Category Archives: Toys

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.

Five of My Favorite Old Hot Wheels Cars

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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.

I spent a lot of time when I was younger playing with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. Just like with any other toy line, you always have a favorite few that you gravitate to. I was no different when it came to Hot Wheels. I had a ton of them, but there were a few that I would call my favorites. So for this Friday FIve, I’m sharing five of my favorites with you.

Fire Eater Fire Truck

My Dad was a fireman and the Fire Eater looked identical to one of the trucks at the local station where he served. Even though I had most of the Code Red fire trucks produced by Matchbox (which I covered here), the Fire Eater was still my go-to for imaginary fire fighting. That’s a big statement for me since I was such a big fan of the TV show. I had almost every fire truck that was available on store shelves back then, but this one was always the lead truck in the garage. It’s a beautiful representation of a fire truck, except for the blue light. But to be honest, the blue light and the blue accents in the back of the truck are part of what makes it such a great-looking Hot Wheel.

Dixie Challenger

You know by now that The Dukes of Hazzard was my favorite TV show when I was young. I had a lot of merchandise based on the show, but for a while, I lacked a 1:64 scale General Lee to play with. That’s where the Dixie Challenger came in. Up until the point I got my first true General Lee to play with, this filled the role pretty well. It kinda looked like the General Lee, and had a fast enough look that there were never any problems imagining it could outrun whatever police cars were in my collection. Once I got my General Lee, the Dixie Challenger was relegated to being the car driven by Bo & Luke’s cousins, Coy & Vance. I still can’t believe I subjected such a beautiful car to that kind of fate.

Cat Bulldozer

When I wasn’t fighting imaginary fires or running from Roscoe and Enos, I was playing in the dirt with construction vehicles. Well, not dirt. Coal dust actually. Which is a really fine black powder that gets into every possible crevice and can create a huge mess. But it was also the best substance on earth for playing with toys like these. I had a whole fleet of construction-type cars. I had regular dozers, cement mixers, scrapers, front-end loaders, and more. But this Cat Bulldozer seemed special because it had actual treads, and those two extra wheels to extend the tread just seemed so cool. It moved a lot of coal dust in its day for sure.

Rambling Wrecker

One of the earlier Hot Wheels cars I can remember being fascinated by was this Rambling Wrecker..or as I used to call it…Larry’s tow truck. I mean it’s emblazoned right there on the side of the thing. As a kid, what else would you call it? This was a must-have for someone like me who “wrecked” a lot of cars. I took the whole “wrecked car” thing farther than a lot of kids did though, as I would take some of the older cars I had gotten as hand-me-downs from my brother that I didn’t like very much and beat the snot out of them with hammers. That gave them that realistic feel. Of course, this was before Hot Wheels came out with their “Crack-Ups” line (which I covered here) and did the job for me in a much better manner than I ever could. And I would be failing you all if I did not include the fact that this Rambling Wrecker made a great stand-in for Cooter’s tow truck when playing with the Dixie Challenger as the General Lee.

Fun Fact: The original version of this tow truck had a phone number printed on the side of it. One of the folks at Mattel used their own phone number and ended up getting so many calls at their home they had to change their number.

Masters of the Universe Snake Mountain Challenge Car

So this beautiful work of art came included in the Masters of the Universe Snake Mountain Challenge playset that came out in ’85 or ’86. It was the car with which you attempted to run the course and escape Snake Mountain. I got the playset for Christmas in 1986, and as I’ve detailed before, my brother, my dad, and I spent a significant portion of the afternoon attempting the challenge. Beyond those fond memories though, they couldn’t have done a better job making this car seem like it came from Eternia…if Eternia actually had cars. But the look of it with its color scheme and all, makes it seem like it would have a home among the many various vehicles that inhabited Eternia. Maybe if it had treads instead of tires.

