Toys Archives
The Etch-a-Sketch I am so pleased when I write about a toy from our Boomer childhoods, and don't have to include it under the "Things that Disappeared When You Weren't Looking" category! Such is the happy case with the subject of today's piece, the Etch-a-Sketch, still proudly produced by Ohio Art! I...
Board Games True, we Boomer kids did spend most of our lives outdoors. However, there were many sweet rainy afternoons when we passed the time by playing board games inside. Of course, every Boomer household had Monopoly. But many other familiar board games could be found on the shelves in our bedrooms....
Dime Store Gliders When we were kids, our options at the local neighborhood grocery or the dime store were manifold. Most of the time, we walked out with candy. But sometimes, we would invest our hard-earned (or begged) coins on magical little flying machines made of balsa wood. They came in little clear...
Vanished Toy Companies We Boomers grew up with the greatest toys ever made. Indeed, the 1950's-1970's has been hailed as the Golden Age of toy manufacturing by more than one authority. And those toys were brought to us by a number of manufacturers who, sadly, have disappeared from sight. I've already written about...
Mr. Potato Head As the previous article on Legos mentioned, it's special indeed when a toy that we Boomers enjoyed as children survives the economic upheavals and the buying/selling/absorptions of the companies that originally produced them. Such is the case with the subject of today's I Remember JFK memory: Mr. Potato Head. Mr....
Lego In a day and age when many of our favorite childhood toys have ridden off into the sunset, either victims of hard financial times, or perhaps, like Kenner, were bought and sold into total obscurity, it's refreshing to see a treasured childhood memory doing very well, thank you. Such is...
Betsy Wetsy Television of the 50's tried to shield us from many ugly facts. For example, the very idea that married couples would sleep in the same bed! The horror! And we never, ever saw the Beave or Wally heading for the can. But thanks to a man named Abraham Katz, the...
Kenner, We Hardly Knew Ye The year 2000 was a big one. We used to dream about someday seeing the year 2000 when we were kids. Arthur C. Clarke figured that by that year, commercial spaceflight would be commonplace (in fact, there is a bit of commercial space flying, if you want to buy a...
Flicker Rings Before I begin, kudos is (are?) in order. This piece was suggested by mega-commenter River's End. Please send your own suggestions in if you have any! Circa 1966, opening a box of cereal, or a box of Cracker Jack, or one of those plastic egg-shaped containers from a gumball machine...
Water Rockets I certainly didn't hurt for toys when I was a kid. However, I didn't have EVERY toy. Witness the Texaco Fire Truck. Another cool toy that sadly never made it into my toybox was the water rocket. I saw hundreds of ads for water rockets in various comic book ads....
Structo Cars and Trucks Tonkas were the undisputed king of rough, tough outdoor play in the 1960's dirt. But there was another brand, nearly as popular, that Boomer kids played with by the millions: Structo. I remember my mom making an offhand remark once about how Structo toys were of high quality. In researching...
The Texaco Fire Truck As this column began to come together in my head, it was a result of the simultaneous collusion of the time of year (lots of Christmas commercials on the tube), my suspicious eying of low gas prices (I doubt that it will last), and a jingle that has been bouncing...
Made in Japan "Made in Japan." Our fathers, who may well have fought in the Pacific theater in WWII, would derisively roll their eyes when reading this out loud from a label on a cheap piece of junk. "Serves them right" they might have mused, recalling fallen comrades in arms, "to be the...
It's Slinky! It's Slinky! It's a pleasure to offer today's I Remember JFK memory as a currently available toy, and NOT as something that disappeared while you weren't looking! Indeed, Slinky, and its manufacturer, Poof-Slinky, Inc.(a company owned by the family of Slinky's inventor) stand tall as triumphant survivors which have weathered harsh economic...
The Toys in the World of Plants Every previous generation had it tougher when they were kids. My own children grew up in a world of Nintendo, VCR-recorded cartoons and movies, and light-up-sneakers. My world was playing outside all day long, black-and-white TV, and PF Flyers. Our parents, of course, grew up during the Great Depression. Food...
Introducing...the Nerf Ball! "Stop throwing that ball around in the house! You're going to break something!" How many of us heard that sound repeatedly by our impatient mothers? it was enough to make mom go for another cigarette, the stress of worrying about her good lamps! On July 3, 1929, Dunlop Latex Development...
Matchbox We Boomer kids were used to seeing "Made in Japan" on the bottoms of our various toys. Japan was the cheap place to make everything back in the 50's and 60's. But we were also used to seeing "Made in England" on one of our most beloved playthings: Matchbox miniatures....
Playing Monopoly There are memories that transcend generations. Today's I Remember JFK reminiscence is one such. Odds our our parents enjoyed the game of Monopoly before we Boomer kids ever came along. But we certainly enjoyed it ourselves, as have our children and grandchildren. There are probably few households in America that...
Giant Rockets and Subs in Comic Book Ads How cynical we Baby Boomers are. And for good reason, too. After all, we devoured comic books like they were cotton candy. And the comics' ten or twelve cent price was subsidized by advertising. But it wasn't just advertising. It was huge, colorful, lavishly illustrated ads for things that, if...
Playing Doctor All right, get your mind out of the gutter. I'm not talking about THAT kind of playing doctor! A while back, I wrote about how actually visiting a doctor was a mixed bag for a kid.On the one hand, there was the ever-present fear of getting a shot. On the...
Getting Rid of the Training Wheels The lessons we learned when we were children! We gained wisdom that would serve us well as adults. For instance, we learned that the safety and security of training wheels was comfortable, yet it had to be left behind sooner or later for the much more unsure, daring world of...
The Magic Eight-Ball In the 1940's Mary Carter lived in Cincinnati, making a lucrative living holding fake seances. Mary was also inventive. She created a slate that would appear to be sealed inside a box, inside which she was able to write messages "from the spirit world." When she opened the box, her...
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Jarts:
It was a sweet summertime tradition. Hop in the Plymouth, fall asleep in the back seat while dad did all the driving, end up in Story City, Iowa six or seven hours later. Every summer we would make the trip up to the nation's heartland so that dad could visit...
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