Hopefully this can be the first in a series. Who can remember the years when some of todays most popular toys were mixed in with a group of not so popular ones? Remember when you reenacted popular star battles with star wars and silver hawks, or did popular cross overs between Gi Joe and Transformers? So to those who were brought up in those epic eras, what brought you in sheer enjoyment in the 90's/ 80's/ 70's/ 60's.   

In all honesty, I got a kick out of McDonald's Happy Meal toys...I ate so many McDonald's happy meals as a kid that I can never eat McDonald's again.  .  But, seriously, back in the 1980's and early 1990's, they had the best toys!  Some of them I still have today, like the Fraggle Rock cars, and the Muppet Babies figurines.

Aside from that, I was a major Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan, and had lots of toys from that line...the 4 main characters, the Pizza Thrower, the blimp, the Turtles van.  I liked them so much, I even bought all seven TMNT Digests issued by Archie Comics between 1993 and 1994.

Oh, and I was also a major Lego fan.  Loved Legos.

I'm the 70's - so I had:

Large-sized G.I. Joe's - who often battled "Big Jim" action figures (GI Joe knock-off's with outdoor rather than military themes)

I had "smash-em/crash-em" derby cars - pull the cord, crash them and watch the pieces fly off!

Evil Kenievil was big - I have the childhood bike-jump scars to prove it!

The Bionic man!  - look through his head to see magnified world views, roll-up his freaky plastic skin to remove and insert bionic plastic items.

Then, of course, there were the WB and Disney stuffed characters. These were large stuffed characters back when stuffed characters were not easy to find.

When I got "older" I was into the Star Wars world (and Battlestar Galactica - first series), etc.  I still have 10 of the 11 original Star Wars figures on the shelf in my office.  They are missing blasters, sabers etc, but these are the real-deal - bought back when the movie first came out.  If only I'd boughten extras and left them in their packages! - apparently, the originals in packages are $1000+ each now.  Sadly, there is no way to tell the difference once they are out of the package between them and the Empire sets.

I was the product of 1970s, too (but I was a kid and teen in 1980s, though), so I was raised on Fisher Price toys.



I was young enough for popular toys of 1980s (at least the early years), but I never got actual toys like Strawberry Shortcake or My Little Pony, though I did wear some Strawberry Shortcake clothes. At least my sister and I were surprised by Smurf plushies on our beds one Christmas morning and that was such a beautiful memory indeed.

Thanks to a young friend (a little girl more than 5 years younger than me) down the street, I got into Transformers, though it was a guilty pleasure for me at the time (ironically, I DID watch "boyish" cartoons like animated shows featuring DC superheroes, Tarzan, and He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe.) Too bad I was a girl AND in my mid-teens at the time.

But I needn't worry NOW, especially when Transformers are astonishingly POPULAR today - not only with young teenage girls, but also with GROWN women as well as boys and men, too (some actually went on to draw for today's Transformers comic books, BTW!) Just visit any Transformers forums and it'll be SO busy it's easy for your replies to get lost into such a HUGE thread swamp! (One actually has over a THOUSAND members replying all at the same time!) Not to mention the fact a Mickey Mouse Transformer has just been unveiled recently and some of us Transfans are actually considering getting it, myself included (I'm a longtime Mickey Mouse fan, BTW.)

So now you see how toys today have gone far beyond the little realm of childhood.^_^

No fair! BRUNETTE used visual aids with her post! Mine would have been so much cooler if I had done the same.
MJB


Now it's cool!

Anyone remember Teddy Ruxpin? I never had one, but they were quite popular when I was a kid.

All these are exactly my thoughts too!! Cept the 80's toys cause I wasnt around

I played with LEGOs (I think, or maybe it was a knock-off).