is a story for another day, filled with fire, melted jungle cats and Elvis Costello…) I’d been watching Battlestar Galactica with my parents at night as kind of a special treat… My parents were both big into Sci-Fi, and Galactica was a great show…. I’d get to stay up late with them one night a week and watch as the evil Cylon Empire attempted to destroy the last remaining Battlestar….. I rooted for the Cylons every week, much to my father’s chagrin…. But that’s usually the way it is with me, I’ll always root for the bad guys…..
Christmas came around and nestled under the tree was an Imperial Viper and a Cylon Raider, so I could re-enact those fabulous space battles that I had watched so often, tucked in between my parents on the couch…. And damn, they were cool…. They looked just like the ships on TV and fired real missiles…. Remember, this was 1978… We still had toys that would shoot things at you (pellets, missiles and small rubber bits that hurt like hell when you got one in the eye…..) and toys that could potentially kill you… And we liked them like that….. So for the rest of my Christmas vacation, I would run around the house, chasing the Viper with my Raider, shooting it down, over and again….. The pleading Battlestar pilots would scream in agony as my cold robotic precision blew out their engines and they crashed into the coffee table…… That is, until the news came on…..
Apparently, the toy company (Hasbro ? Mattel ?) had decided to recall the Battlestar Galactica series because kids were choking to death on the missiles….. Being that my sister was a good four years younger than I was and had a penchant for putting everything in her mouth, my parents decided that it was time for the Viper and the Raider to go the way of the dodo…. Into the trash they went…. And my father, seeing the insidious gleam in my eye (“I’ll just wait until they go to sleep and then they’re mine again!!”), proceeded to take the trash out to the dumpster…. The place he knew I would not go…. I’m not exactly a germaphobe, but even at six, I knew I wasn’t climbing into a dumpster to retrieve my toys…..
There were lots more toys I played with until they self destructed (the 12” Boba Fett, G.I. Joe’s) or just plain destroyed…. Maybe I’ll cover them in a later post…. But what about you ? What were your favorite toys as a kid ?
Comments
i remember when they pulled those toys that fired
that was the first step in the pussification of America
this was mine
Funkytime legos
Posted by: the turtle | August 20, 2006 10:46 AM
I love Kubricks!!!! I'm gonna pick these up as soon as I get a couple extra bucks....
Posted by: thefinn | August 20, 2006 2:40 PM
Kubricks are really neat. I've been eyeing a few sets.
My weakness is Stikfas:
Posted by: Michele | August 20, 2006 3:19 PM
I had the cylon and the viper too, those were very cool toys, though I had the post-recall versions. You could no longer shoot the missles.
Posted by: mrbandw | August 20, 2006 4:56 PM
I feel for you, all I wanted was the bionic woman doll. I got her along with the bionic beauty salon? I'm not sure what it was. I loved her. I thought she was soooo beautiful!
Posted by: carol | August 20, 2006 4:59 PM
My favorite childhood toy was a little less pricey than you rich guys up north. A couple of G.I. Joes here and there, a few flaming SR-71 models filled with black cats. But the best toy of them all was the pine cone. Not exactly toy store material, but it worked in a pinch. No one has a baseball? Use a pine cone. Not snowing in Texas, so you can't have a snowball fight? Use pine cones.
Posted by: Josh | August 20, 2006 5:36 PM
Michele, those things are cool... How'd I miss them up til now ?
And I always wondered why the Bionic Woman came with a beauty salon ? Was she the face for Beautiful Bionics ? It just seems so... stereotypical.... Glad you liked it, tho.....
Posted by: thefinn | August 20, 2006 6:46 PM
Foot tall Venom and the Power Rangers figures that flipped their heads over from the normal person to the mask.
You're all OLD.
Posted by: Tim | August 20, 2006 7:01 PM
I also had the cylon and the viper. But the thing I loved most was my Evel Kneivel bike. It had an EK figure on a motorcycle and you pulled a plastic-toothed drawstring to send the cycle racing.
Man. That was awesome. I also had a two-foot tall Godzilla whose hands shot out. That was also cool.
Posted by: Cullen | August 20, 2006 7:26 PM
one of the neighbour kids had that godzilla. he was so fucking rad, i still covet him immensely.
my end all, be all kid toy was the diana prince/wonder woman doll. not that shitty mego 8" one, oh no. i had the 12" gal! she was brilliant. all long amazon legs, and realistic eyelashes, with arching superheroine eyebrows....
eventually, she was captured by "the enemy" too many times. ie, a doll can only be dragged behind the big wheel so many times before she looks like shit and your mom makes you throw her out, that bitch.
my other favourite childhood toy was the 12" leia. i chewed her feet right the hell off. frankly, i think that's enough of her sad story....
i had some cool shogun warriors, too, but they weren't as much fun once i lost the missiles.
Posted by: dynamine | August 20, 2006 9:08 PM
Posted by: thefinn | August 20, 2006 9:12 PM
AAAAAAAAAAHHHH! Gorzeerah!
Thanks, Finn. That was awesome.
Posted by: Cullen | August 21, 2006 8:31 AM
Oh no, there goes Tokyo....
(I can't be the only one singing that in my head now)
Posted by: Michele | August 21, 2006 8:45 AM
Actually, I still have the ODB in my head.... Dammit....
Posted by: thefinn | August 21, 2006 9:26 AM