Category Archives: Toys

Five of My Favorite Christmas Gifts

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With Christmas getting ever so closer, let’s take a break from everyday life to remember some of our favorite old Christmas gifts. I’m listing five of mine here for you to check out, but please, drop some of your favorites in the comments at the bottom!

Castle Grayskull

I’ve got a feeling I got this in 1984 since it probably wouldn’t have been like my old man to buy it in 1983 when my fandom was just blossoming for all things He-Man.  He generally liked to wait until he was sure I was really into something before dropping a lot of dough on it.  But what kid out there who was lucky enough to get this for Christmas wouldn’t enjoy it?  I know I flipped for it.  I’ve got an old polaroid of me just after opening it, and I’m crying.  They had to be tears of joy.  But this was the highlight of my Christmas that year, and countless battles were fought around, in, and for Castle Grayskull in the following months and years. 

Cobra Terrordrome

You’ll remember that I rambled on in-depth on the Terror Drome back when I described my mega haul of Christmas toys from 1986, so I won’t add much here, except to say that this was the largest piece I had in my assortment of G.I. Joe toys.  With G.I. Joe being both my favorite toy and cartoon at the time, it was a huge deal for me to get such an important piece of the toy puzzle with this thing.  I absolutely loved this thing and used it for so much of my G.I. Joe play.  It was also very handy when it came to having wrestling matches with my figures too.  Forget War Games, I was having Terror Drome matches.  The REAL most dangerous match in the world. 

G.I. Joe Tomahawk

Also from Christmas morning of 1986, the Tomahawk would also go on to see a ton of playtime in all of my G.I. Joe battles.  The Joe side of the battle had plenty of vehicles, and with the exception of the Whale Hovercraft, this was my favorite one.  I never owned the hovercraft myself, so this was the best thing I owned on that side of the fence. 

Super NES Super Set

I was a Nintendo guy.  I had friends who were Sega guys, but this old boy was firmly in the Nintendo camp.  I played Nintendo daily, so when this thing came out, it was all I could think about asking for in the 1991 Christmas season.  It was touch and go on whether I would actually get one or not.  My brother kept telling me that I wasn’t getting one because my Dad’s line of thinking was that I already had a Nintendo, so why would I need a new one?  But it turned out that was just a ruse, because on Christmas morning, there it was under the tree.  Of course, it went on to see hundreds or thousands of hours of playtime, and it still ranks as my favorite video game system of all time. 

DC Comics Silver Age Classics Box Set

I got this set in 1992…right at the beginning of my comic fandom zenith.  I was soaking up whatever comics I could find like a sponge, so my Mom thought I would like this set.  It featured old stories, so it would have to be worth something she thought.  Well, in monetary value, she was wrong.  But in pure enjoyment, she couldn’t have been more right.  I was over the top with excitement at the fact that I could now read some of the most important stories in the history of the DC Universe.  It was a twelve-issue set and featured reprints of the issues that featured the first appearances of the JLA, Flash, Green Lantern, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Swamp Thing.  It also featured the first team-up of Green Lantern and Green Arrow, as well as the first appearance of the “new look” Batman.  Who knew you could put such a price on happiness? 

Well, there’s some of my favorites Christmas presents from through the years.  Be sure to share some of yours in the comments. 

Highlights From the 1991 Sears Wishbook

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Now that we’re past Thanksgiving, I’m all in on Christmas, and that means features like this. We’re going to look at a few things that really caught my eye while browsing through the 1991 Sears Christmas Wishbook.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

I’m going to kick things off with the main event…the SNES! As I’ll be describing in an upcoming feature, the SNES was all I wanted for Christmas in 1991. Being a Nintendo kid, seeing that an upgraded system with better graphics was coming out just kept me on the edge of excitement all through the fall. The 1991 Sears catalog didn’t have a very big spread for the SNES but I guess that was because it was so close to press time when it came out. At the bottom of the listing, it listed just a few games with a note that said more games would be available on Nov. 1st, but you had to call and inquire about those.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Action Figures

TMNT was the hot property in 1991. The catalog had a couple of pages of just the toys, but the book was filled from front to back with licensed Turtle merchandise. Pajamas, clocks, roller skates, skateboards, and just about anything else you could think of were available with the Turtles emblazoned on them. But I like these action figures. I had a couple of the main Turtles roster, but I was at that age where I was transitioning from playing with action figures to more “grown-up” toys, so I didn’t go all in on the line. Looking back now, I wish I had. The figures were just so vibrant, and the well was deep when it came to unique characters.

