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I've been in a nostalgic mood lately, thinking back to all the toys and stuff I played with as a kid. There were a bunch of things I haven't seen in years, but a couple construction sets came to mind first. There was the girder and panel building sets, I think these have been on and off the market at various times, but we grew up using the older ones my dad had as a kid.   Basically, plastic girders that nested together, with pieces of flat paneling that you could use to make windows, doors, roofing, etc. They were a lot of fun, and they fit together well enough that you could easily make buildings three or four feet tall if you had enough pieces. Newer versions got fancier and had things like elevated roadway to make bridges, or battery-powered motors to make working elevators. Just a lot of fun for creating buildings and such. We also had a lot of fun with some even older construction sets, American Plastic Bricks. These were more like precursors to Legos in some ways, but more specifically designed to emulate residential construction with various sizes of bricks and pieces to help add in things like doors and windows or various types of roofs.   These were a lot of fun, and let you do some surprisingly detailed home construction, we were able to replicate our own house pretty accurately (aside from the fact that the real one wasn't actually made of brick). The big downside to these was that they generally nested together rather than fitting precisely like Legos, so the houses were always a bit wobbly, and if you bumped them too hard the walls might collapse into rubble. There was also an even older version made out of wood:  These ones looked cool, but their design was imprecise enough that they only had the vaguest sense of nesting together. They were barely better than trying to build with flat pieces of wood, just falling over at the lightest touch, so we never really used them for anything. I have a bunch more I could go on about, not even counting how long I could go on about older Lego sets, but I don't want to cover everything myself. What are some fun or interesting things you enjoyed playing with as a kid? 
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Sep 3, 2023 19:13
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| # ? May 11, 2024 21:15 |
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BLACKTRON! They were a lineup of LEGO. I loved Blacktron, they all had awesome neon green visors and windows and it lit up all rad under a black light. BLACKTRON!  I had this baby. Man looking at this brings back memories. I love the early LEGO lineups, like Blacktron, Futuretron (I think?), they had that underwater thing, the Islanders, Pirates, the medieval one...
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Sep 3, 2023 19:17
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credburn posted:BLACKTRON!  that was one I had in mind! I loved the space sets. Really, I loved all of them, especially way back when they were starting to branch out from the few general themes to the specific themed subsets like those that really leaned into a specific styling.
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Sep 3, 2023 19:35
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Oooh, things we got to play with as a kid that kids these days won't know what you're talking about.  I was also going to put the MASK base here but they really didn't plan for SEO when they named the cartoon.
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Sep 3, 2023 20:06
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pandy fackler has a new favorite as of 19:20 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Sep 3, 2023 20:23
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pandy fackler posted:
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Sep 3, 2023 20:46
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Inceltown posted:I was also going to put the MASK base here but they really didn't plan for SEO when they named the cartoon. I forgot about MASK. I never got to watch the show, so I didn't know where it came from at the time, but one of my favorite toy vehicles was a MASK car I got at a garage sale.  It had spring loaded gullwing doors that would pop up to go into aircraft mode, it was the coolest thing ever!  
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Sep 3, 2023 20:49
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This guy ruled and I still had little laser and missile bits in random boxes years later after the dino himself got lost in a move or something.
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Sep 4, 2023 00:08
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Animal-Mother posted:This guy ruled and I still had little laser and missile bits in random boxes years later after the dino himself got lost in a move or something. Want to get three cats and name them KRULOS, BITOR, and COBRUS E: Also, obligatory Micro Machine folding RV 
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Sep 4, 2023 00:32
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... which I would assault with my mighty military micro-machine army!  It could not withstand the assault of my night attack missile tower 
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Sep 4, 2023 00:35
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I loved the incredible crash test dummies toys as a kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKI0idHq4fg I used to spend hours crashing them into stuff. You'd think they would break but they were surprisingly strong. Out of all of my crash test dummies toys I think only one had a stuck limb that wouldn't detach.
