AKMA points today to this UK list of the Top 100 Toys. It's the best remembered ones, not necessarily the best, which may explain why neither Legos nor Care Bears make the list (though, really, how do you not remember Legos?). I could also readily believe that the UK simply doesn't have the same access to the joys of Care-a-Lot (though I know that not to be true about Legos).* On the other hand, they do admit in the postscript that Legos ought by rights to have been included.
My favorite bits:
Their description of Weebles as "ovoid characters with heavily weighted nether regions" and Rubik's Cube as "54 multicoloured facets of hell"
The box they show for Perfection is the box I had, not the box all my two-months-younger friends had.
My favorite toys from the list:
Rainbow Brite (Not "Rainbow Bride." I didn't run across that one until much, much later.) Don't be fooled by the site - the dolls weren't the least bit hard for a "soppy softie" to love. My Rainbow Brite dolls are still sitting in their rainbow-shaped house in my parents' basement, waiting for me to buy a house (or at least get a job).
Viewmaster: I think I actually liked the old one at my grandmother's house better than the new one at ours, though.
Strawberry Shortcake: Obviously - although, admittedly, I was just slightly too young to be as into these as I was into Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, and Cabbage Patch dolls.
Stay Alive!: my brother and I spent hours trying to make this game work properly. I don't think we ever succeeded, but we had fun.
Perfection: that was the funnest game! No, really, the funnest. I wonder what happened to it...
Etch-a-sketch: Well, duh.
Speak and spell: I wanted one of those so badly... My parents seemed to think it was a ridiculous gift for a child who could already do both. Oh well - as the forbidden pleasures of friends' houses go, that was a pretty innocuous one.
My Little Pony: Another toy my parents weren't big on - I got my first ones as cast-offs from sympathetic friends, so that I could be part of the My Little Pony club at school, and my first new ones as birthday presents from friends. They were superfun.
*I do notice, however, that Care Bears feature in the Rainbow Brite description and the Strawberry Shortcake one, so I guess that doesn't really work. Their loss, then.
2 comments:
I have to admit, the top ten was a bit of a let down. I never heard of most of them, except those stupid sea monkeys. And a bike as #1? I wouldn't even classify that as a toy.
I agree. No Legos? And no GI Joes either. And what about the slinky?This must be voter fraud.
My favorite toy on the list was the Evel Knievel, with the crank-up starter pad.
What an AWESOME Christmas that was!
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