Top 100 Toys From The '70s or Thereabouts

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Top 100 Toys From The '70s or Thereabouts

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday December 23, 2004 @03:53AM from the as-seen-on-TV dept.

doctorfaustus writes "Found this on Daily Rotation -- it details, with pictures, many of the toys we all wanted from our parents at Christmas a few years ago.... Everything from '160 Exciting Science Projects' to 'Stretch Armstrong,' along with the promises made in the toy's advertising and how often those promises were broken... The story has a British orientation, but I didn't see a single toy I didn't remember from my American youth.... They're all here: Simon, Slime, Magic Rocks, Sonic Ear... Even the Sinclair."

21 of 307 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

The missed the most important thing by Quasar1999 · 2004-12-23 03:55 · Score: 4, Funny

I've wanted one every year since I was 12... a girlfriend... I'm still waiting...

--

---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
1. Re:The missed the most important thing by sga.busboy · 2004-12-23 04:59 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  A girlfriend I have, I just wish I her last name wasn't .jpg
Oh the sorrow. by jellomizer · 2004-12-23 03:55 · Score: 3, Funny

This sure brings back to when I was a kid and all they toys I took apart to see how they work. I bet if I didn't take everything apart they could be really worth something.

I Think the site will be slashdotted early. I saw a slowdown when I was almost done with the site.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What about Lawn Darts? by AtariAmarok · 2004-12-23 03:57 · Score: 5, Funny

What about Lawn Darts? They bring the exciting element of severe head trauma risk to the fun of summar yard play!

--
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
1. Re:What about Lawn Darts? by TrollBridge · 2004-12-23 04:03 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I honestly believe "Lawn Jarts" (as our family's set was called) was a Darwinist conspiracy by the government and toy industry to cull the herd a bit.
  
  Fortunately my brother and I made the cut. Society is probably better off without those who didn't. Now we have these confounded safety commissions that prevent us from shedding our weak links.
  
  --
  There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
2. Re:What about Lawn Darts? by artemis67 · 2004-12-23 04:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I honestly believe "Lawn Jarts" (as our family's set was called) was a Darwinist conspiracy by the government and toy industry to cull the herd a bit.
  
  Fortunately my brother and I made the cut. Society is probably better off without those who didn't. Now we have these confounded safety commissions that prevent us from shedding our weak links.
  ...except that in one of the high-profile lawsuits against lawndarts, it was the next-door neighbor's daughter who was killed, not the kids throwing the darts. One boy threw it up in the air, and it went over the fence and pierced the little girl's skull. She died in her father's arms.
3. Re:What about Lawn Darts? by Qzukk · 2004-12-23 04:45 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I know where. Please contact me at Methodist Hospital, room 233.
  
  --
  If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
4. Re:What about Lawn Darts? by Tackhead · 2004-12-23 05:02 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  > "I threw a lawn-dart into the air Where it fell, I cared not where"
  "Once ze lawn darts go up,
  who cares where zey come down?
  Zat's not my department!"
  Says Werner von Braun...
5. Re:What about Lawn Darts? by Fishstick · 2004-12-23 08:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  People over 35 should be,dead. Here's why ...........
  According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably
  shouldn't have survived.
  Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
  We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, ... ! and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
  (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)
  As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags.
  Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
  We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
  Horrors!
  We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
  We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
  We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
  We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the! street lights came on.
  No one was able to reach us all day.
  NO CELL PHONES!!!!!
  U n t h i n k a b l e !
  We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64! , X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
  We had friends!
  We went outside and found them.We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
  They were accidents.
  No one was to blame but us.
  Remember accidents?
  We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen,we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.
  We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
  Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.
  Horrors!
  Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own.
  Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
  Imagine that!
  This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.
  The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
  We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
  
  --
  There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
  Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Toys today! by teiresias · 2004-12-23 03:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

I might just be nostalgic but does it seem that the toys from back then were more tactile and creative? The toys were good in their own right but to make them great you needed a good portion of your imagination to truly make them fly.

[grandparent voice]Today's toys are all movie tie ins and spin offs. The story has been told before the action figure or game has been brought home. The imagination is gone.[/grandparent voice]

Still a nice trip down memory lane.

--
-Teiresias
1. Re:Toys today! by Fallingcow · 2004-12-23 04:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This is my complaint about LEGO these days.
  
