Toys From My Childhood

Hot Wheels original 1966 Batmobile
The original design by custom automotive legend, George Barris, was based on a futuristic 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car that was never put into production. George Barris’ iconic crime-fighting vehicle has since become an enduring symbol of the beloved Batman franchise. The launch of the Hot Wheels® Batmobile models commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first “Batman” television series.
"While the vehicle has been reinvented numerous times over the years in comic books, animated series and feature films, the TV Batmobile is still held in the highest regard with countless fans who will truly appreciate this exciting endeavor,” said Karen McTier, Executive Vice President of Domestic Licensing and Worldwide Marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products. There is no denying that Barris’ classic version of the Batmobile is world-renowned and the Hot Wheels® reproductions will be the first of their kind bringing one of television’s most recognized vehicles to a new generation of Batman fans and collectors alike.

Toys From My Childhood

Barrel of Monkeys is a toy game released by Lakeside Toys in 1965. It was created by Leonard Marks and Milton Dinhofer in 1961, and in 1964, Herman Kesler partnered to sell it to Lakeside Toys. Lakeside Toys released it in 1965 and today it is produced by the Milton Bradley Company within the Hasbro corporation. Milton Bradley's editions consist of a toy barrel in either blue, yellow, red, purple, orange, gray or green. The barrel contains 12 monkeys but can hold 24, their color usually corresponding to the barrel's color. The instructions state, "Dump monkeys onto table. Pick up one monkey by an arm. Hook other arm through a second monkey's arm. Continue making a chain. Your turn is over when a monkey is dropped." In addition to these basic instructions, the barrel also contains instructions for playing alone or with two or more players.
Time magazine ranked Barrel of Monkeys at #53 on their 2011 All-Time 100 Greatest Toys list.

Toys From My Childhood

Knucklebones, Tali, Fivestones, or Jacks, is a game of ancient origin, usually played with five small objects, or ten in the case of jacks. Originally the "knucklebones" (actually the astragalus, a bone in the ankle, or hock) were those of a sheep, which were thrown up and caught in various manners. Modern knucklebones consist of six points, or knobs, proceeding from a common base, and are usually made of metal or plastic. The winner is the first player to successfully complete a prescribed series of throws, which, though similar, differ widely in detail. The simplest throw consists in either tossing up one stone, the jack, or bouncing a ball, and picking up one or more stones or knucklebones from the table while it is in the air. This continues until all five stones or knucklebones have been picked up. Another throw consists in tossing up first one stone, then two, then three and so on, and catching them on the back of the hand. Different throws have received distinctive names, such as "riding the elephant", "peas in the pod", "horses in the stable", and "frogs in the well". [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

The Chatter Telephone is a pull toy for toddlers 12 to 36 months of age. Introduced in 1962 by the Fisher-Price company as the "Talk Back Phone" for infants and children, the Chatter Telephone is a roll along pull toy. It has a smiling face, and when the toy is pulled, it makes a chattering sound and the eyes move up and down. The toy has a rotary dial that rings a bell, and was conceived as a way to teach children how to dial a phone

The original version was made of wood, with a polyethylene receiver and cord. In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year. The Chatter Telephone was designed by Ernest Thornell, whose daughter Tina would drag around a metal phone while playing. This gave him the idea of adding wheels, which with a bent axle permitted the movement of eyes, adding to the "whimsical" nature, that Herman Fisher desired of all Fisher-Price toys (from phone conversation with Ernie Thornell and recollections of Herm Fisher by John Smith).

From its introduction through the 1970s, the Chatter Telephone was Fisher-Price's best selling product. It has been cited as one of the company's offerings that helped save Fisher Price in the 1990s following a failed attempt to market toys for older children in the late 1980s, and enjoys continuing popularity. It is available both as an authentic reproduction and in a modern form. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.

On a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and other twisty puzzles and compete for the fastest times in various categories. Since 2003, The World Cube Association, the Rubik's Cube's international governing body, has organised competitions worldwide and kept the official world records.

[Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Thunderball Jigsaw Puzzle
This over 600-piece puzzle features the spy hero and his allies from Her Majesty's Secret Service being ambushed underwater by the diabolical terrorists known as SPECTRE!