More toy nostalgia…

Five Highlights From the 1989 Lego Catalog

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You probably remember from past posts that I’ve always loved LEGO. In fact, I’d put LEGO at a solid number three right behind G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe as far as favorite toys of all-time goes. I was pretty fortunate back in the day that my mom was supportive of my love of LEGO, and would buy me small sets on a fairly regular basis. Every once in a while, I would get a big set, but those times were mostly like birthdays and Christmas.

A while back, I got my hands on some of the old LEGO Shop at Home catalogs. As a matter of fact, one of the first Time Capsule posts I did here on Retro Ramblings featured the 1987 LEGO catalog. Being how it was a Time Capsule, I refrained from adding any context or memories to those pages. But today, I want to highlight some of the offerings in the 1989 catalog. Let’s check out some of my favorite things from the line in ’89!

Big Rig Truck Stop

I’ve covered this one before in the Highlights From the 1988 Sears Wishbook post, but I’ve salivated over it for so many years, that it’s worth covering again here. I grew up fascinated by big rigs since my dad had to drive them on occasion for his business. Beyond that, they were always around because there was a trucking company across the road. So I had a lot of exposure to them.

And being as how I was a big fan of LEGO and had numerous other vehicles, wanting these rigs and the truck stop just came naturally. It looks like the set comes with one tractor and trailer, one tractor without a trailer, and a big rig wrecker. Not to mention the truck stop itself, and several minifigures.

I could have certainly put this set to good use with my other LEGO city sets.

Victory Lap Raceway

Here’s another one from the city section of the catalog…the Victory Lap Raceway. I had the smaller version of this once upon a time. My dad had come home from a trip, and we took mom out on that Friday night for her weekly shopping trip. While killing time just walking through the store while mom shopped, we found ourselves in the toy section. It didn’t take much of an ask, and my old man said I could get it. But that set only had two cars and not much else with it.

This set features four racecars, two pit stalls, numerous figures, a press box, a walkway above the track, a car hauler, and two base plates! That’s an incredible amount of play time built into this set. And what cityscape would be complete without a raceway on the outskirts? Not a city I would want to live in.

Black Monarch’s Castle

The Castle System for LEGO always fascinated me, but I never had enough of it to do much with. On an episode of the old TRN Podcast, I told the tale of my cousin, Stevie the Tyrant, having the King’s Castle set at my grandmother’s house. I told how he would never let me help put it together. Instead, he would give me a knight on a horse and have me go into another room and pretend to hunt while he built the castle. A-hole.

This castle wasn’t the largest one offered in the line, but it is the largest one in this catalog so it’s going on my list of highlights. I count twelve figures, and four horses. That’s an impressive lot to go along with the castle. Especiall if you had other sets from the castle system to enjoy with this one. Just imagine the many scenarios that could be played out with this set. I know I would using it to create some of my own scenes from Willow or stuff like that with it.

Futuron Monorail Transport System

From the golden age of castles to the futuristic age of space travel. Now while I never really fancied the space sets from LEGO, this monorail always interested me. Back then, I had these dreams of building a whole LEGO city, and wanted this monorail to run through the city.

I don’t know any of my friends who had it, so I have no point of reference as to how big it was, but if it had any size to it at all, it would probably have been pretty cool to surround other space sets with it.

LEGO Pirates

This was the introduction year for the Pirates sets in the world of LEGO. THey first came to my attention in and ad in the back of an issue of Brick Kicks magazine before their release, and when I saw that ad, I was instantly hooked without ever laying hands on them. I dreamed about them so much, I featured one of the ships as a gift under my virtual Christmas tree in an old post.

After the castle system sets, it should have been a no-brainer to go with a pirate theme. That or a western theme (which would come later) would have been logical choices. They went with Pirates, and the sets they produced to back up the idea were great. I mean, just look at these two sets. Let’s start with the Caribbean Clipper on the right. A pirate ship makes a great playset as theres plenty of adventures to be had just with it. From “sailing” it around to waging battles on it’s deck, I can think of numerous things to do with it.

