For my sons 10th birthday party he had 8 or friends over. They were in the basement all day just causing a ruckus with the nerf guns and cardboard boxes building forts and whatnot. All day they kept begging me to come down and I told them not right now. About 1 hr before the party started i told them to get ready. I put on a vest and grabbed my two choice weapons I had pre stashed in my bedroom. Over the 7:1 surround sound I remotely started Immigrant Song by Lead Zeppelin. I then threw a LED strobe grenade as a distraction and flew down the stairs blasting away. I got 6 direct hits before they could land one dart on me. I ended up emptying on everyone before they could manage to coordinate and physically take me down.
It felt damn good I was still the big dog in the room.
Sling shots. For fun, you used green walnuts or china berries.
Serious participants used rocks. Squirrels were advised to stay in the trees. Poorer kids just threw the rocks.
Chemistry sets, complete with bottles of denatured alcohol for heating the test tubes.
Fireworks, back when you didn’t have to be any particular age to buy them. The cool dudes had M80’s and Black Cats in their pockets, along with boxes of strike-anywhere matches or maybe even refillable butane cigarette lighters. Sparklers were for the wimps or the little kids, just like cap pistols.
Occasionally, BB guns would appear, along with tin can targets.
Amazingly, none of my friends lost fingers or eyes.
Most lived to grow up and be twelve-year-olds.
I almost listed pocket knives. But they were more considered indispensable tools, rather than toys. They were just assumed to be EDC. Every grade school boy generally had one. (None of our teachers ever panicked.)
I frequently witnessed school yard fights. No one ever took out a pocket knife during one.
Disclaimer: The above is from the young masculine standpoint. Sorry. That’s what I was. Girls weren’t welcomed or even acknowledged until later.
@heartny I remember the smell of caps, but don’t recall ever making much note of it.
I did really like the smell of fireworks though. Especially at the big shows put on at 4th of July events & such. The big cloud of grey smoke drifting overhead, just like incense.
Back when I didn’t grok the term “allergies”.
I guess it was all gun powder, in different forms.
@heartny@phendrick I used to sit in a tree with my cap gun. And my favorite part of my chemistry set was the sulfur you could melt over the alcohol burner and pour over a penny for a cool mold. My parents were thrilled.
@phendrick We’re not far from retiring and moving; one of the + checks on where we move to is fireworks allowed and fireworks stores in the same county with real fireworks available. Not mandatory but a major positive.
When we were kids we used to go to fireworks stands in our neighborhood; things were somewhat restrictive there (safe and sane only) but we could still buy them ourselves, no parents required.
@phendrick I had a pocket knife 3rd and 4th grade, most people did and nobody thought it was unusual.
5th grade, we weren’t even allowed to have pencil sharpeners because the principal was terrified at the prospect of people taking the blades out and making toothbrush shanks. (This literally never happened even once, nor had anyone even thought about it until he banned everything.)
Betsy Wetsy, Patti Playpal, G.I. Joe (original), Jotto, Mille Bornes, Rack-o, Croquet, Colorforms, Mouse Trap Game, Spirograph, Venus Paradise Coloring Sets, Merlin electronic game, to name just a few not previously mentioned.
I have fond memories of Silly Putty because you could roll it into a ball & we had a cat who would fetch it like a dog. Also, you could copy comic strips by pressing it onto newspaper…bonus!
@blaineg@phendrick I assumed that’s what he meant, that’s why i admired the evilness of it! Lol… Of course, that would require them to open up the offer again, and that seems more & more unlikely with every 'thon.
@werehatrack the Erector Set was neat. Practical engineering toys (and real tools) back before everything was built from plastic. I’m not sure how much lead or other toxic materials may be in there, but they sure were fun.
Yoyo: I am just a few days away from being 42 years old and I play/practice with at least one of my yoyos for at least 10 minutes every day. I own 20 - 25 of them.
@sicc574 Thanks. That reminds me, I need to go walk my dog. I put her outside on a leash to do that, then forgot about her. Surprised she isn’t barking her head off at the moment.
The Pogo Stick was my thing. I wanted to be in the Guinness book of records for the longest time jumping, I use to go all over the neighborhood as if it was a bicycle!
