There's lots up here that bring back great memories for me. Honourable mention to the OP for Rough Riders, I think I'd still enjoy them grinding over improbable obstacles, and Astrowars as my dad still has ours, in it's box which will undoubtedly get rolled out again this Christmas.
Here's one that's not been mentioned yet. Tonka Clutch Poppers. Absolutely the fastest and most skirting board damaging toy cars that were ever built!
Bikes and radio control cars for me, in fact it seems I haven't changed very much in the last 45 years 🙂
Lego, most of it bought second hand in the mid 1960’s pre all the ‘special’ kits to make cars etc. so just the blocks of various sizes. Many, many hours over the years between about4 and 10 working on projects. Absolutely fantastic for developing spacial awareness and basic concepts of construction. After that it was working on ‘making’ projects with my dad in his workshop, skills I still use every day. Not all the projects were successful -see boomerang thread
I had a Johnny 7 gun, nearly as big as I was and loved it. Moved on to Airfix kits and then found you could tie string to a wing, set fire to it and whirl it round you head. Dodging molten plastic was all part of the fun 😉
Moved onto Scalextric and slot car racing after that.
This was ace. I want another!
Me and my brother loved our Action Men (pre-eagle eyes or moving hands nonsense): "Mike" and "Steve".
I seem to remember our Gran made clothes for them. I definitely dressed Mike in purple cords and and puffy sleeved silk shirt. Thinking back, I doubt Mike appreciated it.
Matchbox Steer n Go
I had one of those !!!
I had a big micronauts play kit which was ace.
Not forgetting the Star Wars figures,had the cardboard Death Star.
Was great being a spoiled single child in the 70/80’s
Subbuteo! Huge box (when you’re little) to carry into primary school before Christmas when we were allowed to bring games in.
There has been much talk of Action Man (myself included) but who had this bad boy?
Bikes
Lego
Train set
Scalextric
Flight Deck
Spoilt Kid™ round the corner had the “Rocket Cycle” version which was even shitter.
I had a rocket cycle. We used to have loads of fun winding it up as fast as you can, then holding it up so the wheel rubbed your ear. Great fun that is until my ear got caught in the cog and stopped the wheel dead. Much blood and screaming!
Also had Action Man, we had a rockery in the garden don't you know, which was excellent for bases and driving Action Mans tank over. Had 6 million dollar man too!
Bike of course, but it was really just a means of transport to get us to the woods for climbing/falling out of trees, the beach for falling off of cliffs and throwing jelly fish at each other, or the arcades for kicking the tuppeny shovers and running off with the proceeds.
I had one of those Tonka Clutch Poppers, loved it. Used to see just how quickly I could get the flywheel spinning.
Mostly Lego for me and I loved the He-Man sets. Had the slime one which was great but sourcing slime in pre-internet days was always a problem.
Had a mate who had all of the A-Team set and another that had all of the Star Wars sets, Millennium Flacon AT-AT. AT-ST etc. Both only children.
No love for Top Trumps?
Every year in the stocking at the end of your bed to stop you from waking the house at 6.00 am, along with those "Observer book of...." that everyone seemed to get at Xmas.
Also the advent of Lego figures (I got a spaceman set with a couple of figures in it) were a turning point for me in Lego building
Roller boots, exactly like these-
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^^ That reminds me....
I also upgraded mine with Avon wheels (or was it Ulon made by a company called Avon)? and wider trucks.
I remember asking Santa in his Grotto in Birmingham for a Big Track, sadly it never materialised 🙁
^ I remember the ad for the Big Trak - it had a trailer with it too and the kid 'delivers' something to his lazy dad. Was it a beer?
Lego, scale models, RC car are the standouts for me. Who remember Super Cup football and Torpedo Run? Thought they were amazing at the time, probably pants nowadays though!
Before the days of Health and Safety...
Big Trak! My mate had one, with the trailer, and lived in a bungalow. We would literally spend hours going from his bedroom to the kitchen to the lounge - 4 forward, turn right, 2 forward, turn left, ... and on. Sometimes the batteries would run out before it got past the bathroom.
