Toys On The Brain

Archive for the ‘Retro Toys’ Category

Now here’s a classic toy. Everyone’s gotta have a Sit n Spin, right?

It’s too bad I couldn’t enjoy this toy much when I was a child; turning around and around on the flat wheel made my stomach well, turn around and around. But my little boy has thoroughly enjoyed this toy’s features since he could barely stand. And there’s nothing like a toy that lasts through several developmental stages.

He loves hitting the handle to play the music that goes through a round of tunes and stops, only to be started again when touched. As he got older, he learned how to spin properly: holding on to the handle while pulling himself in a circle with his lower body.

Then one day last fall, he laid down on his stomach and spun himself around - legs stretched and toes pointed - while pushing off the floor with his hand for speed. His daddy and I are certain it could be a new Olympic event.

The Playskool Sit n Spin was used when we got it, and it hardly has a scratch. It’s durable, lightweight, and I’ve yet to change the batteries after owning this toy for over two years.

Spin on baby, spin on.

• Sit N Spin at the Hasbro Website

Buy Sit N Spin Online:

• at Amazon.com

I purchased this slinky in order to enlighten my son on the pleasures of playing with one of the classic toys. As I worked to build up the suspense, we unleashed the slinky at the top of the stairs only to have our hopes and dreams dashed when I discovered that it doesn’t work in our house. Apparently, our steps are too wide to allow movement of the slinky from one step to another. My toddler looked at me as if I’d gone a little bit crazy.

What a disappointment! I don’t remember having trouble getting the slinky to perform feats when I was younger, but now it doesn’t seem to do much of anything. Perhaps I need to educate myself on new things to do with it.

My boy likes to hold it and drag it around for a little bit, but the novelty wears off fast. For now, it makes for a real nice decoration in and among the other classic toys on his bookshelf.

• Slinky Website

Buy Slinky Online:

• at Amazon.com

What could be better for a 3 year old than being given permission, even encouraged to whack away at a toy while simultaneously competing on an equal footing with all-to-often smug older siblings? It turns out, very little.

Hungry Hungry Hippos is a classic children’s game that you may remember from your youth. In our day, the marbles were probably denser (now they’re very lightweight plastic) and the hippos were probably a little more substantial (of course, they probably also had lead in them in some way), but it’s still a good toy. Perfect for little ones who are old enough not to stick everything in their mouths, it’s a family game that doesn’t involve reading but which is great for teaching everyday mathematical concepts.

Basically, each player (up to 4) releases one marble from their chute (this may involve a little re-instruction once your little person figures out how to launch the marbles across the room) into the middle of the playing field. Then all players whack on their hippos’ tails, causing the heads to dart forward and compete for the marble. Whoever gets the most marbles in the end wins. Or, you can start out with all marbles on the board and see who gets the most from the entire group at once. Once you’re done whacking, it’s time to sneak in some mathematical lessons - who had the most? How many did you have? How many more would you need to have as many as your brother? Before you know it, they’ll be doing algebra!

The only issue we’ve had with the game so far has been finding a few of the marbles stuck on the undersides of the hippos. A small screwdriver and a little lever action rectified the situation pretty quickly, but it’s something to watch out for. Also, this is definitely one of those parental supervision games - if you’re not careful, you’ll be finding little white marbles all over your house, especially in the middle of the night when you’re walking down the hallway to go to the bathroom.

The recommended age is 4 and up, but as long as you feel confident your little person isn’t going to try and taste the marbles, it probably won’t be a problem if you start a little younger. Small Person #2 is only 3 and loves the game. Oh, and it comes in a nice, sturdy box you can store the game in… if you want to disassemble the whole thing every time. If you actually have a life and don’t feel like doing that, the box has absolutely no point. Get a Ziploc for the marbles and you’re good to go.

Buy Hungry Hungry Hippos Online:

• at Amazon.com
• at WalMart
• at eToys
• at KB Toys

Imagine you’re a 3-year old kid. Now imagine tearing off the wrapping paper from a present to reveal inside… a potato. A potato? A potato?! What the hell? Are they just messing with you? Who wants to play with a freaking potato??

Well, luckily, you’ll soon figure out that what you’ve received is, in fact, an absolutely fun, wonderfully simple toy that will bring plenty of entertainment to your world (assuming you manage to keep track of all the pieces, of course).

Originally a set of plastic pieces that could be used to decorate real vegetables (now that sounds like fun), Mr. Potato Head got his plastic body in 1964 and continued to evolve into the form we know him today.

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As painful as it is to admit for those of us who owned them back in the 80s, Cabbage Patch Kids are now 25 years old (oh god, I feel old). To celebrate, the company is re-releasing the original dolls.

