Childhood Toys

Recently I took a trip home to Pittsburgh and found a few of my old Battle Trolls laying around. I was instantly transported 15 years in the past to probably some of the best times of my life - the days of battling with toys. I searched the attic for more stuff, but found out my mom threw mostly everything away after I moved out. It is understandable, but boy do I wish I had them back. She couldn't have known her 27 year old son still wants to play with toys he had when he was 8.

Nowadays, kids barely even play with toys. My brother has a pretty active imagination, but all he does is play Wii, Nintendo DS, and occasionally legos (I tried to get him to play with my old Magic the Gathering cards with me, but he is still a little young to grasp the rules). When I was a kid, sure there was Nintendo, but I spent the majority of my time playing outside or with toys. I had a very active imagination and would usually prefer to play at home by myself than with other kids (yes, I was a loser). I am the same way now, except substitute games with PS3. I especially loved battles, wars, fighting, etc. Stuff like that. Here are some of the best toys I can remember:

Battle Trolls: I mentioned these guys earlier, but I had about 8 of them. I grouped them into "bad guys" and "good guys", as I often did. I also had the shooting net, so that was sort of cool I guess. These sell for about $30 a piece now.

Battle Beasts: These were probably my favorite, and still are. I would love to collect them all, and by collect I don't mean be a pussy and leave them in their packaging. I mean open them, or buy them used, whatever, and actually battle with them. I have to think my battles now would probably be more advanced than they were as a kid - I mean, I have seen a lot of war movies - but the basic structure would remain the same. They are grouped into 3 factions - water, fire, and earth. I had about 15 as a kid but always wished I had more. Unfortunately, I never did any chores as a child so I didn't have much of an allowance. The black panther one was my favorite. These sell for about $10 used, up to $200 for an unopened 2 pack. Damn you Hasbro!

Monster in my Pocket: Other than the fact that this name seems extremely gay now, these guys were a cheap, easy source of fun. I remember building castles at the beach and dividing up the monsters to war on each other. Great times. And because they were just rubber, they were easily cleaned off. They had little numbers on the bottom that indicated strength, so that saved some time. However, I think I probably preferred to determine how strong each one was based on my own preferences. The werewolf was pretty cool.

Trash Bag Bunch: These guys came in dissolving bags, so you never knew which one you were gonna get. This was sort of cool for an 8 year old, but looking back, I'd be pissed off getting the same one over and over. I had about 8 of them probably, and battled with them in the typical way.

Matchbox Cars and Micromachines: I'm sure most kids had these, so they are pretty self-explanatory. I would either race them or have destruction derbies with my friend. We loved bashing them up. I'm sure my mother did not appreciate that though as much as we did. I remember my grand mother had a pretty cool collection of them, so when I went over it was a treat every time.

Legos: I mainly played with legos and building blocks at my grandparents' houses. I liked to build, but looking back it was probably sort of boring. I liked more actiony stuff.

Lincoln Logs: Lincoln logs were GREAT for building fortresses. Probably not what the creators intended, but when you sent a bomb in the resulting blast were pretty impressive (and by that I mean throwing a bouncy ball into a wall and it falling down, whatever I was easy to please). Plus, they were easy to clean up and came in a convenient tin can.

Board Games: These are probably another dying breed with kids and families, but I LOVED playing with my mom and sister, and occasionally my dad when he wasn't off on a bender (just kidding, but he WAS probably watching tv instead). Some of my favorites were Hungry Hungry Hippos, Life, Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur, Hero Quest (only with my dad - my sister did not have the patience), Break the Ice, Lite Bright (not really a game), Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and many more.

Axis & Allies: This was a risk-like game except World War II themed and much more detailed. I only played war by myself with the pieces though. I especially liked the bomber planes.

Nintendo/Game Boy: I would be remiss if I didn't add these guys. Don't get me wrong, I definitely played a lot of video games. I especially loved the baseball game for Game Boy, and Wario's World. Great times.

I'll stop there since this is getting long.

Since my sister didn't like playing with me because I was too competitive and she didn't like monsters or fighting, I often had to stoop to playing things she enjoyed. Sadly, this included things like racing carousel horses (at least they were racing), having barbie fashion shows, pretty pretty princess, playing with toy cats, etc. Mostly this ended in me doing something to make her cry and getting sent to my room. That happened a lot.

Check out these examples for some of the highlights of the 80s. There are so many others I have either forgot or not included, but to name some other activities I did include having a stuffed animal wrestling league (I had like 40 in it and the royal rumbles were amazing), my friend and I flying paper airplanes off my deck to see which went further (each plane had a sponsor we would color on, and we kept standings), and others. I also collected baseball cards religiously but I will have to save that for another time.

I would love to get a Facebook group together (if it actually mattered, liek Futurama's sort of did) or some sort of petition to Hasbro to bring some of these toys back. Kids today don't understand what it was like to have action figures and monsters. Sure, video games are great, but where is the imagination? I'd rather create a world in my head than play one that was already created for me. But that's just me.

In conclusion, if you see me playing with children's toys, please don't call the police. I am not trying to lure unsuspecting kids, but rather enjoying a part of my childhood that still comes in tangible form.

Lastly, does anyone have suggestions on what cheap toys now might be worth a lot more in 20 years? I'd love to start investing.