My old man regretted it as the sound of it used to drive him nuts.
Also my Train set.
Bikes (obviously), starting with a Raleigh Commando
Preferred Meccano to Lego
A RC model boat kit based on a Thames Police launch that I kept pushing my luck with battery life and had to wait for it to be blown to the edge of the pond to retrieve.
Pogo stick found during a trip to the local tip when you were allowed to wander around.
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got one of these when I was 13, it a blast when it ran getting it started was a total ball ache. (got a build yer own balsa aerobatic model the following year with a fox motor which was so loud!!!)
@10 I just found a box of Starcom stuff in the attic, only little ones but most of the clockwork or whatever it was still works. Oddball toys but pretty awesome.
Used to have a lot of action force and action man but it was definitely the lego that got the most use. And it's now been 16 hours since I last built a lego model so apparently it still is
Best of allow time for me; a Raleigh Grifter one year, and a Big Trak another.
Haha! Just seen the big Trak above. As a trainee primary teacher I was over the moon to find one in my classroom!
I just found a box of Starcom stuff in the attic, only little ones but most of the clockwork or whatever it was still works. Oddball toys but pretty awesome.
I think my mum still has some of it somewhere. I had loads of it. The figures had some tiny little visors that I was meticulous in keeping. My brother's just destroyed their toys, but I always kept mine nice.
There has been much talk of Action Man (myself included) but who had this bad boy
Me..me .me, I had the repair centre and the Android bloke with the faces and head and arms which popped off,also had the bionic women as well…
Course my most awesome was the ZX Spectrum 🙂
Armies of toy soldiers - WW2. Me and my friends developed extensive rules for turned based combat and battles raged in the killing Fields of the flower beds.
Any sort of gun for playing war. Especially cap guns - especially those with the really loud plastic ring caps none of your paper rubbish
Spectrum is disqualified- not a toy, it's educational. Tell your parents
It took asking three Christmases in a row before Father Christmas finally relented.
Well done Big Track
I vaguely remember we had the same advert but not voiced by a yank.
And it delivered a French golden delicious apple.
Lego Space and Action Man when I was little. The Lego is still at my parent's place for the grandkids and eventually great grandkids. Then 1/35th scale modelling, mostly Tamiya WW2 era German armour. I got a Grifter when I was 10, I think it weighed more than my Rail!
There has been much talk of Action Man (myself included) but who had this bad boy
Banned in my household. Surname... Father's first name...
Action man was miles better, and Sindy used to go into battle with him in our house, we were a generation ahead of the country!
@johndoh. I had a Six Million Dollar Man. Used to love looking through his bionic eye, and peeling back his latex arm.
My brother had Maskatron, which was supposedly Steve Austin’s nemesis.
One of my favourite toys was Stock Car Smash Up. This consisted of two cars which you would position opposite, pull a plastic strip to launch them at each other, and then watch all of the body panels shoot off. I was always staging car crashes with my toy cars, so this greatly appealed.
Lego and scalextric of course and bikes - but we also had a victorian dolls house that had a family of trolls living in and on it. I still have them
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This time of year I’d know the Argos catalogue front to back, my brother and I got hours of fun out of the following:
Crossbows and Catapults - we had a relatively long landing which provided an excellent battleground.
Test Match - smashing the ball bearing cricket ball into the skirting boards
Supercup Football - sort of an electronic version of subbuteo
There was always a very slight sense of disappointment for me when things were never actually like the advert.
Frugal hippy parents so we weren't allowed many flashy plastic games/toys. This one somehow sneaked past though - so good!
TJ has a collection of trolls. You heard it here first.
Big Trak - right 15, forward 30 or something like that 😀
Sounded like the speak and spell of later years - remember those.
I had the Evil Knievel bike and plastic sided van. My sister had Barbie and her van - which were to a larger scale than mine, so Evil always had to fly into he van at full speed.
TCR track set was also one of my favourites.
I must have been a right spoiled little shit because I had both the Star Bird and the Command Base