Nintendo Game Watches

As I said above, in 1991 I was in a transition period when it came to the things I was buying. These game watches are a great example of the kinds of things I was spending my money on at the time. A watch is a “grown up” thing, but being a game watch, they were also fun enough to still be a toy in a way. I don’t know how fun the Super Mario 3 watch could have been with the limited graphics and gameplay ability, but Tetris is a game that is perfectly suited to this kind of offering. Being the big fan of Tetris that I’ve always been, I’m surprised I never had the watch.

Baseball Card Collector Kit

1991 would have been right near the beginning of my obsession with trading cards. My friends and I spent every afternoon trading cards, and whole summer days were taken up with the hobby amongst us. A set like this would have been something I probably actually circled in the catalog back in the day. I mean, it comes with random cards, sleeves, 9-card pages, an album, and a price guide. What more could a budding collector ask for?

Canyon of Doom Slot Car Track

I was bin into slot car tracks from an early age. My older brother had them, and he and my dad used to race them as a way of spending time together. I had several tracks of my own through the years, but nothing quite like this Canyon of Doom track. It’s pretty much just a basic track with a corkscrew in it, but it’s the theme elements that make this one stand out. Racing across the rickety bridge and through the volcano is pretty badass. Not to mention racing behind the waterfall. My cousin Tim and I could have killed many an afternoon with this track.

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves Toys

I was all in on the Robin Hood movie back in 1991. Hell, I’ve always loved the stories of Robin Hood in all their forms. So when these toys came out, I was almost compelled to revert back to the childhood ways that I was desperately trying to shake at this point in life just to play with these things. And it’s not really the action figures themselves that I salivate over today, it’s the playsets. The re-purposed Ewok village that is the “base” for the Merry Men, and the net launcher and boulder slinger really grab my attention. Especially since the net launcher and boulder thrower were re-purposed from the Bone Age toy line that I never had but always wanted.

Mini Golf Set

Oh man, this set of mini golf toys may look cheesy, but let me set the stage for you. Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I was doing all kinds of stuff to mimic things I was seeing on TV. Like, I would see bowling on Wide World of Sports, and I would then go and make a “ball” out of Construx, set up empty soda bottles as pins in the hallways, and I would spend the rest of the afternoon bowling. Stuff like that. So to get a set like this that I could set up a 9-hole course through the house and play some mini golf would have been right up my alley.

Nerf Bow

As I mentioned earlier, I was overly into Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at this time in life, and as I just mentioned above, I was usually into re-creating stuff I was watching. So here comes this bow and arrow from Nerf that would just have made my playtime a whole lot easier. This Bow could easily make one of my lists of toys I always wanted but never had because I never did get my hands on one.

Days of Thunder Go Kart

Besides the Super Nintendo, this Days of Thunder Go Kart is the best thing I found browsing through the catalog. Days of Thunder was another movie that I was overly into back in the day, and I had a lot of merchandise surrounding the movie but I never had something as cool as this. While I would rather have a replica of the green and yellow City Chevrolet, I would still take this pink and white Superflo car. Do you realize how cool it would have been to cruise this thing up and down the road to trade cards with my friends instead of riding my bike? I would have been able to dazzle them so much I could have talked them into any trade I wanted.

Those are just a small snippet of highlights from the 1991 Sears Wish Book. Considering there are over 700 pages in that book, I could easily do a list of a hundred things I want from it, but we’re stopping at these nine. You can check out the full catalog, and many more, over at WishBookWeb.com. And if this kind of post is your thing, check out these other highlights posts here on Retro Ramblings:

Hot Wheels Sto and Go Playsets

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Oh man, what a rush of nostalgia this past weekend. I’m sitting on the couch watching college football, and at the same time, checking out the TRN Slack Channel. It’s where everyone at The Retro Network congregates online and share all kinds of retro stuff and family life with each other.

Courtesy of Rediscover the ’80s

So anyway, I’m checking it out and come across a picture that Jason had posted of his latest thrift store find. It was the Hot Wheels Sto and Go “City” playset. This particular playset holds a special place in my nostalgic heart for reasons I’ll explain in just a bit, but first, let me explain what a Sto and Go playset was for those who may not know.

In the early 1980s Hot Wheels started releasing their Sto and Go playsets. It was a playset that doubled as its own carry case. You could carry it around and when you wanted to play, you just popped it open, pulled out some cars, and away you went on whatever adventure your mind could come up with. All of the Sto and Go playsets had a theme.

