Our Toy Stories

[Neon Ignition]

Between us I think we cover a pretty decent chapter of childhood, covering well the real boom years of consumer explosion in the toy market. It has always been an incredibly competitive field with even successful franchises and toys often lasting only a brief window of time before the next must have thing hits the shelves.

However, despite this conveyor belt of toys being rammed upon our young minds there's always those key ones that stay in your mind and sometimes in your belongings once you've grown up after all the hours and days you spent playing with them.

What were your key toys you had as a kid? Which ones did you desperately want but never get? If you were a kid today, what current toys do you think you'd be into?

[dvdx2]

Aren't most people on this forum, still kids ; (albeit big ones) ;-)

[Lebowski]

I was Ewok mad as a small child i had the figures and loved Star Wars, at christmas when i was about 6 i got an Ewok soft toy of wiket, and i took it everywhere for about a week, one evening after my bath i was sat in-front of the fire behind a fire guard drying off watching TV. Wiket was sat next to me and well away from the fire. it was then that i smelt a burning smell and on looking down Wikets hood was smoking and his fur was singed. i called my mum and she ran into the kitchen with him dousing him with water, i was really upset that my favorite toy had nearly set on fire.

On returning him to Toymaster i was told i could choose something as a replacement, i was gutted but they must of given my mum quite a bit of compensation as i got He-Man figures, a new sledge and a load of lego sets and other bits and pieces that i cant remember.

The Ewok soft toyline was withdrawn from sale as it was made from highly flammable materials, and i lost a little bit of my childhood that day, why would santa send me dangerous toys? and why dose he operate return policy's exclusively through toymaster? surely the anti monopolys commission would have something to say about that, Is what i remember my six year old self saying to my mum.

[Lebowski]

double post

[Brad]

Awesome thread. We need images people!
Action man


Six Million Dollar man. I had the maskatron enemy figure:


Fighting Furies:


Evel Knievel:


70s cop show toy cars. I had the Starsy and Hutch one and Kojak:


Science stuff:



Will add more as I remember them.

These days I think I'd be into Phineas & Ferb.

[Lebowski]

less story more pics

manta force this was awesome and came with all sorts of little ships and figures



battle beast they had a little heat sensitive hologram on the chest and they each came in water fire wood variants


madballs i loved these things



rock lords i had one of these but these where rubbish reminds me of the scene from the film Big "whats fun about a playing with a rock"


and mask we had Rhino and Switchblade and a few of the kids on our street had the others. I remember thinking the car that supposedly could fly by opening its doors was a bit poor

[Soundwave]

Oh god, please don't get me started...honestly I just won't shut up.

Needless to day we can pretty much guess what I was into as a kid

But aside from them I had so much He-Man stuff & I loved them as a kid, they were so awesome.
I still remember the Christmas I got Greyskull, absolutely loved it, my brother got Snake Mountain as well but can't remember exactly when.
I did lose a little interest though when they moved into Zordak territory & onto the Slime stuff.
Battle Armour was awesome too, loved making it dented.

Many many years of collecting Action Force as well, me & my brother had tons of the stuff & many epic battles were fought in the Garden
Think my favourites of the time were the jets, I had a Cobra Rattler & Striker which were just awesome, my Rattler was the pinnacle though & along with the Striker & Drgaonfly helicopter were suspended from my ceiling in my bedroom between battles

I was also a proper fiend for M.A.S.K & had a fairly substantial collection.
Find it difficult to chose a fave here as everything was soooooo good.
I do think that Condor, Gator & Manta were well up there as being some of the best I owned though.

Turtles was another bigger as I was growing up & had a few

Ah just remembered Centurions as well, what a toy line that was.
Fantastic figures, which were pretty big for the time & the weapon systems were fantastic, such fun with them.
I loved my Max Ray figure & think he had some of the best weapons especially Depth Charge but they were all great & Ace McCloud's Sky Blot was MASSIVE

My brother was massively into Bravestarr & Thudercats but while I liked them I never really bought into the whole thing.
They were good but just not for me & I actually don't think I had much if anything for either line.

From there though I was also into many many more things...

Dino Riders, Battle Beasts, Starcom, Visionaries, Real Ghostbusters

I have a few regrets for toys I never owned though & there were some from pretty much every line but too many to mention here.

One thing I always remember though was that back in the day you could get toys everywhere Market stalls were chock full of them & there was so much choice, these days everything is so limited & there is so little out there, it's no wonder kids get into Video Game so early now.

If I was a kid buying toys now it would probably be Star Wars, Turtles & Ben 10
Not sure Transformers would hold my interest enough without the rich G1 cartoon history, it pails in comparison now & the lack of characters in the cartoon means I'd only have the core few.
I wouldn't be interested in figures for characters I'd never seen.

