The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday in the noon hour.
QUESTION: What was your favorite toy when you were a kid, and do you still have it?
Talk about it….
My Dydee Doll.
Her eyes opened and closed, and she kept the bad things in the closet from oozing out and smothering me at night.
I only have her head now because the rest of her mildewed to death in my parents’ attic.
Probably a cassette tape recorder. Pretty much anything I could take apart to see how it worked and put it back tohether. And yes…blew plenty of circuit breakers as a kid.
As a boy, my Schwinn bicycle and my Daisy air rifle and I were inseparable. But alas, I no longer have them.
If you grew up in Denmark a bike is not a toy, but a necessity, especially if you lived in the country. I had to ride my bike a good mile to the train station.
My Daisy air rifle was my favorite.too!
My Jo-han dealer promo model cars. Especially liked all The Cadillacs. They were so detailed inside and out and had friction drive. I see that they go for 50 to $100 now on eBay. They were only a $1.54 back in the 1960s, or some car dealers gave them out free.
I imagine some folks in my age group were as obsessed with the Masters of the Universe toy line as much as I was when they were kids.
Hot Wheels. I still play with cars too. ^_^
Hot wheels were my favorites as well. Except when I would piss my mother off and she’d beat my ass with the hot wheel track!
Crayons, paints, pencils, paper, fabrics, yarn, clay, etc., because I LOVED to create (still do) and I didn’t really have toys per say, just a bike. Think it was because both of my Grandmothers made things, and I wanted to, too. Plus there was 5 of us kids, myself the oldest. Got to have toys for the little ones!! But I do have some of my artwork still to this day which I found at my parents house 2 years ago, since we had to sell the house after our Father passed away.
Thank you for mentioning your paints, Roz! I was coming up blank.🤣 That was one of my earliest toys, dry little cakes of watercolor in a little metal tin. My mom thought I might be old enough for oils when I turned eight, but I was on my honor not to get it on the new carpet she had installed on my “playroom” floor so it wouldn’t be so cold in there. It was a looped carpet with a wonderful mix of blues and greens. I had some of my early training in mixing oil colors to the perfect shades when the necessity arose, covering over big OOPSies of oranges and yellows and browns (etc., etc.,), and rendering them undetectable, and I was good at it, she never knew. After a few years I realized that I prefered the challenges of painting with watercolors more than with oils, and I’ve never picked them up again. I still have plenty of watercolor painting stuff. A lifetime supply at this point.😉 I don’t think there’s any very early representations anywhere anymore.
Oh my gosh Roz…just like my wife. Still has baking goods, acrylic paints, crochet and knitting stuff and now into mosaic (Painted glass) art. She just finished a 4 foot glass table. It is so awesome. Once again…our families are so alike. Someday I’ll share our email address so we can share. She still has an old Singer sewing in an old weathered wooden cabinet from her Grandmother. Anyway…keep it up. Soothes the soul girl.
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Tinkertoy and Lego
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Lincoln Logs…I no longer have it.
Mattel-o-graf …. great toy which came with stencils to recreate Peanuts cartoons, Barbie and Hot Wheels.
Lego assault rifle style guns we made and would run around the neighborhood and local parks playing “gun games” with tactical gear, camoflage,homemade bombs (just plastic pipes with electronics taped on them), knives and axes we made. We would likely be arrested if we did this in today’s day and age.
HotWheels, Aurora A/FX race cars and track. Slotcars when I was older.
I still have all of it.
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I still have mine too!
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I should dig them out of the garage and set it up.
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Prior to 1950, Lincoln Logs, interlocking wooden bricks (forerunner of plastic Legos), Erector set, but not the expensive Gilbert one. Lionel train. All gone as I reached adulthood.
Sad to admit slightly, video games. So many superb titles as a lad that offered hundreds of hours of fun. Some may say I should have been outside more throwing the ball, I’d say they shouldn’t have missed out on Chrono Trigger.
Also legos, bikes, action-figure-battles in general, RC cars.
Don’t be sad, if you know Chrono Trigger, you know some of the best titles from a great era of gaming! I was lucky enough to grow up with an Atari 2600 and upgraded to an NES a couple of years after it was released.
Chrono Trigger is masterpiece and your time was well spent.
Thingmaker. If you couldn’t hurt yourself, it wasn’t a good toy. Don’t have it anymore, still have.the scar tho
Aurora electric toy slot cars. Hours of entertainment in the basement during the cold winters in ND. I’m sure my mom was glad to get me out of her hair. I still collect them and have some of the ones I bought in the late 1960’s in Grand Forks. Definitely a more common cold weather toy as they are scarce around here but fairly common in the Midwest and East Coast.
I had a Radio Shack 150 in 1 Electronics Project kit that pretty much set the direction of my life. I wish I still had it.
Those were pretty cool…you can still get one on eBay for about 40 bucks.
Yep, had one of those, too. Still had it until about 5 years ago when it hit the garage sale.
Eskimo yo-yo.
Clackers.
Lawn Darts –
(Until they stopped selling for safety reasons).
Lego, Etch-a-Sketch, Spirograph and Merlin
My favorite was my Big Wheel Scooter! I enjoyed getting around the neighborhood with my own transportation.
My Gameboy.
