strangest, weirdist or just plain wrong toy from your youth

[dostacos]

When I was a kid that actually had play cigarettes now I am not talking candy cigarettes or bubble gum cigars, I mean real paper wrapped cigarettes when you puffed on them they had "smoke" come out the lit end.

we also had every type of toy gun a kid could want.

now where is my fanner 50?

Dan

 

[Ed Bass]

I guess it would have to be "Incredible Edibles". They came out about a year after "Creepy Crawlers" did.
Remember, the insects and worms you could make by pouring "Goop" into the metal molds and heating them until they were rubbery. Then you peeled them out of the mold and played with them.
With "Incredible Edibles"....you could eat the rubbery bugs you made.
Yeah, that's pretty weird I guess. [huh]
Best,
Toots

 

[carter]

We had those same cigarettes. Of course everyone on TV smoked like a locomotive back then.

I remember making full-sized replicas of Winchester Rifles from model kits. I actually still have a replica Beretta that I made from a Sharper Image kit about 20 years ago.

Not so Politically Incorrect back then. Times change.

 

[Starius]

I had a "Mad Scientist" playset that included two monster skeletons, that you could articulate, put together, take apart, etc. The set came with this clay like substance that you could mold around the skeletons as flesh, add eyeballs, bringing them to life, etc. It also included a big vat which you would fill with water and add a powder solution..... dunk in your monsters.. and watch them die a horrible death as their "flesh" is slowly eaten away and they're dissolved down to the bone.

Creepy, eh?

 

[Nashoba]

I had a "Mad Scientist" playset that included two monster skeletons, that you could articulate, put together, take apart, etc. The set came with this clay like substance that you could mold around the skeletons as flesh, add eyeballs, bringing them to life, etc. It also included a big vat which you would fill with water and add a powder solution..... dunk in your monsters.. and watch them die a horrible death as their "flesh" is slowly eaten away and they're dissolved down to the bone.

Creepy, eh?

oooooh I remember those! those things were awsome

 

[LocktownDog]

My brother had these space ray guns that shot sparks and made a heck of a lot of noise. I used to hold him down and press the barrel right up to his face, just to watch those hot sparks bounce off him. Lots of screaming and kicking and crying.

Hmmm ... I guess I have one more thing to apologize to him about. This darn list gets longer everyday. [huh]

Richard

 

[imoldfashioned]

Apologies to any gals who may have loved these dolls but in my opinion two toys from my childhood that stand out as just plain wrong are:

Baby Alive--this creepy looking doll ate, drank and pooped ("I get to change her diaper!" said many of the ads. Oh joy!). It also had one of the most annoying, earwormish commercials of my youth--I can still sing the jingle 35 years later; "Baby Alive/Soft and Sweet/She can drink/She caaaaan eat!" I couldn't find that one online, but here's a later one that shows you the doll in action: http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/1007/

I never had, nor wanted, a Baby Alive, but my mother did buy me Growin' Up Skipper circa 1976. Skipper was Barbie's little sister and if you moved her arm this version of the doll grew an inch and sprouted breasts--I kid you not. Her torso was made of some weird flexible plastic that was discolored, not matching the rest of her body. Far from making me look forward to puberty this doll seriously creeped my eight year old self out. I didn't ask for it, and my mother didn't even use it as an aid for "the talk"--it just showed up one day. Eek! Thank God I got a normal Princess Leia doll not long afterwards to take my mind off freaky Skipper.

 

[Quigley Brown]

I had some sort of 007 movie camera that when you pulled the camera trigger a gold bullet would come out the lens. I remember having an 'attache' case that contained a play sniper rifle that you'd put together just like a REAL one...even had a silencer!

 

[LizzieMaine]

This here thing --

Basically, a hand held vibrator-type gadget with a pen attatched. My brother used it to give himself a tattoo, and carnage was the result.

 

[imoldfashioned]

My brother used it to give himself a tattoo, and carnage was the result.

Good times!

The product design is kind of cute--all the better to lure the junior tattoo artists I'll wager.

 

[zaika]

Apologies to any gals who may have loved these dolls but in my opinion two toys from my childhood that stand out as just plain wrong are:

Baby Alive--this creepy looking doll ate, drank and pooped ("I get to change her diaper!" said many of the ads. Oh joy!). It also had one of the most annoying, earwormish commercials of my youth--I can still sing the jingle 35 years later; "Baby Alive/Soft and Sweet/She can drink/She caaaaan eat!" I couldn't find that one online, but here's a later one that shows you the doll in action: http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/1007/

I never had, nor wanted, a Baby Alive, but my mother did buy me Growin' Up Skipper circa 1976. Skipper was Barbie's little sister and if you moved her arm this version of the doll grew an inch and sprouted breasts--I kid you not. Her torso was made of some weird flexible plastic that was discolored, not matching the rest of her body. Far from making me look forward to puberty this doll seriously creeped my eight year old self out. I didn't ask for it, and my mother didn't even use it as an aid for "the talk"--it just showed up one day. Eek! Thank God I got a normal Princess Leia doll not long afterwards to take my mind off freaky Skipper.