Star Wars clone Wars is a great show & that would draw me in with the line
Ben 10 again has a good cartoon with likeable characters & enough variety to have a good collection
Even the remade Turtles show is great & the toys are brilliant (I have the Turtles already just looking for a Shredder & Splinter now) so that would be one I could easily jump on

But yeah that's the bulk of it but I could easily go on & I have purposely avoided talking about TF's as I honestly would never stop

Neil

[Soundwave]

less story more pics

manta force this was awesome and came with all sorts of little ships and figures



battle beast they had a little heat sensitive hologram on the chest and they each came in water fire wood variants


madballs i loved these things



rock lords i had one of these but these where rubbish reminds me of the scene from the film Big "whats fun about a playing with a rock"

Ah Madballs I had them as well, they were great.

Rocklords were awful, born from the Go-Bots line thanks to the movie & just did nothing at all for me.

Did you know Battle Beasts actually came from the transformers continuity??
They were in an episode in the Jpn Headmasters series
Had those, they were awesome

[Lebowski]

Well you learn something new everyday, i had loads of them battle beasts i even remember the TV add very vividly, i seem to remember they sold them in packs, and i used to forgo sweets to save my pocket money up to get them. Between my brothers and I we had a few headmasters too, (Highbrow and Apeface) though i seem to remember always loosing the little robot heads.

[Soundwave]

Well you learn something new everyday, i had loads of them battle beasts i even remember the TV add very vividly, i seem to remember they sold them in packs, and i used to forgo sweets to save my pocket money up to get them. Between my brothers and I we had a few headmasters too, (Highbrow and Apeface) though i seem to remember always loosing the little robot heads.

Lol I'm a hive of useless information

Yeah I seem to remember the adverts but not too well.
I think they were in packs of 2 at the time.
I still actually have a few at home but the emblems are long gone, the glue was a bit crap & they used to come loose after a while.
I think I also saw the annual for them when I was routing through my stuff the other week...ah the obligatory annual, had tons of them as a kid, surprised they are still going strong tbh

[Lebowski]

lol "Fire Burns wood" i wonder why they never did a cartoon of it as the animation in the add is clearly awesome. Where else do you get characters with names like Rubberneck giraffe, Horny Toad, and Killer Koala.

[Soundwave]

Lol that was quality.
Would have loved to have their own cartoon.

The Headmasters episode was 5 "Rebellion on Planet Beast" but I can't find it on You Tube.
Only place that had it but it comes up as not available in my country

[J0e Musashi]

I had every single M.A.S.K. toy that was produced. It's probably my favourite line of all time.

I had a huge amount of Action Force, Darda, He-Man/The Horde, Machine Robo and Starcom toys, but my only two Transformers were Grimlock and Galvatron. I had Ace McCloud and Lion-O. I never had a single Ninja Turtles toy, and I strangely never saw any in shops. I had a few Battle Beasts, and a whole bunch of M.U.S.C.L.E. I had a Mad Ball. I had a modernised Johnny 7 OMA, which got permanently confiscated when I shot Victoria in the back of the head with it on Bonfire Night, and blamed it on Josh de la Tour.

I had Lazer Tag and Photon.

I had Tamiya The Falcon, Porsche 959 4WD, Avante and Ferrari F40, and about a billion Micro Machines, Matchbox, Corgi and Burago cars.

[Darwock]

Zoids for me of course, a love that has not died (just yesterday I took a poster of Zoidzilla to be custom framed for my room), and I still spend shameful amounts on expanding the collection.

I think that's too obvious to discuss though, I also had the obligatory TF phase (started purely because the Zoids comic got cancelled and I started reading TFs instead), but again, not interesting.

Other toy phases I went through? Bravestarr, Thundercats (a little, it was my brothers thing), He-man (despite not having any of the figures myself), those robots with the suction cup bases, air pump arms and a pneumatic button on the back whose name escapes me, M.A.S.K., Action Force and those Rock Lord spin-off furry animals with the push along snapping action (gnarlies?)

Sorry, no pics, too much of a pain to do on apple devices.

Edit after seeing joes post - I also did M.U.S.C.L.E (aka kinnikuman) and Battle Beasts. And I was also really into Centurions but again never had any toys. I made them and their changeable armour out of paper.

[Soundwave]

I keep forgetting about Zoids.
I had a few but not too many, my mate at school though was a huge zoids fan & had tons, I remember getting the bus with him to BAsildon to pick up the Gorilla.
The box was massive & we both went back to his & I watched him build it, was an immense piece & looked stunning

I did enjoy the comics though & more recently I've got into it again as I've been re-watching the Chaotic Century cartoon which is awesome but doubt I'll be buying any kits...way too much other stuff I can't display without these plus I'm sure Chloe wouldn't be too good around the tiny parts.

I'd love to see that Poster when it's back from the framers