And then the Eldorado Fortress on the left looks like a perfect island based playset. Just think about how much fun could be had by combining the two sets. With the Clipper trying ti raid the fortress, and the fortess having to fight off the pirates…damn, I can still think of numerous adventures to be had with these things. And what you’re not seeing here is another ship that was available, and several, smaller, playsets.

I never did end up with a single piece from the Pirates system, but that never stopped my imagination from running wild everytime I saw them featured in ads or in box art.

Accessories

While this entry may seem a little mundane, remember that I said I had dreams of building a LEGO city. To have done that would have required accessories just like the ones featured here. The roadway plates, the trees, and the minifigure sets all would have been necessary to pull it off. And I can’t forget to mention the train accessories at the top. I know I wanted to incorporate the monorail system, but a train system would have been awesome as well.

There were plenty of more sets I could have highlighted in this post, but those were the big ones for me. At some point in the near future, I’ll get the entire catalog loaded to the site as a Time Capsule, so keep your eyes open for that.

Some of My Favorite Board Games

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Board games have long occupied space in closets and on bookshelves, and have entertained families of all types and sizes for decades. While growing up, my brother and I spent many days and hours playing games, just like my daughters do today.

I admit, when the original Nintendo came along, I spent far less time with the conventional board game and shifted most of my focus to video games. Even so, I have so many fond memories attached to board games, so I thought it would be a good idea to share a few of my favorites with you.

Monopoly

When I hear “board game”, Monopoly is the first thing that comes to mind. I would consider it the “Boardwalk” of board games, while all the others are “Vermont Ave” or “St. James Place”.

The currently recognized version was first published in 1935 by Parker Brothers. It underwent a major redesign in 2008 that saw Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues colors from purple to brown and GO from red to black. It also changed the Income Tax to a flat $200 and upped Luxury Tax from the original $75 to $100.

When I was a kid, my family would play, but in the beginning, I was too young to be in on the game. When my time finally came, I instantly fell in love with it. I thought I was a big deal when I could barter my way to a “Get Out of Jail Free” card or buy Oriental Ave. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand back then how the game worked and would usually be quickly put out of the game due to faulty business decisions.

As I grew older, I graduated from playing with family to playing with friends, where the playing field was a little more level. As an adult, my friends and I came up with a set of additional rules that we called “Survival Monopoly”. It threw in things like “everyone moves one chair to the left”, meaning that you now owned all of your neighbor’s property, and left yours behind to be taken over by someone else.

From the simple color schemes to the simple rules, playing this board game these days always takes me back to another place in time. A place when I was sitting in front of the fireplace, with my brother and my folks enjoying the evening together. It’s one of the things that brings back some of the strongest feelings of nostalgia within me and makes me ache to go back. But at the same time, the game helps me stay anchored in the present, as I love to play the game with my daughters. I see in their faces the same joys of playing the game that I have always experienced and know that I am helping to create in them something that one day they will look back on with similar nostalgic feelings.

Battleship

While Battleship may have started around World War I as a pen and paper game, I didn’t stumble upon its existence until the early-mid ’80s as my brother and I played it quite often. In 1967, Milton Bradley introduced a version with the now-familiar plastic boards and pegs, and in 1977 they introduced Electronic Battleship.

We only had the standard version. My brother and I would play downstairs in the family room in front of the fireplace where we tended to play a lot of our board games. We both stretch out lying down on our stomachs with the boards back to back with each other and kill several hours playing several rounds of Battleship.

Being eight years older than me, he was aware of this thing called “strategy” and would call out his shots in a specific manner, while I, on the other hand, would randomly just pick whatever coordinate that appealed to me at the moment. Needless to say, he won way more games than he lost when he played against me.

Although Milton Bradley released Talking Electronic Battleship in 1989, we never picked up that version of the game, nor have I ever had a chance to play it. Even to this day. One of my younger cousins had it, but somehow I managed to never get the joy and excitement that it may have brought to the game. These days, my daughters play Battleship quite often, although it usually seems to result in more name-calling and accusations of cheating than it does joy.