Toys From My Childhood

Slinky
A Slinky is a toy precompressed helical spring invented by Richard James in the early 1940s. It can perform a number of tricks, including travelling down a flight of steps end-over-end as it stretches and re-forms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum, or appear to levitate for a period of time after it has been dropped. These interesting characteristics have contributed to its success as a toy in its home country of United States, resulting in many popular toys with slinky components in a wide range of countries. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.
The name has been a registered trademark of Hasbro Inc. since 1998 following purchase of the company that had acquired the Denys Fisher company. The Spirograph brand was relaunched worldwide with original product configurations in 2013 by Kahootz Toys.
In 1827 English architect and engineer Peter Hubert Desvignes developed his "Speiragraph",^[1] a machine to create elaborate spiral drawings, intended to prevent bank note forgeries.^[2]
The mathematician Bruno Abakanowicz invented the Spirograph between 1881 and 1900. It was used for calculating an area delimited by curves.^[3] Drawing toys based on gears have been around since at least 1908, when The Marvelous Wondergraph was advertised in the Sears catalog.^[4][5] An article describing how to make a Wondergraph drawing machine appeared in the Boys Mechanic publication in 1913.^[6] The Spirograph itself was developed by the British engineer Denys Fisher, who exhibited at the 1965 Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It was subsequently produced by his company. US distribution rights were acquired by Kenner, Inc., which introduced it to the United States market in 1966 and promoted it as a creative children's toy.
In 2013 the Spirograph brand was re-launched worldwide by Kahootz Toys with products that returned to the use of the original gears and wheels. The modern products use removable putty in place of pins or are held down by hand to keep the stationary pieces in place on the paper. The Spirograph was a 2014 Toy of the Year finalist in two categories, over 45 years after the toy was named Toy of the Year in 1967. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Hot Wheels is a brand of 1:64, 1:43, 1:18 and 1:50 scale die-cast toy cars introduced by American toy maker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1997, when Mattel bought Tyco Toys, then-owner of Matchbox.
Many automobile manufacturers have licensed Hot Wheels to make scale models of their cars, allowing the use of original design blueprints and detailing. Although Hot Wheels were originally intended for children and young adults, they have become popular with adult collectors, for whom limited edition models are now made available. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Mr. Potato Head
Mr. Potato Head is an American toy consisting of a plastic model of a potato which can be decorated with a variety of plastic parts that can attach to the main body. These parts usually include ears, eyes, shoes, a hat, a nose, and a mouth. The toy was invented and developed by George Lerner in 1949, and first manufactured and distributed by Hasbro in 1952.^[1] Mr. Potato Head was the first toy advertised on television^[2][3] and has remained in production since its debut. The toy was originally produced as separate plastic parts with pushpins that could be stuck into a real potato or other vegetable. However, due to complaints regarding rotting vegetables and new government safety regulations, Hasbro began including a plastic potato body within the toy set in 1964. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Major Matt Mason was an action figure created by Mattel. He was an astronaut who lived and worked on the Moon. When introduced in 1966, the figures were initially based on design information found in Life Magazine, Air Force Magazine, Jane's, and other aviation- and space-interest periodicals. Later, the line attempted to transition into the realm of science fiction.
Also in the toy-line were a three-story "space station" (actually a moon base), various lunar surface and flying vehicles, mostly battery-powered; and various accessories, variously powered by springs, pneumatics, strings, or batteries. What made the early run of the accessories appealing was that the designs were based directly on concepts promoted and demonstrated by NASA and the various contractors involved in America's "Race to the Moon" in the 1960s. The "Moon Suit" and the "Space Station", as well as the "Jet Pack" were actually seen as concept drawings in such magazines as Look and Life. The laser weapons were copied from designs of science fiction shows of the time. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Aurora Godzilla Glow in the Dark

The first of the Aurora monster models was Frankenstein, although the kit was, of course, of the Monster. From a sculpture by Jack Lemon, based on a Marx’s wind-up walker toy, the original prototype was shown at the HIAA annual convention in January, 1962. No orders were received until the last day of the show, when industry representatives were allowed to bring their families. On that day, Chicago distributor Al Davis’s sons Glenn and Fred wandered into the Aurora exhibit. Instead of grabbing the planes, cars or trucks, they made straight for the Monster, and Davis placed an order. A couple of California distributors saw this and placed orders too. 