  Used to be, you'd have Space or Castle sets, these days you have Star Wars and Harry Potter. What the hell is the point of buying these kind of LEGOs? Get the normal action figures if you just want to re-enact or extend an existing story. To me, LEGOs are better suited to creating from-scratch story lines.
  
  The roles of characters are so well defined with the movie tie-in sets, while the older sets were free of anything but a slight suggestion of the relations between characters or factions.
2. Re:Toys today! by stcanard · 2004-12-23 04:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Personally I don't even like the space and castle legos
  I buy my son the basic blocks only. With a space set he can build space ships. With a castle set he can build castles. With generic blocks he can build spaceships, castles, cars, and a whole bunch of things I would never have thought of.
Great... by armer · 2004-12-23 04:01 · Score: 5, Funny

Now to rehash old wounds, a list of all the toys I ever wanted and never got. Merry Christmas!!...
North Pole: AKA Communist China by TrollBridge · 2004-12-23 04:10 · Score: 3, Funny

NORTH POLE
Leader: Big red guy.
Employees: Countless little people.
Labor Conditions: Servituude
Cost of Product: Zero

COMMUNIST CHINA
Leader: Big red government.
Employees: Countless little people.
Labor Conditions: Servitude
Cost of Product: Next to Zero

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Support capitalism, debunk the myth of Santa!

--
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Re:zero by LiquidCoooled · 2004-12-23 04:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Dear Santa,

Since we have been good admins all year long, could you please send us:

1 New Web Server.
A nice fat internet connection.

Sincerely,

tv.cream.org admins.

--
liqbase :: faster than paper
My $6,000,000 Man Action Figure... by Sideshow+Coward · 2004-12-23 04:16 · Score: 5, Funny

used to have his way with all of my sister's Barbies. Who could resist with his bionic leg, magnifying eye, red jump suit, and his oh-so-fuzzy head?
Toy stores by El+Cabri · 2004-12-23 04:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

What of the most unexpected pieces of happiness that came with becoming a father a few months ago was for me to return to toy stores. I had left the "Toy scene" twenty years ago when all my attention was diverted to getting and upgrading home computers for myself. European toys rule : Lego, Playmobil, Smurf figures were here for me, are still here.
50-in-1 Electronics Lab! Yeah!! by Artful+Codger · 2004-12-23 04:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

I was born about 20 years too early for the Internet, so while waiting for Al Gore to actually get it done, I was an electronics geek in public & high school (early 70's)

One year a prescient uncle gave me one of those kits, and I absolutely devoured it over the next several months. Highlights were the various radio circuits, audio amplifiers where you pressed that pink crystal earphone into service as a microphone, and the pinnacle - an AM transmitter.

Thanks in part to that thing, I went straight into electronics after high school and had a great 20 year career in broadcast electronics before jumping into programming several years ago.

Thanks for the link. Those were good memories.

--

... plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines...
bittersweet memories by catdevnull · 2004-12-23 04:54 · Score: 4, Funny

I remember back in '73, I got a GI Joe--the 12" action figure from the Viet Nam War era! He had rough beard and pre-camouflage utility uniform. VERY cool and manly. But then, my dad exploited my colorblindness by giving me a pink banana seat high-riser girl's bike he bought from a police auction for $5. Cheap bastard.

I think that was "tough love." But, on the bright side, I get to pick his retirement home.

--

I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
5 months in the 70's by frovingslosh · 2004-12-23 05:04 · Score: 4, Funny

I was alive for maybe 5 months in the 70's
Me too, and I was born in the 50's.

--
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
*Sigh*... I miss dangerous toys by phillymjs · 2004-12-23 05:09 · Score: 3, Funny

I didn't get very far in the list before the /. effect thwarted me, but my God, someone actually put a blob of mercury in a toy??? Oh, how I long for the days of my youth!

The lack of dangerous toys are a major part of why American society is going to hell in a handbasket. Back in the good old days, Darwinism made sure only the strongest, toughest, smartest kids survived. Nowadays, you can't hurt yourself with toys even if you try, playgrounds have 3 inches of soft rubber under everything, and they don't even have monkeybars (and you risk an NAACP protest march if you still call them monkeybars). The soft, stupid children survive into adolesence or adulthood and end up cracking for one reason or another and shooting up their school or workplace.

There's a bash.org quote that says, why don't we thin the herd of idiots in this country by taking the safety labels off everything for a while? I say we go one better and bring back toys that were deemed too dangerous and were removed from the market.

~Philly