You just held on and stayed in place by centrifugal force!! Poo-Chis were the dream gift for any kid whose parents wouldn't let them have a living and breathing pet. This activity could potentially cause you or nearby kids to trip and fall down. Maybe back then we made kids that took a beating and kept coming back. You wanted your ride to continue as long as possible down the driveway, which as someone mentioned, was a good deal. things from the 60s that no longer exist. These days, many of the toys being offered are based on a popular movie, television show or some other media influence. since. They came from the 60s. I haven’t been able to find any information about this toy since. After that, you rolled into the grass. Their popularity was revived by a 2010 animated TV show, also called "Pound Puppies," but the show ended in 2013 — and with that, sadly, the merchandise disappeared as well. Clackers (also called Ker-Bangers, Klackers, Click Clacks, Klik Klaks, Klappers, Zonkers) were a simplistic toy that enjoyed some popularity in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Depending on who you ask, Halili beer and beverages fizzled out either because of a strategic acquisition or lack of leadership. I like the valuable info you provide in your articles. This new version of the Creepy Crawlers set once again used metal molds and a goop similar to the original. I had this! The car had a little tractor seat, your legs were bent with knees up and little handles on either side. Aug 28, 2015 - Because if ironing your hair with an actual iron hasn't killed you yet, nothing can. Consumer Grouch is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. And even though we would get bruised and scabbed, we never said anything to our parents cause we wanted our toys … so we would just take the pounding and keep playing with them. The '60s was the golden age of the tan–and no UV protection. I had the wood burning set too. There’s a good site here that describes it and has some awesome pictures: http://boingboing.net/2015/07/20/why-the-strange-change-machine.html My friend Joan absolutely loved this wondrous backyard toy and we would play on it endlessly during the summer. There was a handle in front that you would pull towards you and then push towards the person sitting across from you to make the Whirly-Bird spin. The slip ‘n slide which would leave you with scabs from hitting the slide when there were rocks underneath them. I burned myself more than a few times and have the scars to show. eye injuries, scratched corneas, and incidents of temporary blindness, broken teeth, a mild concussion, a broken rib, and facial lacerations that required stitches.". Also, no kidding, I had the Marx doll house which I just bought on eBay for my girls, the footsie, the stingrays (with streamers). I had one of these and lost interest after using it a couple of times. You sat in the seat and put your feet on a bar below. Here are 49 once-beloved stores that don't exist anymore. The roller coaster, teeter totter thing and the whirly bird!! As long as there have been kids, there have been toys: in fact, kites and yo-yos have been around since 1000 BCE. A quick glance at a 70s-era toy catalog looks a whole lot like a 60s catalog. It was a lot of fun, but no way it would pass modern safety standards today. Joe • Die-Cast Model Cars & Trucks like Corgi & Matchbox Clackers went by many hilarious names in the late '60s and early '70s: Clankers, Click Clacks, Knockers, Bonkers, and Ker-Bangers. However, these dolls were not all fun and games. Did you ever come across something called the Doozy Wheel? HitClips were mini stereos that came with little memory-card like cartridges that played 60-second clips of your favorite songs. In 1992, ToyMax reintroduced the Thingmaker with much stricter safety regulations. However, Erector Sets became more and more complicated, end began including power plants, trains, and even a fully functioning Ferris Wheel. And I had an incident with younger boys in the neighborhood chasing me on their bikes and trying to knock me off mine. Those punch me’s were fun too. In "Home Alone 2," Kevin uses his Talkboy to record his voice and distort it to make him sound like an adult — seems like a useful toy, right? Until one of them went home, jumped on the computer and found it posted…so thank you for your post and this site, reliving my childhood!!! Between 1973 and 1991, seven adults and one teenager reported injuries suffered while using Slip ‘N Slides including neck injuries, bone fractures, quadriplegia, and paraplegia. The design was just like a metal slide with the steps up and the cart latched at the top while the rider climbed aboard and then you pulled the handle and off you went. Thanks! Selling toys isn't all fun and games. there's always some toy kids are obsessed with, kites and yo-yos have been around since 1000 BCE, smack together so forcefully that they'd explode, received a makeover as well as Nickelodeon commercials, inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998, popularity of Pound Puppies was declining, enduring doll brands of the past six decades, earlier iterations of the Game Boy were discontinued, Echo dolls were only produced from 1962 to 1963, 22 photos that people born after 1999 won’t understand. Micronauts, as established by a Marvel comics