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Sep 4, 2023 00:43
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Animal-Mother posted:This guy ruled and I still had little laser and missile bits in random boxes years later after the dino himself got lost in a move or something. I never had those, but it jogged my memory on maybe the weirdest set of toys I got into: BONE AGE    Seriously, big simple dinosaur skeleton playsets are cool, but making them warrior monsters for competing caveman clans?  And having every skeleton set reassemble into one or two absolutely bonkers war vehicles?!  Whatever, my dad randomly got me one as a present when coming home from a work trip, and I instantly fell in love with the whole thing. I need to time travel back to make my 6yo self save the packaging, though, apparently the complete sets have been going for hundreds of dollars on ebay 
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Sep 4, 2023 02:35
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:They made Star Wars toys very similar and two decades later we unearthed them in my moms garage. Only then did I realize that I played space Polly Pocket I played with (and watched!) Mighty Max which was this but extremely rad.
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Sep 4, 2023 02:54
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Animal-Mother posted:This guy ruled and I still had little laser and missile bits in random boxes years later after the dino himself got lost in a move or something. I had a crapton of Dino-Riders as a kid, although I don't think I ever got the T-Rex. Definitely also had a ton of tiny red plastic missile heads, silver plastic weapon doodads, etc. strewn around the rest of my toy collection, even after the dinosaurs themselves had mostly just retired from warfare and joined my horde of ordinary plastic dinosaurs.
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Sep 4, 2023 02:55
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Hornet Hill, you could fill the busted container with a tiny bit of water and tip it over. I also loved the big computer screen hidden in the back of the base. Just a simple set with a lot of play value for a stupid kid  edit: oh yeah and the helipad was spring loaded
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Sep 4, 2023 03:05
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Dr. Jerrold Coe posted:Hornet Hill I remember seeing that one at the store, but I never got it myself. I was not expecting the little nuclear storage tub off to the side 
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Sep 4, 2023 04:37
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credburn posted:BLACKTRON! When I was a kid I got the classic late 1970s/early 1980s space Lego: The '78 Space Cruiser was my main set (I guess we couldn't afford the larger Galaxy Explorer). That little bar fridge was loaded with SPACE GEMS, the back of the ship opened up and you could load it right in there with the forklift  I'm pretty sure I had all these sets as well, it was over 40 years ago so my memory is a little fuzzy:       I had one of the moon base sets and I'm pretty sure it was this one: 
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Sep 4, 2023 09:14
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:When I was a kid I got the classic late 1970s/early 1980s space Lego: I dreamt of having the Galaxy Explorer, but I did have that particular moonbase. This was before everything started using the neon material. Before the LEGO, I had this. The Fisher-Price Alpha Probe.  One of the sounds was this random beeping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGSTANz1Nk I was surprised to hear something very much like it at the start of Air’s “Les Professionels”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MofYHilG2ec
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Sep 4, 2023 17:23
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I’m kinda sad I grew up when Lego was mostly converted to all IP instead of vague things like Space
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Sep 4, 2023 18:32
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I’m kinda sad I grew up when Lego was mostly converted to all IP instead of vague things like Space  Fright Knights made me the spooky bitch I am today, that poo poo had it all. 1. Bats 2. Skeletons 3. Witches 4. Dragons 5. An insane lord who thinks he is a bat-wizard-knight 6. Horses with bat armor 7. Witch airships 8. Halberds No series has topped it since imho
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Sep 4, 2023 18:37
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Love this guy. There was just something uniquely endearing about lego figures way back when every single one of them had the exact same face. They all look so hyped to be doing whatever they're doing, and Astronaut Guy is the hypedest of all.
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Sep 4, 2023 18:54
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Captain Hygiene posted:Love this guy. There was just something uniquely endearing about lego figures way back when every single one of them had the exact same face. They all look so hyped to be doing whatever they're doing, and Astronaut Guy is the hypedest of all. For me it's another aspect of the pre-IP era, where we're projecting so much onto the figures and the builds and it truly is about imagination
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Sep 4, 2023 21:11
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Dr. Jerrold Coe posted:For me it's another aspect of the pre-IP era, where we're projecting so much onto the figures and the builds and it truly is about imagination Yeah, that makes sense. Between that and the simpler models/smaller pool of piece types to draw from, there was more to put in on the imagination side.