Each one comes with “a Commemorative Certificate that has been personally hand signed by Xavier Roberts, the Creator of the Cabbage Patch Kids” and the buyer can choose to have a personalized “adoption certificate” if they order through the Cabbage Patch website.

It looks like people are already trying to recreate the Great Cabbage Patch Panic of 1986 by buying early and then trying to jack up the price on eBay and Amazon. I saw several for over $100. To avoid that insanity, buy directly from the website, where they retail for about $40 ($3 extra for the personalized certificate). Thankfully, I took quite good care of my dolls (with the exception of a tragically misguided event involving scissors and long, luxurious fake hair), so I don’t need to buy replacements to relive my childhood - I can just go in my mom’s attic and be there in an instant. For those of you not so lucky, get some before they run out!

• Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary Website

Buy Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary Dolls Online:

• at Amazon.com

Wherever you’re from, you know who (or what) Barbie is. Every generation of American girls from the 1960s through today has, at one time or another, played with a Barbie doll. The question is, how many of us idolized her and how many despised her and everything she stood for?

On my part, I have to admit that I loathed Barbie. Oh, sure, I occasionally tried to conform by begging my Mom to get me one, then inevitably ended up cutting her hair and leaving her dangling naked over a dangerous precipice to be rescued by one of the GI Joes I stole from my brother. And no, I’m not gay.

I’m not sure why I hated Barbie so much; I loved My Little Ponies and couldn’t get enough of Rainbow Brite or Care Bears. I think it really was how she looked so ungodly abnormal, I just couldn’t get into roleplaying with something which barely resembled a human form.

But anyway, enough about me. What about you? What do you think about Barbie? Take our poll, leave a comment, let us know!

Buy Barbie Online:

• at Amazon.com

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid I desperately wanted a Teddy Ruxpin. Every time one of his commercials came one I would sit and stare with jealous wonderment at the intense joy his child-keepers seemed to experience. Why oh why couldn’t I have one of the animatronic wonders?

The answer, of course, is that it was simply too damn expensive. Still and all, Teddy Ruxpin is one of the main toys I remember from my youth, despite never having touched one, much less owned one. According to the Teddy Ruxpin Wikipedia article, he’s gone through quite a few incarnations since the toy I coveted in the mid-80s. Today you can get a digital version for your own kids to enjoy, though in my old age I’ve come to find the poorly synchronized lip and eye movement to be more freakish than awe-inspiring.

Buy the NEW Teddy Ruxpin Online:

• at Amazon.com

As I’ve been reviewing the toys of today, I can’t help but feel some nostalgia for the toys of my youth. As a child of the 80s, I grew up playing with everything from Transformers to Barbies (as long as cutting their hair off and leaving body parts strewn about constitutes playing), and can’t help but feel that the 80s were a wonderful era for toys in general. As such, I decided to put together a Top 10 List of Girl Toys of the 80s. Enjoy!

1. Kid Sister: I have to admit I never had one of these, but who can forget the My Buddy/Kid Sister commercials? Like everything else that has ever aired on television, you can check it out at YouTube.

2. Cabbage Patch Dolls: What little girl among us didn’t dream of having a room filled with oddly obese dolls which boasted their own lines of clothing, feeding sets, and carriers? Only a few months ago I finally threw away my Cabbage Patch Baby feeding set (but I still have the cling sticker scene sets, the car seat carrier, and of course a trunk full of clothes and official Cabbage Patch diapers - hey, you never know when this stuff might be worth something).

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I’m horrified to admit it, but I have not one, not two, not even three, but four of these old school musical clocks haunting my days. Two are in fact vintage models (along with the expected chipped facings, peeled-off decorations and questionable tunes) and two are the recently released Fisher Price retro-nouveau offerings.

Both models are basically identical, though of course with chunks of wood falling off of the older versions, I hesitate to let kids play with them. The new versions are made of plastic, and so are more durable, if a little less charming. The basic idea behind the clocks/music boxes is that you wind them up with the knob on the back, and as they play the tune (supposedly “Grandfather’s Clock” - and yes, I looked that up) the pictures on the front rotate to show what a child would be doing at different times of the day.

Overall, it’s nice to see an older toy come back for a younger generation. It’s also awesome to find a toy that doesn’t rely on batteries to keep kids entertained. That said, however, it isn’t exactly a toy that will hold your child rapt for hours at a time. It also won’t miraculously teach them to tell time, though it’s a great tool for you to use together towards that end. The one gripe I have with this toy is that the hour hand doesn’t always move in proportionate time to the minute hand. Admittedly, I’m probably doing something wrong, but if you want to use this to help kids learn to tell time, it can be a little annoying.

Buy the Fisher Price Classic Clock Online:

• at Back to Basics Toys
• at Target