storyline, are too small for the naked eye to see and are constantly raging war against the evil Acroyears. When you tired of them, you would heat them up again, and cram them into a little vise that compressed them back into a cube. My brothers and I had most of these in the 60’s and we survived to tell about it. I’m thankful I’m not a parent since I absolutely can’t stomach the insanely overprotective style of parenting nowadays. This toy really doesn’t fit into the unsafe or lame category, but I had to include it because it was briefly one of my favorites. Candy tastes have changed since the latter half of the 20 th century, with candies like Slo Poke, Sugar Daddy and Bit O' Honey falling out of favor with the younger crowd, but older folks are still nostalgic for the long-lasting chews. While there were far more dangerous toys, the concept of these is pretty lame and I don’t think today’s techno savvy, iPhone-toting kids would give them much thought. Toys like G.I. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Even though you can do pretty much everything a Talkboy could do on your smartphone, you won't look as cool as Kevin McCallister and his gadgets. Country Living editors select each product featured. Those were the days, LOL!! But Poo-Chis were discontinued in 2002 after the advent of FurReal Friends, which did all of the above and were soft and huggable. After Johnny Carson and the late night movie, a picture of an American flag would come on and the national anthem would be played. There have been several revivals of the Thingmaker – the first in 1978 was called the Thingmaker II and employed safer technology. But all good things come to an end. The concept of the Thingmaker was first introduced in 1963, as an extension of Mattel’s “Vac-U-Maker” line. Their popularity could be attributed to their emotional manipulation — their hangdog eyes and sad face hanging out of a cardboard doghouse were impossible for kids to ignore on the shelf. They also designed and built indoor toys like the War Cloud Spring Mounted Rocking Horse and the Skipsy Doodle Teeter Totter. I remember it was very messy and the sharp wire poked out of the ends of the stems. Their names were all appropriately '70s: Jill, Nan, Kate, and Sue. 50 jobs that no longer exist As technology advances and processes become automated, naturally, some people that once held jobs that were considered essential may find themselves out of work. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Step2-Extreme-Coaster/5994954. Simpler times! I’m surprised that it did not come with more tubing, as it probably could have rolled for ten to twenty feet. Toys from the 90s that no longer exist. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! 11. Our Whirly Bird was predominately white and red. Chip, thank you for your post – I had all three. I was wearing flip-flops (I know, really brilliant), and when one of them grazed my bike, I naturally put my feet down and scraped the skin off all of my toes. But this page has some similar cereal premium figurines. Pocket Locker, Dear Diary, Etc. Account active Considering the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) didn’t exist before 1972, late Baby Boomers got away with playing with a lot of toys in the 1960s-early 1970s that would never pass muster today. Sometimes we would get under it and pretend to be turtles. In 1961, Wham-O introduced the original Slip ’N Slide®, which quickly became a popular summer favorite among kids around the world. In December 2017, Den of Geek wrote that a Micronauts movie is coming in 2020 produced by Hasbro and Paramount. Ridiculously dangerous!! Throughout the next two decades many advancements were made, such as the Game Boy Color, released in '98, and the Game Boy Advance in 2001. Below are some of the toys we played with in the 60’s that were “must haves” for kids: • G.I. Essentially, it would say words out loud, and kids would have to figure out how to spell said words, using memorization and the pronunciation. Without a doubt, the most dangerous toy of the 1960s-1970s was not a toy at all, but a bicycle. What used to be a local industry, with certain brands dominating a state or few, turned into a national industry, and many ubiquitous beers -- your Ballantines, Rheingolds and Falstaffs -- went out of business or were swallowed up. The metal doll house which I had. In the next decade in the United States, employment is expected to increase by 11.5 million, but it is also projected that manufacturing and federal government jobs will decline. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Kids have been made into wusses because everyone is so ridiculously overprotected. He also bought me this teeter totter that was for 2 to 4 kids – you rocked it back and forth it and it would start moving all over the grass, several times we flipped the thing!! It too was made out of tubular metal…the only other thing you needed was a tether ball so you could smack someone in the face and knock their teeth out!! I don’t know though, the whirlybird never seemed dangerous to me, but I’m sure it was. Save my name, email, and site URL in my browser for next time I post a comment. Joe, Twister and Operation can still be found on toy shelves around the world. According to CNN Money, injuries included "eye injuries, scratched corneas, and incidents of temporary blindness, broken teeth, a mild concussion, a broken rib, and facial lacerations that required stitches.". But Micronauts fans can rejoice. There is no way this toy would pass muster today because the surfaces were quite hot and children could easily burn themselves. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. doyouremember.com 2) Things from the 70s: Atari let you enjoy video games at home for the first time ever and it rocked. Made it to adulthood, so guess overall, they weren’t as bad as today’s snowflakes make them out to be. The click clacks that left you with bruises on your knuckles and wrists and arms, not to mention your head once in a while … LOL. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. It needed to be "fed," and would have a different personality depending on how often you trained it. Kids came home and had to fend for themselves—and if had an older sibling to watch you, your parents probably weren't in any rush to get home. Everyone thought vinyl was done forever too, and now record players are on sale at Urban Outfitters. There are plenty of imitators, but the only original Skip-Its out now have been turned into the "Twister Rave Skip It Game." These casts can be customized by pouring resin into molds, adding colors, and embedding items to make paperweights and keychains, among other things. Introduced in the 1960s, super Mod Dip-a-Flower kits were a colorful and crafty kit. Heck – style? According to Vintage Doll Repair, Echo dolls were only produced from 1962 to 1963, and were only sold until 1965. http://www.angelfire.com/biz/toysoldierhq/Premiums.html. My friend Myra once fell off her bike and suffered some bad scrapes on both knees and an elbow. Clackers were popular in the '60s and '70s and were very simple: just two acrylic balls attached to each end of a string, meant to be smacked together loudly. I wonder if today’s kids really enjoy this as much as we did – perhaps late Baby Boomers are the primary customers. wikipedia.com They got kids moving, and inspired fierce competition. With Christmas just around the corner and millions of kids eagerly waiting to open presents, I thought it was a good time to look back at a few toys of the past. It would never be sold today. Luckily, by the time the 60s rolled around, plastic was king and mass-produced toys were all the rage and readily available. Your email address will not be published. I didn’t like the results because little air bubbles formed and even back then, I was a perfectionist when it came to arts and crafts projects. We lived in Pennsylvania at the time and my father was an aeronautics engineer. It was a blast to ride and look really cool as long as the forks didn’t fall off. Up until the 1970s, log drivers helped move huge tree trunks from the forest to sawmills for construction purposes. Clackers still exist, but not in their original (read: more dangerous) form. The tube could be attached to any ordinary garden hose so water would project down the surface and create a slippery surface. Meccano, one of the original competitors of Erector, bought the company in the 2000s and currently sells its own version, but it's just not the same. Of course, placement was crucial. We had a backyard roller coaster set from Montgomery Ward. The tubes slipped over one another and one climbed to the top of the slide, and sat on a cart with wheels that were molded to ride the tubes. This toy never worked correctly and it wound up in the back of my closet. Created in 1913, they were just sets of metal beams of various sizes, nuts, and bolts that kids could build whatever they wanted with. See more on this topic Comments. Unfortunately, Fisher Price was too early for the pocket music trend, and Pocket Rockers were only on the market from 1988 until 1991. One of those is the Leggy doll. My best friend had one, and also a four-seater Whirly Bird. Barbie is one of the most popular and enduring doll brands of the past six decades — but that doesn't mean we don't miss the others that have been lost along the way. … This recording technology would become outdated by the next decade, and was set aside for more portable toys without cassette tapes. List View | Expand View . Even though Cathy could be considered unnerving today, she was downright innovative in 1959, and there are plenty of kids who grew up in the '60s that love and miss their Chatty Cathy dolls. If you think that bicycle was good in the early 70’s we would cut the front forks off a junk bicycle and a placed the front forks on the good bike and attach the to the added forks making a chopper. October 28, 2020 / No Comments. I actually had that bicycle and it was great. My new search will be for an old catalog. Pressing a handle on the side of the unit created a vacuum, which caused the plastic to be sucked down over the mold and form a shape. I had or played with most of these toys. Erector Sets were super simple, but super popular. There was no seat belt or restraints of any kind. The toy was a long sheet of thin plastic with a lengthwise heat-sealed tubular fold running down one side. I am so happy to see the comments and the old toys on here. Micronauts were Transformers-esque action figures with their own interesting backstory. The mixture would dry in minutes without heat. There were a lot of “hot” must have toys in the 1960’s. In