Aurora shipped the kits, and a few days later the phone started ringing: ‘Can we have some more monsters?’ As it became obvious that the Frankenstein kit was going to be a huge success, the rest of the line-up was rushed into production. Dracula came next, followed by the Wolf Man, both of these being in stores in time for Christmas 1962. The following year saw The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy and the Phantom of the Opera, with the Hunchback of Notre Dame, King Kong and Godzilla coming in 1964. Dr Jekyll as Mr Hyde was not released until 1965. Later that year, the Bride of Frankenstein and the Witch went into production, but it was a miscalculation by Aurora; girls tended not to buy model kits, and female characters don’t appeal to 10 year old boys.

The last of the line of Aurora monster models was The Forgotten Prisoner of Castel Mare, which was created in association with Warren Magazines. The story of the hapless prisoner was told in the August 1970 edition of Creepy. As famous as the models today is James Bama’s fantastic box art, and a mere glimpse of it recalls fantastic childhood memories for many an ‘old boy’.

As sales dwindled, Aurora attempted to revitalise the range with their ‘Frightening Lightning’ and ‘Glows in the Dark’ series in 1969, which featured new, square boxes (the originals had been rectangular) and an extra sprue with some phosphorescent plastic parts. The move worked, and once again the monsters racked up sales from a new generation of 1970s kids.  [Classic Monsters]

Toys From My Childhood

Lincoln Logs
Lincoln Logs is a U.S. children's toy consisting of notched miniature logs, used to build small forts and buildings. They were invented by John Lloyd Wright , second son of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Lincoln Logs were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999. As of 2014 Lincoln Logs are manufactured by K'NEX Industries Inc. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

The Farmer Says See 'n Say Talking Toy
Introduced in 1965, the See 'N Say Farmers Says was the first talking toy that allowed children to pick the exact phrase they wanted to hear. The classic Farmer Says teaches about 12 animals and the sound they make. Point the arrow and pull the cord to hear all the classic sounds you remember from your childhood.

Toys From My Childhood

Zerak toy robot
The Zeroids were a line of toy robots from the Planet Zero introduced by the Ideal Toy Companyin 1967 and re-licensed by Toyfinity in 2013 along with the later "STAR Team" revival. Consisting of Zerak, Zintar and Zobor, the Zeroids powered their way into the imaginations of young boys for nearly a decade. Zeroid robots were powered by a small DC electric motor that could be removed. These DC motors appeared as the brand name "Motorific" in Ideal Corp racing slot cars, and "Boaterific" powered scale motorboats.
The original sales pitch read, "Moving across the landscape, overrunning all obstacles as inexorably as the Future itself, these amazing, efficient and powerful automatons have but one purpose - to serve their masters at work and play!"
The storage cases in which the robots came could be used for other purposes. The robots were battery operated, and had wheels with rubber treads to propel themselves across the floor. There was a bottom mounted reversing switch that would allow the robot to reverse when it touched a special plastic plate, or turn the robot off, when in backed up into its display case.
Zerak, the blue robot, was originally the "commander" of the three robots. Zerak came with hook hands, and interchangeable magnetic hand and a throwing cup hand. Zerak's right arm could be cocked, and made to throw objects. [Wikipedia]

Toys From My Childhood

Sliding Puzzle
The oldest type of sliding puzzle is the fifteen puzzle, invented by Noyes Chapman in 1880; Sam Loyd is often wrongly credited with making sliding puzzles popular based on his false claim that he invented the fifteen puzzle. Chapman's invention initiated a puzzle craze in the early 1880s. From the 1950s through the 1980s sliding puzzles employing letters to form words were very popular. These sorts of puzzles have several possible solutions...

Toys From My Childhood

Fisher Price Classic Teaching Clock
Introduced in 1968, the Classics Music Box Fisher-Price Teaching Clock features the design of a little red schoolhouse and plays "Grandfather's Clock" as the clock face and minute hand revolve to the soothing ticking of time. It has a rotating dial with timeless pictures of preschoolers hour by hour.