I guess I’m the only girly-girl who liked dolls. That would include troll dolls, paper dolls and Liddle Kiddles. I also liked anything tiny, although I never had a dollhouse.
@Kyeh for a while they had Polly Pocket (and Mighty Max for boys) where they shrunk everything down; the dollhouse playset was a diary-sized vertical flip-open hollow kind. While it was a nifty budget friendly idea, everything was incredibly tiny (smaller than Lego beings).
Duplos, simple squeeze water guns (not any of that pump or battery-powered stuff), G.I. Joe sets (the 3.75" ones), dirt (no one remembers playing with dirt any more), foam gliders and paper airplanes, slip-n-slides, Go-Bots (boy were those things fragile), and shaving cream (or the slightly more dangerous alternative: aerosol silly string)
Major Matt Mason toys.
Cap guns
Lead (yes lead) soldiers, with assorted field artillery that could launch tinker toy sticks at the enemy
Suction cup dart guns (without the silly orange caps).
Tonka excavation equipment; we built such wondrous canyons, rivers, tunnels through mountains of excavated dirt, and used Lego constructs for buildings and bridges. Until Dad got sick of the mud and sodded the side yard…
Slot cars
Cox .049 gas powered string controlled airplanes, and the contemporary Baja Bug racer
@pmarin Civil engineering almost won out as my college choice but I got hooked on computers instead (CDC Cyber mainframes at the time).
We also put some leftover fireworks to use doing the excavations, and also seeing what happened to a tunnel when something went ‘boom’ inside it. Ahhh, such a childhood…
I can’t believe j forgot about Breyer Horses! When i found out you could chip the paint off, i turned a bay into an appaloosa by smashing its haunches on the floor. Good times.
@bocoroth I was at a friend’s house and his kid was messing around with a super soaker in the kitchen. A few minutes later we heard a boom! in the kitchen, and found it completely coated in water: floor, walls, ceiling.
He’d swapped the pressure and water tanks, figuring the much larger water tank would give him much more pressure. Nice theory, ruined by an ugly fact: the pressure tank was far, far thicker than the water tank.
I’m not sure what was funnier, the water everywhere, or the stunned look on the kid’s face.
Proper, steel tipped lawn darts.
@brennyn I was shocked this was not one of the choices.
For my sons 10th birthday party he had 8 or friends over. They were in the basement all day just causing a ruckus with the nerf guns and cardboard boxes building forts and whatnot. All day they kept begging me to come down and I told them not right now. About 1 hr before the party started i told them to get ready. I put on a vest and grabbed my two choice weapons I had pre stashed in my bedroom. Over the 7:1 surround sound I remotely started Immigrant Song by Lead Zeppelin. I then threw a LED strobe grenade as a distraction and flew down the stairs blasting away. I got 6 direct hits before they could land one dart on me. I ended up emptying on everyone before they could manage to coordinate and physically take me down.
It felt damn good I was still the big dog in the room.
@show_the_maw Made me remember this masterpiece.
@show_the_maw @yakkoTDI Why have I never seen this before?
/image tinker toys
@pmarin oh yeah!!!
Sling shots. For fun, you used green walnuts or china berries.
Serious participants used rocks. Squirrels were advised to stay in the trees. Poorer kids just threw the rocks.
Chemistry sets, complete with bottles of denatured alcohol for heating the test tubes.
Fireworks, back when you didn’t have to be any particular age to buy them. The cool dudes had M80’s and Black Cats in their pockets, along with boxes of strike-anywhere matches or maybe even refillable butane cigarette lighters. Sparklers were for the wimps or the little kids, just like cap pistols.
Occasionally, BB guns would appear, along with tin can targets.
Amazingly, none of my friends lost fingers or eyes.
Most lived to grow up and be twelve-year-olds.
I almost listed pocket knives. But they were more considered indispensable tools, rather than toys. They were just assumed to be EDC. Every grade school boy generally had one. (None of our teachers ever panicked.)
I frequently witnessed school yard fights. No one ever took out a pocket knife during one.
Disclaimer: The above is from the young masculine standpoint. Sorry. That’s what I was. Girls weren’t welcomed or even acknowledged until later.
@phendrick This reminded me to add cap guns to my list. I still remember the wonderful smell.
@heartny I remember the smell of caps, but don’t recall ever making much note of it.