The first one released was the Service Center. My brother owned this one and being in the same house, of course, I got to play with it. It was more fun than just imagining that you were taking your cars to the gas station or to get them washed, but in comparison to the other sets they would release, I found it a little lacking in the fun department.

The only one I personally owned was the Construction Site playset. It was great fun when you owned numerous construction vehicles as I did. That crane you see in the picture was the most fun part of it. I used that crane to lift so much stuff to the top of the playset, that I almost broke it on numerous occasions. When the weather was bad, and I couldn’t take my construction cars outside, I could always bust this out and let the good times continue.

The City Sto and Go playset was the one I really adored. Neither me nor my brother owned it, but it was one of the “community” toys that were at my grandparent’s house. The buildings that this playset had look a whole lot like the buildings on main street in Hazard County from the Dukes of Hazzard TV show. My cousins and I all had the ERTL Dukes of Hazzard cars, and I was always sure to take mine along for a visit to the grandparents. We’d take this playset outside with our Dukes cars. Being how most of Hazzard County seemed to have dirt roads, we’d set the city playset up in the middle of the action, and then incorporate all the dirt and grass around it as the rest of Hazzard County. The garage that says “Fire Station” above it became Cooter’s garage, and the Police Station was still the Police station where Roscoe’s car stayed when he wasn’t chasing the Duke boys. We had so much fun out of this playset, that one of my cousins and I still talk about it to this day.

Hot Wheels put out several more Sto and Go sets through the years, but these were the only three I ever had the joy of playing with. There was another one of them that really caught my attention, and to this day, I still hate that I never got to play with it. It was the Sto and Go Freight Yard. I’ll leave you with a picture of it, but I’ll save my thoughts on it until the next “Toys I Never Had” post.

Old Masters of the Universe Ads

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Friday Five is a quick list of five things with a common theme, and instead of doing a big write-up, I’m doing it in pictures (or videos) with just a couple of sentences to give context to the picks. You can play along by adding some of your own in the comments.

The early days of the Masters of the Universe brand were fascinating. I’ve covered a couple of the early ads here and here, and in this Friday Five post, we’re going to take a look at five more.

I’m not sure exactly when this ad is from, but it’s either from 1981 or very early 1982, as the quip at the bottom of the scroll says more figures will be coming later in 1982. And the fact that it only features characters from the original wave of figures, solidifies that thought.

The Beast Man interpretation is pretty cool in this one. I’m sure it would have been difficult to convey this look onto a plastic action figure, but that would have been a great-looking figure. It would have also been good if this interpretation was what we had gotten in the animated series as well. It would have been pretty hard to portray him as a goof like they did if the character looked like this.

Here’s another one from the early days, and it’s a sale ad from a newspaper. Again, only some figures from the original wave are featured. It’s interesting that it’s Beast Man and Stratos featured in the ad and no He-Man and Skeletor. But even though they are featured prominently, the ad seems geared more toward promoting Castle Grayskull instead of the figures.

While that $21.47 price tag after rebates sounds appealing, if you adjust it for inflations, it works out to be $65.92 in 2022 dollars. That’s right in the range I would think it should be. The figure’s price of $3.88 translates to $11.91. At that kind of price point, I’m surprised I ended up with as many figures as I did as a kid.

This ad is from 1982 and from a newspaper as well. Besides advertising several cool toys, this ad promotes the ability to meet He-Man and Skeletor in person at the local department store.

Those in-person meeting opportunities still fascinate me. They certainly weren’t going to happen in my neck of the woods. I’ve seen just a few pictures online, and don’t believe I’ve come across any stories from anyone who actually went to one. If you ever got to go to one, by all means, please share your story in the comment section.

This is a beautiful ad right here. It’s an ad from some kind of trade magazine trying to entice store owners to carry the product. Using Star Wars figures in the background is a nice move as they try to show that those toys are the past, and He-Man is the future. It details how popular the line was the year before, selling over five million figures, and promising more new figures to come. Towards the end, it mentions the opportunities for in-store experiences like we saw in the previous ad. I’m sure with the powerful imagery featured, and those statistics on sales numbers from the year before, this ad convinced a few more stores to get on board.

