Toys you played with as a child

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Action Man.

I remember getting my first one after our dog had chewed up my previous 'action figure'.

Finally, the real deal : Action Man.

Action Man was ace. Then he got realistic hair, and could talk, and had a Kung-Fu grip. He had that wicked scar.

I used to throw him into trees and bushes, just to see how he'd land. Once in a while I'd dig out a small trench, and leave him outside over night on sentry duty. Waking up the following morning and dashing out to where I'd left him to make sure he was still there.

When I was 5 I'd collected enough stars (points) from accessories to send away for the guard dog, which I did without anyone's knowledge. My parents were surprised when the package was delivered and made me feel bad enough to never want to try that again.

I had an uncle who used to drive a lorry and would stop by our house periodically. Once he asked me if I wanted anything from his next trip. I told him an Action Man Frogman suit would be nice. I never did get it. One of my earliest disappointments and the strongest memory I have of this uncle.

I had a boat with a battery powered outboard motor, plus the deep sea diver outfit for playing in the bath, a Liverpool kit (for Steve Heighway), a paratrooper kit (I thought the helmet for this was cool), and many other odds and bobs.

Coming to Canada when I was 10 I learned about GI Joe, but this wasn't the same thing as Action Man. Not to me.

Gradually I stopped playing with Action Man, but it'll always be my favourite childhood toy.

In my adult years I picked up a Challenger Shuttle commander special edition GI Joe (Robert Crippen), as well as an Apollo 11 commemorative Buzz Aldrin with Splashdown Capsule, but these sit on a shelf gathering dust.

What was your favourite toy ?

[MsD]

Toys you played with as a child

I know several grown men who collect them and my brother in law makes prototype Action Men (they're a bit small) so has loads.

One friend likes dressing his AM up quite a lot.

I quite like them myself, and my Tressy doll dated one for a while.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

It never works out if they're not both in the military.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

The only toys I really gave a damn about as a kid were my bicycle, my Hot Wheels cars and my Evel Knievel stunt cycle (and camper).

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Toys you played with as a child

MsD wrote: I know several grown men who collect them and my brother in law makes prototype Action Men (they're a bit small) so has loads.

One friend likes dressing his AM up quite a lot.

I quite like them myself, and my Tressy doll dated one for a while.

Have you seen this ?

[Benjm]

Toys you played with as a child

Hugh Fatbastard wrote:

When I was 5 I'd collected enough stars (points) from accessories to send away for the guard dog, which I did without anyone's knowledge.

My younger brother is close enough in age that we could pool our stars so we ended up getting the sentry box and the Mountie uniform too.

I remember having one with a beard, who I think came in some kind of Heroes Of Telemark type outfit; big Norwegian jumper, etc. We never had a Tom Stone though.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Toys you played with as a child

I never had an Action Man, just a (harder, cheaper plastic) one called Jose.

I played much more happily with smaller soldiers (Airfix, Britain's) and cowboys/'Indians'.

I often reenacted the Alamo or other big film showdown battles using a few cowboys and vast armies of Airfix troops around my sister's doll's house/farm.

You'd have needed a lot of Action Men to do that.

And wealthy parents. Which reminds me, a friend in Singapore when I was 6, who was an only child of officer parents (my Dad was a corporal and there were 4 of us) had the most gigantic collection of toy cars, and also a lunar space station by, I think, Mattel, with all sorts of bolt on/snap together bits and a variety of (slightly smaller than an Action Man) astronaut figures. Bear in mind this was 1969, but I never saw another one of them.

Think it was probably this:

[MsD]

Toys you played with as a child

Hugh Fatbastard wrote:
Have you seen this ?

Interesting but a bit disturbing.

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Toys you played with as a child

Benjm wrote:
My younger brother is close enough in age that we could pool our stars so we ended up getting the sentry box and the Mountie uniform too.

I remember having one with a beard, who I think came in some kind of Heroes Of Telemark type outfit; big Norwegian jumper, etc. We never had a Tom Stone though.

I've never heard of Tom Stone.

Looking into it brought me to this, a quite extensive pictoral catalogue of everything Action Man... and at the very bottom, the elusive Frogman suit.

Could it be mocking me through the years ?

[Gangster Octopus]

Toys you played with as a child

'Ang on, aren't you Canadian? Didn't you get to play with GI Joe?

[Felicity, I guess so]

Toys you played with as a child

I'm assuming this thread was partly inspired by last night's Antiques Roadshow..?

