I had the whole line of Kenner building sets. I loved them, along with American Bricks, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, Tinker Toy sets and several minor labels whose names I can no longer recall. Hindsight tells me I am glad I was born a Boomer. In these days there is a shortage of building sets. It can be summed up in four letters-- LEGO. How boring. How dismal!

I loved Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and Tinker Toys...I was a little different then most girls my age..I never liked dolls but these toys were great for my imagination.

I never thought I would ever see the year 2000 and then the next thing I knew... there it was.

I did think that the whole 2000 going hay-wired was a crock of dog poop. Nothing did happen but how funny it was watching all of the cows believe that strange things would happen.

Thanks for the memories.
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~

Great memories! I was the proud owner of a girder and panel, bridge and girder set, the give a show projector, and the hydrodynamic set. They all provided many hours of fun.

I had the Give a Show projector. I can remember having to focus the filmstrips to watch on the wall. I had forgotten all about that! Thanks.

I guess I had quite the Kenner collection at one time. My first was the Give a Show projector with a lot of Hanna and Barbera cartoons and some 50s stuff like Rin Tin Tin. I wish it had been much higher powered as far as the light goes. Plus the cardboard frames for the cells were lame and did not last long. I guess owning cartoon videos now pretty much makes our Kenner projector pretty lame and tame by comparison.

I was about 11 or 12 (70 or 71) when we had a load to take to the dump. The dump was a great place back then for people dumped all sorts of perfectly good toys and such. And a very good collection of the Girder and Panel set was there. We had many hours of fun with that, mainly playing with the girders, orange in color. I first saw one of those sets with the Gerardo boys who lived above us when I was 4 and remained perhaps our best family friends for our most important years. Joey and David had the Girder and Panel set, only theirs was complete and mega cool to me at about 6 or 7. I sort of always longed for a set after that. 4 or 5 years later, I got my wish, without cost. Cool!

We had Spirograph as well. Got pictures of us and our friends using that. Interested Ron? I even had an easy bake over because I wanted to sell treats, a sort of expanded lemonade stand. But it wasn’t very practical and my ambitions were bigger than my ability and that of my “customers.”

SSP racers? My brother got an Evel Knievel version or related to SSP or inspired by it. It was a pretty cool toy. Of course, we made it do jumps, trying to get some serious air and distance, as we also did on our old bicycles. Unbelievable fun and we never got hurt. Never went in for Star Wars crap. I was 18 by then, in 77, working at the Ramada Inn that summer and saw Star Wars 4 times and the Spy Who Loved Me twice.

Toys, times, and kids have changed, as if that was a revelation. Everything changed. Yeah, all our stuff is gone but it lives on in memories and a in the collections of a few collectors. Its hard to make it go away because of the gentle warmer world attached to it. The Biggest problem Big Brother has, is baby boomers who have too much they loved and still long for. Only by having us die and the sooner and better, can they see an end to memories that shall always plague and resist their attempts to take everything away from us and tell us its good this new way. Yeah, I have always liked slavery, poverty, 100% surveillance, and despotism. Can’t wait.

Kids are more sophisticated in some of their tastes today but missing other things. They were brought up by a world far less gentle and decent than what we knew. Kenner is gone and a lot of other things, too. It sure was fun for a while, wasn’t it? It was incredible!!!

Thanks for stirring up some happy childhood memories!

Between myself and my siblings, we had many of the products mentioned in the article. The Give-A-Show projector seemed really "high-tech" in its day. My brother and I had several of the Girders and Panels sets, which were kept at our grandma's house, and provided hours of fun when we visited there.

My brother had the Spirograph, and my kid sister was the proud owner of an Easy Bake oven, which used a light bulb to provide the heat to bake miniature cakes (the cakes never seemed to be all of the way done in the center, but I think that was because we were too anxious to eat them, and didn't give them enough time to get thoroughly baked!).

I'm glad to be apart of the last part of Kenner toys, I'm 20 btw. I often feel like the 90s were last classic decade for kids. Kids still played outside, played with toys, etc. Now everything is high tech and kids are growing up too soon. I no longer have my toys unfortunantly; however my boyfriend still has his which include Star Wars, Batman, & probably many more. He is now passing some of them along to his nephews. So the legacy continues XD

although i loved kenner, but what about IDEAL,MARX, MILTON BRADLEY,and REMCO. any info on these companies toys?