Operation

Ahh…the board game of the steady hand that featured Cavity Sam getting operated on endlessly by children everywhere. The game was simple in strategy, as all you really could do was hope to draw a card featuring an easy removal, then try to stay steady as everyone else hovered over the board eyeing your every move while you hope your sweating hands didn’t lead you astray and touch one of the metal sides of the cavity signaling you just screwed up.

This simple concept was designed and engineered by a fellow named John Spinello while he was an Industrial Design student at the University of Illinois in 1964. He sold the game to Milton Bradley for $500 and the promise of a job after graduation. Not a bad deal on either side at the time, although I would venture to guess that Mr. Spinello wished he had negotiated some royalties as part of the deal since the game went on to worldwide fame.

For me, this was a board game that I could whip out and play with my Mom. No matter what age I was, it was simple to grasp the rules, and I could be competitive because it just came down to who had the steadier hand. Unless you were going after that blasted Writer’s Cramp pencil. That thing was so thin that its cavity was very narrow. It was near impossible to get that thing without setting off the buzzer. A lot of the other pieces like Bread Basket or Broken Heart were much easier, and as a kid, those were the ones I hoped I would draw the card for.

Many an evening my Mom and I would play this game for a little bit while dinner was cooking. I would get it all set up on the kitchen table, and in between stirring whatever was on the stove, she would come over and take her turn. Sometimes, I think she purposely screwed up so I could get more pieces and win the game. But it didn’t really matter, just being able to play a board game with my Mom on a regular basis was a win for me.

Connect Four

Here we are with another game from Milton Bradley, this time from the magical year of 1974. I’ll have to let someone else tell you why it was magical because I wasn’t born until 1978. But the fact it came out after my brother was born, and before I was born, meaning that this was just another game my brother had several years to practice the strategy on before I got around to playing. I find it hard to recollect ever beating him at this game.

The concept was a simpler one, where you dropped colored checkers in a standing grid board and tried to be the first to connect four of your checkers in a straight line. He would always seem to beat me by setting up a diagonal line for the win….much as I do against my daughters now.

Don’t Break the Ice

Don’t Break the Ice came out in 1968 from Schaper Toys, and you can still find it on store shelves today still right beside all the other board games. Usually, you can find it on a bottom shelf along with Ants in the Pants, and Don’t Spill the Beans. I picked it up for my daughters several years ago, and even though it’s not one they get out very often, they still play it on occasion.

When I was playing it, it was with my brother (surprise, surprise), and for whatever reason, we seemed to mostly play it on snowy days while out of school. Maybe it was the theme of the game that lined up with the weather outside, but we played the heck out of it on those days.

The version we had was from the late ’70s or early ’80s and featured the little man sitting in a chair as the piece that you didn’t want falling in. These days, I believe the game features an ice-skating bear as that character.

We’d get the game set up, and take our slow and easy time pecking away at the blocks trying not to be the one to send the whole thing crashing down. Unlike other games he and I played together, there wasn’t much strategy he could have learned to use against me, and it really came down to just who could pick the best block to knock out, and do it in such a fashion as not to loosen all the other blocks as well. But, once we did, we quickly set it up again and start a fresh game. It was a good way to spend a snowy day and left some great memories of those times with me.

Risk

The game of global domination….and kitchen table supremacy. The game has been around since the late ’50s, but my first experience with it came at the birthday party of my friend Lance.

Lance had invited about 6 of his best friends to his house for a sleepover birthday party. This would have been 1986 most likely. I was one of the first to arrive, and his Mom had rented Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi for us to watch, and the pizza was on the way.

But as cool as that was, what ended up being the main attraction for me was my first time playing the game Risk. I had never seen or heard of the game before, and as Lance set it up, the excitement kept building as I looked at all the cool pieces and the oversized game board. It took me a little while to grasp the rules, but I quickly became engrossed by it all.