VAC-U-FORM, it was my brothers but he let me use it. Also spirograph
Yes! Vac-U-Form rocked, and Incredible Edibles, don’t think I could eat them now. Did that tumor come from them? 🤔
Spirograph! that was so cool….hadn’t thought of that toy probably since the early 80s.
i forgot about incredible edibles and no I could not eat them now lol
Simon. I credit that memory game with helping me obtain the sharp of memory and the ability to organize my thoughts that has served me so well throughout life. No idea what became of it.
Mary Fouts-
You mean you can’t remember what
happened to it? If that’s a joke,
I’m laughing.
HO-gauge model trains and plastic model kits (aircraft, tanks, ships) that I had to glue together.
My American Flyer train. Still have it and set it up under the Christmas tree. It will be passed on to my grandsons as soon as they are old enough to play with it and not break it !!!!
AD
There were many, but all had something in common; they mostly weren’t electronic and they required me to play with friends. Football outfit, tetherball, ping pong table, even my (root beer brown, stick shift) Stingray. One I wish I still had; Batman utility belt which was a hot toy circa 1966-67. Even electronic games required friend interaction; hot wheels, slot cars, (vibrating table) football, Rock em-Sock em robots.
Super toe
Daisy BB gun
Hot wheels
Match box
I had the most cool cowboy set, cannot recall the name, but it had about 4 buildings that fit together so you had a little town (even had wood plank sidewalks-all plastic of course), and a set of good guys and bad guys. I seem to recall even a stagecoach. I have been looking on ebay for years, just to see if I could find it, but so far no luck.
Super toe
Lincoln logs
Daisy BB gun
My bat,ball and glove
My Erector set. I had “the Engineer’s set” and ultimately had a long career as an aerospace engineer. I still have it. I also built model airplanes (mostly flying ones), and still do.
Green machine
A piece of bread he could fashion into a gun using his teeth.
Big wheel, Frisbee, este rockets, radio controlled plane
My Matchbox cars! Started buying them in the sixties from the Emporium on Market St. in SF. Would take the N-Judah streetcar downtown and back. Also bought a few from a hobby shop on Noriega st. Still have a collection of about 35 cars most with their original boxes.
Lawn Darts ! !
Coloring books, and paper dolls. In Denmark in the fifties you could buy a sheet with a paper doll and several outfits, they did not have colors, so you could use your imagination and color the outfits to your liking, you could also buy several more sheets with just outfits that fit the original paper doll. I always liked colors and clothes, still do, so it was a perfect fit for me.
I really wanted an electrical train. The main train station had a model of a electrical train, with mountains, stop signs tunnels, I was fascinated by it, but because it was the fifties and I was a girl I never got one.
The paper doll setup sounds ingenious. I bet it was affordable to most people, too. I also remember in the 50s and 60s as a kid and being pretty disappointed about all of the very cool stuff the boys got to play with that we girls with no brothers couldn’t. And I thought most of the toys made for girls were not fun, or exciting. I was lucky at least my mom knew not to buy any of the very crappy things they produced for girls back then. She looked for things enjoyed by both girls and boys and she did get me some pretty cool things, my bow and arrows for example. I made Yeoman Archer at Summer camp with that little fiberglass bow!😊 That was fun. I don’t have it anymore, it fell to pieces at some point in it’s life.
My El Dorado Pinball Machine. My friends and I played that for thousands of hours in our game room.
My ding-a-ling.
You win the internet prize of the day……LOL!!!!!
Barbie!!! Was very jealous of my best friend’s Barbie camper. It was the 70’s at it’s finest.
Bicycle. My freedom machine.
Mattel Fanner 6 cap Me and my brother had those plastic tips allover the house . gun With fast draw holster . It came with spring loaded bullits that shot out a plastic tip that was reusable and greenie stickum caps . My brother and I had those plastic tips all over the house .
BB gun
Between the BB gun and the firecrackers, the little plastic army men never stood a chance!
I thought my kids had some great toys. I loved Transformers! I also really enjoyed helping with some of their fancy Lego sets. But I had a brick building set that I really enjoyed as a child.
In hindsight, I had some really great toys. I had Lincoln logs, an erector set, and a girders & panel set to build bridges and skyscrapers. We had two train sets that went through tunnels in a Papier-mâché mountain that I built. I was too young for the Chemistry Set with radioactive materials, but my set had everything I needed to burn down the house or poison everyone inside it. And my set did not come with the “don’t try this at home” warning. And my brothers and I took the fenders off our Schwinns so we could go off-roading.
Evel Knievel stunt cycle.
Those things could take a lot of abuse!
Raleigh Chopper bicycle and plastic model kits.
I don’t know if this counts but we used to have sleep overs and play Dungeons and Dragons all night long. We’d obsess over this stupid game, playing it at recess and after school. That lasted from about 6th grade through 9th.
Then I discovered girls.
Dungeons and Dragons wasn’t really a thing when I was a kid. However, there was a cult that kept a non-stop game going on one of my boats. People would leave and someone else would step in as people had to go on watch, but the game went on and on. The Risk cult was almost as intense, and up in the torpedo room, there was always a poker game going on. I was in the Acey-Duecy cult.
My HO Gauge electric trains……..COX Thimble Drone gas powered control line model planes. Benjamin air rifle. Then the Draft showed up and boys toys were a bygone era.
Checked eBay, you can still buy Radio Shack 150 in 1 Electronics Project kit.
AFX slot cars. I still have several cars in a tackle box, and some old track with the controllers somewhere.