And finally, we come to an ad from late in the brand’s heyday. This is an ad for the Masters of the Universe magazine, which was a quarterly magazine that was only available through subscription. It features three actual issues in this ad, and if you want to see what this magazine was all about, check out the Time Capsule feature here on Retro Ramblings to browse through the entire issue pictured on the far right.

When it came to magazines like these, I always drooled over them. They were available featuring brands like MOTU, G.I. Joe, The Smurfs, Barbie, and more. The closest I ever got to that was a subscription to LEGO’s Brick Kicks magazine in the late ’80s. I was disappointed by it, but I believe I would have found this magazine fully worth the time since I was a bit younger and it would have been geared more towards my age.

If old Masters of Universe stuff is your thing, then don’t leave the sight without checking out the full scan of the 1986 Masters of the Universe Toy Catalog.

Action Figure Appreciation 2

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It’s been a while since the first Action Figure Appreciation post, so let’s shine a light on a few more fine specimens from the vast world of figures.

Jitsu, from Masters of the Universe (1984)

Oh, how I wish I still had all of my original MOTU figures. One of the great crimes I’ve committed in my life is letting all the toys from my childhood go by the wayside in various ways. But I’m slowly working to rectify that situation, and am tracking them all down again. This Jitsu figure is an example of this, as this is not my original figure, but one I got from eBay.

I had more than my fair share of MOTU figures back in the day, and I’d put Jitsu in my top ten at least. He may actually be high on the list, but I’d have to sit and think about what order they would actually go in. That may have to be a post sometime in the future. But anyway, what I liked about this figure was the big golden judo chop hand he had. That thing was just so cool, and in my world, that hand could destroy just about anything with two exceptions. It could hurt He-Man, but not put him out, and it couldn’t destroy the iron fist that Fisto had. As a matter of fact, when Jitsu’s hand met Fistos fist, it was like what happened in The Avengers when Thor’s hammer struck Captain America’s shield. Yeah, they waged some hellacious battles in my bedroom through the years.

In my playtime, Jitsu was right up there in the ranks of Skeletor’s favored minions alongside Beast Man, Trap-Jaw, and Tri-Klops. He was there to take out any weapons that the Masters had on the field. Just get him close enough, and that golden judo chop could take out anything. Probably every time Skeletor was able to breach Castle Grayskull in my world, it was because Jitsu chopped the door down with ease, and not even the magic of Grayskull was strong enough to stop him.

Race Car Driver from The Construction Company (1985)

The Construction Company line of toys may not be one you’re entirely familiar with, but it was around in the mid-late ’80s and was a building block system that hoped to rival LEGO and Construx. While I was willing to give it a chance, it just didn’t overtake them as far as I was concerned. It had a cool gimmick though as when you put the building blocks together, they had these little locking mechanisms built into them that you had to use a plastic screwdriver to lock the pieces together. This meant that your creations wouldn’t just fly apart if you dropped them or rammed them into something. That cool feature was also a bug in my eyes when it came time to undo your creation so you could start another one. You had to unlock all those same pieces.

One of the sets I had was a race car, and this figure was the driver of said car. As you can see in the picture, the figure wasn’t well articulated, as his arms could move up and down, and his legs could move forwards and backward. That didn’t leave much for you to do with the figure other than putting him behind the wheel of the car or having him standing next to it. But after all the work it took to put the car together, it wouldn’t have felt complete without a driver, so I’m glad he was included anyway.

Rick Steiner WCW Wrestling figure from Galoob (1990)

By 1990, my wrestling fandom was really deep. And growing up in the south, NWA/WCW was my wrestling. I always preferred it over the WWF/WWE. And in 1990, The Steiner Brothers were the most bad-ass tag team on the planet. When Galoob released their first wave of WCW Wrestling figures, I was excited. But when I got my hands on them, I was deflated much the same way I was when playing with the WWF LJN Superstars of Wrestling figures. The total lack of articulation really took the joy out of trying to play with them the way you would think was intended. Without articulation, you couldn’t do many moves or holds when playing.

But as show pieces, these figures were pretty damn cool. You can put these up on a shelf and have pretty nice collector’s pieces. But back in 1990, I didn’t care about putting them on a shelf, I wanted to play with the damn things. As far as wrestling action figure lines go, this was one of my least favorites. I had several, and all they ended up being good for was to have standing around. These days, that’s just fine with me, as I have several figures from the line on display. But if you want fun wrestling action from old figures, stick with G.I. Joe. They’re way better for putting on actual matches.

That’s all for this edition. Maybe next time I’ll include some figures with more articulation or something.