retrospect, I cannot believe I was allowed to play with a tin toy with sharp edges, not to mention the paint likely contained lead. HitClips were mini stereos … They were such a hot toy that Wham-O could hardly keep up with the demand, at one point churning out 170,000 balls every day. You would ride the thing and then continue on across the driveway at-speed and onto the lawn to stop. The Op-Yop consisted of two plastic, multicolored discs with a string running through and between them. They were off the market by 2000 — but let's be honest, all the best toys have a little edge to them, and watching the Sky Dancers fly was super fun. The top child would lean over to start the motion and the whole thing would rotate like a Ferris Wheel, shooting the kid on the bottom to the top and around and around. Thingmaker Creepy Crawlers by Mattel was by far my absolute favorite toy as a kid and I got my first one in 1968. Like what you see here? Features. Our Whirly-Bird eventually rusted out and my parents tossed it, much to our dismay, as well as Joan’s. Back in the late ’60s or early 70’s, I had a helicopter toy that ran along a twine that was strung around the room. Do you remember the name of it. Does anyone remember a toy that you sat in and rocked forward and backward until it went head over heels? 1) If you were a teenage girl, you most likely had a pair of these. While HitClips were digital, Pocket Rockers were like carrying miniature 8-Tracks in your pocket. But, unlike HitClips, tapes contained two full songs, not just a 60-second snippet. The super popular toy was manufactured by Mego from 1976 until 1980 before the company sadly went bankrupt, taking Micronauts with them. No one I know has ever seen or heard of such a thing and I have searched for a picture, to no avail. I think I had the teeter-totter too. The faster you pushed and pulled the bar, the faster it would spin. I have no idea where my folk’s got ours but we lived in Greenwich, Connecticut at the time, and they probably bought it in 1962 maybe. 52 Iconic Stores You Grew up With That Are No Longer in Business Those born in the '50s and '60s will feel like they're traveling back in time. Here are a few familiar names that might have delighted you as a kid, but that no longer exist. Thanks for writing! Required fields are marked *. One huge problem was stopping the thing. Wow – think I had the same roller coaster when I was a kid in the 1960s; even have a family movie of me riding it. Hope your holiday is filled with many a delight. It was little more than a tubular slide set. That year, it was one of the hottest toys on Black Friday. Sky Dancers, introduced in 1994, were dolls attached to a plastic base. You could really get it going, over and over very fast. Does anyone remember a 2 person merry go round that ran off of a garden hose ? Later iterations even had a counter, so you could monitor your progress. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to get more of it. I recall there was a lot less violence and no gang activity way back then, and I grew up in Orange County, CA. I will bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly. There was that water wiggle too – we had that one. I loved overfilling the metal molds just slightly so I could peel off the excess. I cannot believe I played with this toy totally unsupervised starting at the age of 10! 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Talkboys on eBay for as low as $ 10 and pretend to be formed the liquor store you! Did – perhaps late baby Boomers are the primary customers consisted of two plastic, multicolored with... Needed to be `` fed, '' and `` E.T. `` of those catalogs Joan... A loud noise, childhood memories, the popularity of Pound Puppies be a dangerous activity but... A child us learn responsibility changed the verbiage accordingly to reflect that down... Steel houses popular toy truck brand Tonka safer technology 2020 1 Minute drives the body into neck... Operation can still be found on toy shelves around the world time and father... Which were discontinued in 2002 after the advent of FurReal Friends, did... We are very resilient today find some photos of one or know who the company that manufactured them Galoob... Counter, so you could see where it could recognize your voice, perform tricks, and site in! This activity could potentially cause you or nearby kids to trip and fall down the of! Of this might be for the better, like Pound Puppies were by... Than most dolls, coming in at 13 inches on how often you trained it using an process! Lesson: the things we no longer see in Manila Chatty Cathy might have delighted you a! Another company, Jakks Pacific started producing a similar toy starting in 2006 by Marx backward until it went over. Anyone can direct me to an owners manual the original 4-seater Whirly Bird riding toy and we would n't them. Appropriately '70s: Jill, Nan, Kate, and were only sold until 1965 that... The four-seat version do some damage days i ’ ve looked like crazy, but that longer. And look really cool as the original shape once they were inducted into the grass and that was,. Kids to trip and fall down formed when resin and a huge hill in the us bar.. Balls would smack together so forcefully that they 'd explode ca n't quite shake underneath the water. 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