On Vera post

OUch, I think she may have something, Ron. Maybe a little info on companies we all knew as kids.

As well, Though you might not be familiar with Dark Shadows (DS), I can assure you that nation wide, this was a phenomenon and it has a very large following and had tons of websites when Sci-fi Chanel first brought back DS but then DS owners decided to wipe out and chase off all the great sites and they were pretty cool. That was truly an atrocity and I hope the owners recognize that.But all the same, for many of us, DS was a big part of 67-70 and is stamped on our minds and hearts forever. And I am always available for consultation or pointers and reviewing. And you would get a lot of possible search engine hits having DS on here in a big way. Something to consider, my friend! Cheers!

OMG. im a DARK SHADOWS FANATIC.i have books on DS, im in the fan club. i wish they woul put it back on tv again. the old episodes. i remember when NBC did a remake.

Vera, Vera, Vera

I'm so glad to hear you're a fan of DS. I first used to mock it when my mother watched. but then that werewolf (Chris Jennings, right?) came along. and Quentin was a great scary ghost. LOved that story line.

I enjoyed the Sci-Fi 2002-2003 airing of the shows. I later had to rent the DVDs and watch all the early stuff I never saw. And I missed Barnabas asn Julia going to the 1990s so I watched that, too.

But going back and seeing all those old episodes. So many feelings and memories came back. It was haunting but wonderful. That stuff was playing at an important time in my life.

I had a lot of feelings for those people. I began to understand the power of TV better. Any thoughts? Did you check out the websites around 2002, before they were all shut down? They were great. Take care!

Scott

oh how could i forget chris jennings. the werewolf. before that it was tom jennings the vampire. lol when i look at those episodes now, i laugh, because of those bloopers. and the actor who played the werewolf, died. he had a manic depressive disorder all the time he worked on DS,and was an heavy drinker. no i didnt but arent there anymore websites. im going to check.oh and angelique used to scare me too.and those kids? they scared me to when they were being possesed.

oh how could i forget chris jennings. the werewolf. before that it was tom jennings the vampire. lol when i look at those episodes now, i laugh, because of those bloopers. and the actor who played the werewolf, died. he had a manic depressive disorder all the time he worked on DS,and was an heavy drinker. no i didnt but arent there anymore websites. im going to check.oh and angelique used to scare me too.and those kids? they scared me to when they were being possesed.

Ah yes! I remembr that projector well. I didn't have one, but my nextdoor neighbor did! Many days looking at those film strips on the wall! My sister had a Easy Bake Oven. Who would have thought a light bulb would cook a cake? I didn't get into the Star Wars figures, but I wish I did! Spirograph, had that one too! I had Pivot Pool too, wasn't that a Kenner product. Dark Shadows, I remember the board game with the skeltons. Long live Barnabus Collins!

Hi River!

Yeah, DS had some marketing stuff going. Golden Key Comics, who did not care about the Comics Code certification, did a Dark Shadows comic book. I actually had one copy given to me.

And since Barnabas is a vampire, it is likely he could live forever, short of a stake or 6 silver bullets, right? ;-) Of course, theological theories would probably have something to say about that but its fun to joke about, eh?

But I felt for Barnabas as a kid. He was always losing his loves. And there were confusing feelings, too. Angelique was a real witch at times but being as beautiful as she was, I was confused. But when she had a twin sister in an alternate universe, Alexis, who was good, well, I just flipped.

DS had a number of good lookers. I would have loved to have had a hand in the writing dept. They sort of got off track and could not find their way after Barnabas and Julia came back from 1898 to their present.

@ Vera

Yes, I remember Tom was first. I also recall when "dirk" became a vampire and was killing everyone in sight. But he really ticked me off when he killed Rachel. But the writers had to kill her of so they could use her again as another character, Miss Kitty Hampshire, who would end up being a reincarnation of Josette. Barnabas took care of Dirk real good, though.

But Barnabas and Josette were never meant to be. It was just but it worked well. The plot lines were obviously fast and loose. I recall them looking for Quentin's history to see what was behind the hauntings. He was the only Quentin in family history. But in another trip back into time, 1840, suddenly Quentin had a previous namesake named Quentin. Maybe they thought we would forget about that.

Ah, those were a blast to watch. Far fetched? Of course! Enjoyable? Absolutely! Not doubt about it.

oh hell yeah. i remember the GIVE A SHOW PROJECTOR. i had one, and me and my friends had loads of fun watching.