If not, there was a huge AM collection on, so iplayer it, if you can/are interested.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Toys you played with as a child

I was wondering last night whether one could still buy the Fisher-Price Record Player? Or whether it had been replaced by the Fisher-Price CD Player? Or was now just a nondescript box with an audio output?

Anyroad, turns out you still can. Although maybe it should have twin decks and a mixer?

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Toys you played with as a child

Gangster Octopus wrote: 'Ang on, aren't you Canadian? Didn't you get to play with GI Joe?

No GI Joe for me. It wasn't as popular a toy over here as I think Action Man was in UK. There weren't loads of them on shelves and in catalogues.

Then it became a matter of no-one I knew having them, and me gradually outgrowing it.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

When I was a kid, Big Jim was much bigger than GI Joe. It was more of an American thing. I got a boxfull of GI Joe shit from the older boys next door when they grew out of them, but I wasn't much impressed. I already had Big Jim and Evel Knievel.

Bunch of doll-playing sissies...

[Incandenza]

Toys you played with as a child

Stumpy Pepys wrote: I was wondering last night whether one could still buy the Fisher-Price Record Player? Or whether it had been replaced by the Fisher-Price CD Player? Or was now just a nondescript box with an audio output?

Anyroad, turns out you still can. Although maybe it should have twin decks and a mixer?

My parents recently found my old one of those in the garage and brought it out. My oldest daughter had no frame of reference for what it was supposed to be.

Legos were my favorite, along with my Star Wars toys (all sold at a garage sale, unbelievable). And I also had some original Transformers toys, my parents would take me up to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA and go to a shop that stocked the real Japanese Transformers toys, not the American ones.

[Mumpo]

Toys you played with as a child

LEGO. It's LEGO.

[MsD]

Toys you played with as a child

Felicity, I guess so wrote: I'm assuming this thread was partly inspired by last night's Antiques Roadshow..?

If not, there was a huge AM collection on, so iplayer it, if you can/are interested.

Ooh. Will watch and alert my AM chums, not that they'd sell.

[Hugh Fatbastard]

Toys you played with as a child

WOM wrote: When I was a kid, Big Jim was much bigger than GI Joe. It was more of an American thing. I got a boxfull of GI Joe shit from the older boys next door when they grew out of them, but I wasn't much impressed. I already had Big Jim and Evel Knievel.

Bunch of doll-playing sissies...

Yeah. That was it. Big Jim (and Jeff and Josh) replaced Action Man, but they weren't quite as good.

Karate chop action. Meh.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

I also had Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man and Maskatron (which was from that show as well). He had lots of cool bits that got lost easily.

Oh, and I had Kenner's Smash Up Derby cars, which also had lots of losable pieces.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

Mumpo wrote: LEGO. It's LEGO.

Not if you had more than one, it wasn't.

[ursus arctos]

Toys you played with as a child

FIGS, my brother and I had one of those space stations

The US version was grounded on a guy named Major Matt Mason

As with all such childhood toys, it was nowhere near as cool as the adverts.

[WOM]

Toys you played with as a child

Wow. Never heard of Major Matt Mason in my life.

Those toys would have been great if your backyard actually looked like a moonscape. Or the set from Thunderbirds.

[matt j]

Toys you played with as a child

Playmobil Cowboys.

I remember that we'd usually set up the scene of a massive battle at a forgotten fort that quickly turned into a depressing bloodbath.

It was great.

[Jah Womble]

Toys you played with as a child

There was a definite hierarchy in boys' action figures back then. When I lived in the US as a kid, I had a figure/doll/whatever called Action Jackson: I learned quickly that he wasn't nearly as cool as Action Man or GI Joe. (Action Jackson wasn't, however, considered quite as hokey as Big Jim.)

I quite like them myself, and my Tressy doll dated one for a while.

My sister had a Tressy. She had a sidekick called Toots, if memory serves.

My favourite 'toy' was a six-foot, mechanical-jawed T Rex that stood guard in my bedroom, frightening the crap out of the neighbours' little kids when they came a-knocking. (That, and a Viewmaster plus reels that I still have in VGC in a cupboard, should anyone wish to make me an offer.)

[Stumpy Pepys]

Toys you played with as a child

matt j wrote: Playmobil Cowboys.

I remember that we'd usually set up the scene of a massive battle at a forgotten fort that quickly turned into a depressing bloodbath.

Was that the Sam Peckinpah edition?