There were six of us playing, and the game stretched well into the night, and we had to continue it the following morning. Unfortunately, my Mom showed up to get me before the game was over, but from that moment on, I was hooked.

The only problem with the game was the fact that it took so long to play, that it was hard to even find anyone who wanted to play. My family wasn’t interested in it at all. So for years, I had to make do with just thinking about the game until a computer version came out, and then I played it constantly. Once married, my wife and some friends would play on a regular basis, but that’s been several years ago. This is one I need to teach my daughters to play.

Construx Were One of My Favorite Toys of the ’80s

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Back in the day, I loved building toys. LEGO was certainly a favorite of mine, but there was another building toy that I probably got a lot more play out of…Construx.

In 1983, Fisher-Price rolled out its newest toy creation.  It was called Construx and was possibly the most versatile building/construction toy since the Erector Set.  It featured plastic beams in various lengths, multi-directional connectors, plates, axles, wheels, pulleys, and much more.  What you could make with Construx was really only limited to your imagination.

Besides Lego, Construx was the greatest building toy that I ever laid hands-on, and in some ways, it surpassed Lego. The size of the pieces and the way they were designed allowed for larger projects than Lego could handle, which allowed for such projects as bridges, buildings, and any other thing you could dream up. These were awesome if you had a fertile imagination…which my brother and I did, and we used our Construx to build gooseneck trailers for our Tonka trucks to pull along, forklifts to load those trailers, and a host of other equipment to be used with them.

The first set that I had was the Bridges and Tower set that came out in 1983. I remember it not being exactly easy to follow the directions and complete the build, but not so hard that I had to have help with them either. I just had to take a little longer than my older brother did to complete it. But when it was done, oh my was it ever a fun thing to play with. He and I ended up using those Construx bridges to enhance the fun in our G.I. Joe adventures. As a matter of fact, just about everything we built with the Construx was to play with some other toy line we had. Rarely did we build anything just for the sake of playing with the Construx. I would put together swords and ninja stars when I would watch a martial arts movie and then let my imagination run wild. I would use them to construct obstacle courses and run my G.I. Joe men through their paces trying to re-enact the latest episode of American Gladiators. We used them to build tunnels and other things to go along with our Hotwheels fun.

My cousin and I would have frequent sleepovers, and Construx was usually at the center of our play.  We’d make armor and weapons and battle it out, usually as He-Man vs. Skeletor.  We’d use them to make swords, daggers, and ninja stars and stalk each other through the dark house late at night.  We’d each spend time making a rolling vehicle of some kind loaded with “weapons”, and then battle it out.

But my fondest memory of them would be the time I used them to build a scaffold. It was 1986, and The Road Warriors and The Midnight Express had just wrestled in a scaffold match at Starrcade 86, and I just had to re-create that. Years earlier, my father made me a wrestling ring, and I spent hours pitting my G.I. Joe men against one another in combat, pro-wrestling style. I even gave them cool wrestling names and all. So I used the Construx to build a scaffold over my toy ring and used it from then on to settle the most intense feuds to ever take place in my room. In the photo below is a scale model of the scaffold I used to build. I put this one together just for this article. It’s not as long, nor as tall as the one I used to build. But I don’t have enough pieces these days to make an exact replica.

In later years, the  Construx line produced some Space themed sets with glow-in-the-dark pieces. We had those as well but mainly used them for what they were intended in the Space theme. But it was cool to take some of the glow-in-the-dark pieces and use them to make flashlights to use on sleepovers. Construx were so versatile a toy, I think they could hit the market today and be a hit all over again. Of course, Mattel took over the line in 1997 and tried to re-establish the line without much success.  I think they were fairly popular in their own right during their original run, but Lego had the market cornered, and Construx just didn’t make it. Sad. It was one fine construction-based toy line, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to enjoy it. It was a role-player.  A solid backup. It enhanced the play of so many other toys in my collection, I would put Construx in the Toy Hall of Fame just for that.