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Sep 4, 2023 21:49
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 Loved this set, all I have left are the feet - for some reason I took them with me when I left home and then my folks gave away all my lego. Def agree with the ip chat, also I think the lego sets have way too many small and specific pieces as well now, they don't lend themselves well to being repurposed, particularly the sets my daughter got.  Got this one when I was maybe four or five, and still going strong.
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Sep 4, 2023 22:39
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I was lucky enough to be bought a shitload of lego as a kid - helped in no small part that my Dad liked it almost as much as me. I definitely had some Blacktron sets but I can't actually remember which ones - only the guys and the fluorescent green window pieces regularly featuring in my 'freehand' builds. I do remember having some ICE PLANET 2002 sets (ah, how different 2002 would actually be...), culminating in this bad boy:  Ice Station Odyssey. The robot arm that swivelled the spare rocket into place! The 'light sabre gateway'! The big orange dome!  This is probably the earliest Lego set I can remember 'building' (probably more like getting in the way of my Dad actually doing most of the actual work) - Intercoastal Seaport  This one - the Aquazone Aquanauts Crystal Explorer Sub - was probably my all-time favourite. This is the only Lego set I properly pestered my parents about, and I basically talked about nothing else in the six months leading up to my birthday in 1996. I would play with it before school, spend most of school counting seconds until I could go home, and then play with it all evening. Just ticked every box for 10-yr old me - Lego, submarine, yellow, mechanical arms, propellers, futuristic but plausible. Brilliant.  Similar vein. I had a few sets from this 'Divers' series, culminating in my Christmas present for 1998 - Diving Expedition Explorer. A really cool set in itself, made more perfect that the living room side-table was exactly the right height to put the ship on top, place the reef on the floor below it and to be able to lower things precisely to the 'sea floor' with the crane.  The Shuttle Launch Pad got broken up and reused for madcap free-hand builds fairly quickly, iirc. Which is a shame, because it was awesome and such 'good Lego'. A space shuttle, fuel tank, booster rockets, a transporter sled and a launch gantry, plus you can actually assemble the units in sequence, just like the real thing.  While I was never as obsessed with the Lego City Century Skyway Airport as with the Crystal Explorer Sub, it proved to have the most staying power. I think this was the first big, multi-part set I built entirely by myself (including the stickers!) and it was the one which never got broken up and repurposed, but was on permanent display on my bedroom windowsill. When we moved house half the bits somehow went missing and I bitched to high heaven about it for a week and then moved on...or so I thought. When, aged 30, I was able to buy my own place my Mum gave me a fresh, new, unopened Airport set as a housewarming gift. So now it's back! It wasn't all big sets - I have vivid memories across the years of building, playing with, breaking up and then digging out the instructions to rebuild the Gas and Go Flyer. Such a great example of how much detail and play value Lego could put into a small set. The castering nosewheel, the TV camera, the wingtip navigation lights (it's really neat how accurate Lego was with stuff like that - the Diving Expedition ship had correct side, masthead and stern lights as well as the correct international signal flags for conducting diving ops...), the happy Octan man on his little fuel bowser. :-3
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Sep 5, 2023 00:33
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I'm jealous, we never got off the bigger sets with multiple buildings and vehicles, but that airport in particular was one that I really wanted. We saved all the packaging and inserts from the sets we bought new, and I just spent endless hours looking at the ad sheets, dreaming about all the sets like that one that I might get someday.
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Sep 5, 2023 02:44
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Captain Hygiene posted:I'm jealous, we never got off the bigger sets with multiple buildings and vehicles, but that airport in particular was one that I really wanted. We saved all the packaging and inserts from the sets we bought new, and I just spent endless hours looking at the ad sheets, dreaming about all the sets like that one that I might get someday. Today could be that day, if you wanted to drop $170 + P&P on achieving a lost dream: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256195112775 (That's an unboxed set but they have boxed sets as well for more $$)
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Sep 5, 2023 06:06
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eBay is dangerous when you're seized with fits of toy nostalgia. I was lucky to get away with only paying ten bucks or so for one of these bad boys: A tiny plastic cockatrice from the Monster in my Pocket line, which I guess was a full game and stuff? I only ever had the one, which was a cereal pack-in (and bright neon pink, and unsurprisingly waaaay more expensive on eBay than the red one I ended up buying). Insanely goofy toy in retrospect, but sometimes a ridiculous little plastic monster just grabs your imagination as a kid and sticks there.