Aaahahahaha! I remember Baby Alive! I used to watch the commercials with the same caution that I reserved for the likes of "Nightmare on Elm Street."
I am jealous of your Princess Leia doll, though. My mom refused to buy me anything more than a lunchbox even though I was obsessed with Star Wars. *sigh*

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I remember those play cigarettes, you could also purchase a pack of candy cigarettes and pretend you were a grown-up smoking. I think I recall some candy cigars, too, made of chocolate. We liked those even better.

In my neighborhood, we had an arsenal of guns: the boy across the street, who had all the neat toys, had a Fanner. My brother had a two-gun set. We use to have fast draw contests. Also, toy rifles and BB guns galore: little boys in our neighborhood thought nothing of killing songbirds with them.

As for dolls, my mother kept giving them to me in the hopes they would spark some sort of maternal instinct, but I played cowboys with them, turning them into outlaws -- they got shot, punched, tied up, put in jail, dragged through the dirt, and, on one occasion, hanged.

Oh, yes, caps were legal; we had cap guns and shot those off, along with sparklers. Fireworks were illegal in Iowa, so every summer, someone would drive across the Missouri line and and buy cherry bombs and firecrackers for the July 4th holiday, not to mention cases and cases of "real" beer (Iowa was a dry state and beer was not allowed to be above 3.2%, which is pretty close to near-beer, I think). Whoops, I'm off topic.

We didn't need toys to get in trouble, though. We used to go swimming in creeks and old strip mines. A kid on my block drowned in a strip mine one summer. I broke my leg after jumping off a creek tunnel onto a sand bank after some boys dared me to do it. No tomboy wants to be thought of as a "chicken." So, I jumped.

We played in excavation sites, too, and threw dirt clods at each other. I broke a neighbor kid's arm one time when I tackled him during a neighborhood football game. In this day and age, his parents would probably sue my family.

Dangerous times, but I wouldn't trade for today's childhood....

karol

 

[Mr. Lucky]

Mayway Toys "Bag O' Glass"

 

[BegintheBeguine]

I don't still have the box, though.

This here thing --

Basically, a hand held vibrator-type gadget with a pen attatched. My brother used it to give himself a tattoo, and carnage was the result.

LizzieMaine, that brings back forgotten fond memories. One of my friends had that happy little fellow.
A game that only I ended up liking was Green Ghost. http://www.spookshows.com/toys/green/green.htm It was a serendipitous day last year when I found a bag in the basement and reached in and felt feathers. Kelly, I've found you!

 

[flat-top]

LizzieMaine, that brings back forgotten fond memories. One of my friends had that happy little fellow.
A game that only I ended up liking was Green Ghost. http://www.spookshows.com/toys/green/green.htm It was a serendipitous day last year when I found a bag in the basement and reached in and felt feathers. Kelly, I've found you!

GREEN GHOST!!! I had that!! I would have never even remembered it's existance if not for this post!!
One weird toy that comes to mind immediately was an action figure called Pulsar. He was 11" tall like an old GI Joe and wore a black and red jumpsuit that if you opened, you could view his see through upper body and all it's exposed organs and such. If you pressed the button on his back, red blood pumped through his "veins'!
http://images.google.com/imgres?img...PULSAR+action+figure&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&sa=G

 

[LocktownDog]

I had one of those Pulsar figures. That was just plain weird. Couldn't you see the lungs pumping in and out too?

Richard

 

[BegintheBeguine]

This is my new favorite thread. I can't get over how much I loved seeing that buzzy bug again. Yes, I know, pathetic. Glad I could resurrect Green Ghost; I had him in another thread, who knows which one. lol
One Christmas my dad thought I had enough Barbies so bought me a Madame Alexander Russian girl doll and a Dutch boy doll which I tried to play with but ended up just displaying. Yes, I still have them but they are no longer on display.

 

[flat-top]

I had one of those Pulsar figures. That was just plain weird. Couldn't you see the lungs pumping in and out too?

Richard

I think they did!
I KNOW my grandmother threw my Pulsar out, but she denied it for years!

 

[scotrace]

Ha! I had the buzzy buzz thing and had forgotten all about it!

Also had these. Played them a lot.

Be careful of imitations! They may be of irregular size and weight! I wonder if there was a Pro Jarts Association that got to shake down department stores for selling the substandard Jarts?

 

[Viola]

I was in karate classes when I was little. Confidence, fitness, etc. When I was about eight, I won a pair of plastic nunchucks.

I could spin them and do the double figure-eights and stuff, after a couple days.

But when I was eight, my little brother was three. And he wanted to do nothing more than follow me around and take my stuff all the time. Now, if I hit A.W. in the head with my 'chucks, I'd be grounded until I was dead, so I came up with the brilliant idea of GIVING him the nunchucks to play with.

That little boy would spend an hour hitting HIMSELF in the head, trying to be a Ninja Turtle, and I wasn't hitting, I was sharing.