I did really like the smell of fireworks though. Especially at the big shows put on at 4th of July events & such. The big cloud of grey smoke drifting overhead, just like incense.
Back when I didn’t grok the term “allergies”.
I guess it was all gun powder, in different forms.
@heartny @phendrick I used to sit in a tree with my cap gun. And my favorite part of my chemistry set was the sulfur you could melt over the alcohol burner and pour over a penny for a cool mold. My parents were thrilled.
@phendrick We’re not far from retiring and moving; one of the + checks on where we move to is fireworks allowed and fireworks stores in the same county with real fireworks available. Not mandatory but a major positive.
When we were kids we used to go to fireworks stands in our neighborhood; things were somewhat restrictive there (safe and sane only) but we could still buy them ourselves, no parents required.
Ahhh, the smell…
@phendrick I had a pocket knife 3rd and 4th grade, most people did and nobody thought it was unusual.
5th grade, we weren’t even allowed to have pencil sharpeners because the principal was terrified at the prospect of people taking the blades out and making toothbrush shanks. (This literally never happened even once, nor had anyone even thought about it until he banned everything.)
6th grade on, back to normal.
Lionel trains.
Betsy Wetsy, Patti Playpal, G.I. Joe (original), Jotto, Mille Bornes, Rack-o, Croquet, Colorforms, Mouse Trap Game, Spirograph, Venus Paradise Coloring Sets, Merlin electronic game, to name just a few not previously mentioned.
@heartny
Mille Bornes
Forgot all about that one! I don’t know why I loved it SO MUCH but it was really fun!
️
It’s still pretty much the only “French” I ever knew…thanks for the memory!
I have fond memories of Silly Putty because you could roll it into a ball & we had a cat who would fetch it like a dog. Also, you could copy comic strips by pressing it onto newspaper…bonus!
@ircon96 And slightly moisten a spot on your skin and transfer the “tattoo”. Too bad there wasn’t a cartoon strip back then featuring Irk.
@phendrick That’s right! You’re an evil genius!
@ircon96 @phendrick Ink for IRK idea!
@blaineg @phendrick I assumed that’s what he meant, that’s why i admired the evilness of it! Lol… Of course, that would require them to open up the offer again, and that seems more & more unlikely with every 'thon.
Creepy Crawlers, Vac-U-Form, Lincoln Logs, Snap Trains.
Erector Set, and American Flyer trains.
@werehatrack erector sets were incredible
@werehatrack the Erector Set was neat. Practical engineering toys (and real tools) back before everything was built from plastic. I’m not sure how much lead or other toxic materials may be in there, but they sure were fun.
Yoyo: I am just a few days away from being 42 years old and I play/practice with at least one of my yoyos for at least 10 minutes every day. I own 20 - 25 of them.
@sicc574 Thanks. That reminds me, I need to go walk my dog. I put her outside on a leash to do that, then forgot about her. Surprised she isn’t barking her head off at the moment.
@phendrick @sicc574
Tommy Smothers used to be pretty good with a yo-yo if I recall…
@sicc574 Achieving a perfect state of Yo always eluded me.
Jacks, Etch-a-Sketch, Slinky, Silly Putty, Whamo Super Ball, and Pick-up Sticks.
@Tadlem43
Ahhh. Jacks!
Never mind stepping on Legos… those bastards HURT!
Air hogs, skip it, pogo stick, moon shoes, pogs, whistling football thing, Lincoln logs, board games, slot cars.
@connorbush We made moon shoes out of Hawaiian Punch cans.
@connorbush @sammydog01
YES WE DID, just like they had on Romper Room! Lol
My big yellow Tonka dump truck.
CLACKERS for the WIN!!
It’s a shame they were banned but I see Amazon sells an acrylic version now! Kool!!
@IndifferentDude Is it really a clacker, unless it’s made out of glass, with the potential of maiming you for life.
@chuckf1 @IndifferentDude Weren’t they always acrylic? I’m pretty sure mine were, and I still have all my teeth.
@IndifferentDude @sammydog01 Nope, during the golden age of Clackerdom, late '60s and early '70s, they were made of tempered glass. enter link description here
lawn darts
@spacemart I still have mine…
Pogo Balls, Big Wheels, and those 4 packs of tubes filled with toxic sludge that you stick a straw in and inflate.
