h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading today's entry on Tonkinese Cats reminded me of Tonka Lorries...

This was one of my favourite childhood toys (after my two stickle bricks) and I was just wondering what your favourite toys were when you were little.

Let the memories flow forth...

LEGO

Puppets.

For some reason, it's considered "odd" for a child to sit on the floor and talk to herself all day. However, if she has some puppets in her hands while she does so, it's considered "creative". Hence I was given many delightful puppets as a child - kermit, snoopy, holly hobbie, and even a snuffalupagus (sp?).


Mikey

Empty boxes, duct tape and markers. With these things I could make anything (robots, racecars, space-shuttle, etc..) and go anywhere, or at least it helped me imagine that I could.

I did love my stickle brinks and lego! Whatever happened to stickle bricks? Are they still for sale? (I might invest in another set ). I also loved toy cars. I had one of those big mats with roads drawn all over it. Happy memories!!

And I was staying at a friend's house recently. His little brother has lots of Star Wars toys which amused me for hours....

kin

Transformers! 8)

I had one that was an ambulance (not terribly exciting) and also one that was some sort of drag racer, and a gun that fitted into the car, both of which turned in to robots. The gun wasn't particularly spectacular (all it did to transform was fold in half) but it was pretty cool nonetheless)

I don't think I ever had any Transformer toys but I was addicted and my best friend had them all....I think I spent nearly everyday at his house .

Damn! I see the title to this thread, and the first thing that occurs to me are Tonka trucks... and Ashley beat me to them.

My brothers and I had dump trucks from Tonka, made Tonka sturdy. Every little boy has to be impressed with something so nearly indestructible, considering that destruction was the ultimate fate for any boy's toy.

I say nearly indestructible, though, because, after several years of experimentation, we discovered that they're no match for a 14lb. bowling ball.

Yup, you can still by stickle bricks.

Another favorite of mine was that bubble packing wrap -- my grandmother used to give me a box of it -- sheets and sheets of different sized bubbles to pop, and to stomp on barefooted.


Mikey

Bubble wrap isn't just a children's toy. You should have seen the "adults" I used to work with. After one particularly large delivery of consumables, I had a huge box (about 3 feet on each side) full of cardboard and bubble wrap taking up space in the front of the computer room. All these grown men employed in this very serious business managed to reach in and pop a handful every time they entered or exited the room.

Meanwhile, I sat in the chair next to the door and popped to my heart's content in my idle moments...

My mother-in-law (who is in her 70s) loves bubble-wrap, too. Whenever we get some, we take it over for her to play with - preferably after we've left, 'cos the sound can drive me nuts very quickly.

Toys I loved as a child included my 'Lady Penelope's Rolls Royce' - it had guns that came out from behind the number-plate (I think). I also had Lego, which was fun, and some other building stuff that I can't remember the name of. Who says that girls don't play with that kind of stuff. Mind you, I think I read more than I played with toys.

Hubby told me about wharehouseman that laid bubble wrap all over the floor and then whooshed around on his chair popping all the bubbles!

My favourite toy was Johnny, a baby doll. He had plastic head, arms and legs, but his body was fabric so he flopped like a real baby. This was in the early 60's before all those feed, wind, nappy fillng things. He was gorgeous. My mother made a whole 'layette' for him, but chucked him away quite happily when I moved on to coppers and robbers with the boys next door!!!!

Further proof that absolutely anything can be a toy, I submit to you, the tumbler of a dismantled clothes dryer. My brothers and I spent many a happy moment rolling each other down the dirt path through the field behind our house. If you weren't ready to vomit, you weren't ready to stop.

Toys HMMM::
Action man had to be a favourate but so was leggo and yeah those big tonka trucks and that perminatly in and around the sand pit they might be tough but did surrender to rust as I remember, although I seem to remember spending most of my younger years out on the marshes by the river and in the woods or just on the beach, with no toys in particular other than branches from trees and the like Scuse me whilst I relive my youth and find a forest

Water rockets. Little plastic rockets you filled half with water and half with air, compressed with a hand pump. The compressed air sent the water one way and, in accordance with "action and reaction," the rocket went the other.

I think it was my father's favorite toy of my childhood as well. I got my first set for Christmas. It was very cold and snowy outside, so he let me fire it once inside, heedless of the water on the floor and the dent in the ceiling. I remember that clearly. I don't remember my mother's response at all.

Later, I got a three-stage water rocket. I never got the third stage to function properly. But some of the failures were spectacular.

I suppose they are now banned by arms limitation treaties.

It occurs to me that this would make an outstanding Talking Point...

Yes, maybe your right - I'll tell Abi and Peta...

It wasn't the number plate of the Lady Penelope Rolls Royce that hid the weapons, it was the radiator. The Rolls radiator folded down to reveal a rubber-tipped guided missile. This was probably the only Rolls ever built with four wheels at the front and two at the back.

Zorpheus wrote:

>>>Empty boxes, duct tape and markers. With these things I could make anything (robots, racecars, space-shuttle, etc..) and go anywhere, or at least it helped me imagine that I could. <<<

Sounds like a regular little mini MacGyver

My favorite toys as a child has to be Barbies. I remember I had the Barbie dream house and a beautiful pink cadilac..., well, that is until one of my friends stepped on the car by accident, and ruined it I never really did forgive her).
Also, transformers was a big hit in our house, between my brother and I we had all of them and could spend hours playing with them. We also watched the cartoons

Airfix Model Aircraft:
Though I as far too impatient to paint all of the parts before hand, and the transfers were really annoying- they kept sliding off and often ended up crunched into sad soggy little balls. And, I remember, it was really hard to keep the glue from messing the glass window bits up. But, if I got a reasonably painted plane with all of its transfers in place and where you could actually see the pilot- that was a real technical and creative triumph. And if the wheels went around aswell.. well...