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Sep 5, 2023 06:42
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I used to spend hours and hours playing with these Fuzzy-Felt playsets when I was a toddler   
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Sep 5, 2023 07:01
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I got this one year for Christmas, I wish I still had it: It came with green slime that could be put into that reservoir thing on the right there and pushed out the spout by pressing down on the roof. My Venom action figure often ended up in the dumpster, covered in slime, while Spider-Man stood heroically on top of the Daily Bugle.
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Sep 5, 2023 14:52
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my mom got me a gi joe MOBILE COMMAND CENTER from a christmas bazaar or something. it had no accessories, no driver, no nothing, but it was nonetheless the site of pretty much every imaginary gi joe mission ever
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Sep 5, 2023 23:19
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I had this specific Playmobil castle set as a kid, which I loved: 
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Sep 6, 2023 03:00
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drat OP, that's uncanny, stay outta my search history. Just a couple days ago my brother was asking about something I played with as a kid and I couldn't remember what it was but searching indeed turned out to be Girder and Panel, though I had a weird one - the girders were white, and all the materials were kinda funky, like, skylight domes made of transparent green plastic. Can't find any images of the exact set, but it was definitely girder and panel stuff. In the interest of actually Ping some of MFs though, have Forbidden Bridge. This thing loving sucked, it was great; it looked cool as poo poo and was absolutely no fun to play. The tortured creaking sound of the plastic twisting as the motor struggled to turn it is burned into my head.   
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Sep 6, 2023 04:42
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Nuns with Guns posted:I had this specific Playmobil castle set as a kid, which I loved: Playmobil had some awesome stuff, I have these Ghostbusters sets which I bought for myself only a few years ago as a fully grown adult   
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Sep 6, 2023 05:59
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I can't even remember what this thing is called so only have a pic in meme format. I found one on ebay and bought it for my 3 year old daughter. Regrets? I have a few.
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Sep 6, 2023 13:23
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aniviron posted:In the interest of actually Ping some of MFs though, have Forbidden Bridge. This thing loving sucked, it was great; it looked cool as poo poo and was absolutely no fun to play. The tortured creaking sound of the plastic twisting as the motor struggled to turn it is burned into my head. Fireball Island was the superior choice 
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Sep 6, 2023 15:57
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We had Lost Valley Of The Dinosaurs:  Intrepid explorers had to travel across the board to pilfer gold coins from the ancient temple while dodging a swamp monster, a pteranodon who could move a player anywhere on the board, a volcano which slowly spread lava across the valley and an entire pack of ferocious Tyrannosaurs  
Snowglobe of Doom has a new favorite as of 16:37 on Sep 6, 2023 |
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Sep 6, 2023 16:34
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Beezle posted:I can't even remember what this thing is called so only have a pic in meme format. I found one on ebay and bought it for my 3 year old daughter. Lol wow, I completely forgot about those but we had a set too. It's a Crazy Combo Horn set from Fisher Price.  I loved the spinny noisemaker, everyone else around me probably hated it. Nuns with Guns posted:I had this specific Playmobil castle set as a kid, which I loved: Jealous. I don't know why, but we just never got Playmobil stuff when I was a kid. That was another thing I'd spend hours looking at in toy catalogs, I especially wanted all the town ones.
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Sep 6, 2023 20:44
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Let's talk obscure toys from the late 80s early 90s! A good writeup of it here: https://sabrbaseballcards.blog/2019/05/31/the-oddest-of-the-oddball-1988-starting-lineup-talking-baseball/ How about an etch a sketch that needs batteries?  With this one, you could create rudimentary animations.
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Sep 6, 2023 21:35
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I'm 99% sure one of my friends had that Starting Lineup game, it looks very familiar. I don't think I ever played it, probably because of the complexity the writeup mentions. I don't think I've ever seen the etch-a-sketch, though, that's a neat idea. I would've loved it, I was fascinated by pretty much any way to create animation way back when computers were much less present.
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Sep 6, 2023 22:23
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