@edguyver14 forgot about these!!
@edguyver14 Do you mean Super Elastic Bubble Plastic? That stuff is STILL great!
Silly Putty
@chuckf1
Along with the Sunday morning comics!
@chienfou
everyone needs a BAG O’GLASS…
The Pogo Stick was my thing. I wanted to be in the Guinness book of records for the longest time jumping, I use to go all over the neighborhood as if it was a bicycle!
@Lynnerizer either really good or really bad for your long term joint and spine health
I guess I’m the only girly-girl who liked dolls.
That would include troll dolls, paper dolls and Liddle Kiddles. I also liked anything tiny, although I never had a dollhouse.
@Kyeh for a while they had Polly Pocket (and Mighty Max for boys) where they shrunk everything down; the dollhouse playset was a diary-sized vertical flip-open hollow kind. While it was a nifty budget friendly idea, everything was incredibly tiny (smaller than Lego beings).
@pakopako Brilliant, really - easy
to lose, so you’d have to replace them!
Yard darts. Part toy, part weapon, super dangerous, but hey, let the kids have some fun!
Battling Tops, tinker toys, kerplunk, erector sets
@mbay3926 Whizzers? Whizzers were great.
@mbay3926 @sammydog01 How about the Whizzer powered cars?
The tub of Brix Blox
Who remembers string racers?
Eldon 1/32 scale slot cars. The advent of the banked track sections was the best.
Duplos, simple squeeze water guns (not any of that pump or battery-powered stuff), G.I. Joe sets (the 3.75" ones), dirt (no one remembers playing with dirt any more), foam gliders and paper airplanes, slip-n-slides, Go-Bots (boy were those things fragile), and shaving cream (or the slightly more dangerous alternative: aerosol silly string)
@pakopako Balsa wood gliders, which it turns out can still be had.
Major Matt Mason toys.
Cap guns
Lead (yes lead) soldiers, with assorted field artillery that could launch tinker toy sticks at the enemy
Suction cup dart guns (without the silly orange caps).
Tonka excavation equipment; we built such wondrous canyons, rivers, tunnels through mountains of excavated dirt, and used Lego constructs for buildings and bridges. Until Dad got sick of the mud and sodded the side yard…
Slot cars
Cox .049 gas powered string controlled airplanes, and the contemporary Baja Bug racer
@duodec Very cool about the whole construction project with Tonka excavation equipment and Lego structures. Yay for infrastructure projects!
@pmarin Civil engineering almost won out as my college choice but I got hooked on computers instead (CDC Cyber mainframes at the time).
We also put some leftover fireworks to use doing the excavations, and also seeing what happened to a tunnel when something went ‘boom’ inside it. Ahhh, such a childhood…
@duodec
/youtube tyco rc hovercraft commercial
Creepy Crawlers was great, but nothing could quite match the ASMR provided by Vac-U-Form. It was everything.
I can’t believe j forgot about Breyer Horses! When i found out you could chip the paint off, i turned a bay into an appaloosa by smashing its haunches on the floor. Good times.
Super soakers that actually worked and didn’t leak
@bocoroth I was at a friend’s house and his kid was messing around with a super soaker in the kitchen. A few minutes later we heard a boom! in the kitchen, and found it completely coated in water: floor, walls, ceiling.
He’d swapped the pressure and water tanks, figuring the much larger water tank would give him much more pressure. Nice theory, ruined by an ugly fact: the pressure tank was far, far thicker than the water tank.
I’m not sure what was funnier, the water everywhere, or the stunned look on the kid’s face.
I may be showing my ignorance but WHAT IS GAK??
@ronaldr321meh I have no idea about GaK either. Must be after my childhood days. But resisting the urge to just Google it.
@pmarin @ronaldr321meh The real product is surprisingly similar to the “product” that is making you resist Googling it.
@brennyn @pmarin @ronaldr321meh Aka “slime”.
There’s homemade versions too.
@blaineg @brennyn @pmarin @ronaldr321meh
yeah, the homemade stuff has singlehandedly made elmer’s glue relevant again!
Hot Wheels, specifically redlines. I need 1 more car to have the sweet 16 from 1968