The Best Selling Toys of All-Time... What was your favorite?

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Porter on December 2, 2008 at 8:54am

I'd have to say for me it was Barbie dolls. Got my first one at age 5. I always wanted new, more clothes for them! We had a big geometric area rug that became the rooms of our Barbie's house. But, my cousin had lots of Legos and we never got those (cuz we were girls?). I LOVED playing with them when we'd visit him. Loved the idea of designing houses. I was also big on model horses, because I couldn't have a real one. More than toys, we spent out time outside, playing with other kids. Swimming or playing ball games and 2 or 4-square in the summer. Sledding and skating in the winter, or just playing in the woods (we had forts). I did go through a time where we sat around for hours and read comic books... Superheroes, Ritchie Rich and Archie. I loved to read and Nancy Drew books were my hands-down favorites! Fun thoughts!

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Permalink Reply by Carl Romain on December 2, 2008 at 9:35am

My favourite toy besides the great thrill of owning my first super cycle, was a Winchester rifle that my brother bought me for christmas one year. Well I probably drove my parents nuts because this thing had a speaker on the side of the butt stock and every time you cocked it and pulled the trigger you would get the sound effect of a rifle firing! I can remember my dad thinking that the bullets were going to be flying out of the end of the barrel. We had a lot of western movies back in them days.

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Permalink Reply by Warren A. Veach on December 2, 2008 at 10:30am

GI Joe!

OMG, I had him in every variety there was! I had every accessory there was to have as well. I can't even begin to think of how much of my allowance went towards my "War Department". A friend shared my affinity for Joe, and between us we could simulate any skirmish TV showed us from Vietnam.

Our back yard was the perfect location to stage war games. It had a long slope that went down to a sandy bottom with a running creek that went across it. The other side of the creek was heavily wooded, So we had a beachfront, water, and forest location all in one. We put a ladder up one side of a tall tree in order to have paratroopers.

Add in firecrackers & smoke bombs and we had a full blown war. Later when we discovered how easy it was to get the ingredients for gunpowder from the local hobby shop and make it ourselves, casualties began showing up in our troops. Oh well, just another reason to buy more!

Side note: Our first experiment with making gunpowder ended when our "powder keg" blew up in his bedroom and caught the curtains on fire! I had no idea a Dad's face turn could turn that shade of purple. Didn't stop us from making more, but we did have to be more careful about where we made it! ;-)

Looking back now at those days, I don't know that I have ever had a more creative period in my life. Now, we would probably be tagged as "terrorists in training" and sent to an alternative school so we could be watched, lest we blow the school up.

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Permalink Reply by SUp.biz, COO on December 2, 2008 at 12:05pm

You must be excited about the GI Joe Movie Coming out in 2009...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1046173/

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Permalink Reply by Warren A. Veach on December 2, 2008 at 1:16pm

Actually, I had not heard a thing about the movie. Looks like a pretty good cast of characters though. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Have a GREAT day,
Warren

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Permalink Reply by Donald Bricker on December 4, 2008 at 9:22am

I had a GI Joe as well. When my brothers and I were young we lived in Idaho and had 600 square miles of desert behind our house. You can imagine what three young boys did with all that space, firecrackers, bottle rockets and our GI Joes.

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Pipkin on December 2, 2008 at 11:30am

My sister bought me one of the first babie dolls. I still have her in the ceder chest with the rest of my babie dolls.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Redfern on December 2, 2008 at 3:14pm

my fave and the one that got the most use was a tennis racket

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Permalink Reply by Donald Bricker on December 2, 2008 at 5:31pm

Lego, as a kid I always enjoyed designing and building as many different things from one set of Lego's as I could. OK, the designing part may be a bit of a stretch but the building was definitely the highlight for me as a kid.

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Permalink Reply by Marylou Gajda on December 2, 2008 at 5:58pm

I loved my Peter Pan doll.

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Permalink Reply by John Gatto on December 2, 2008 at 7:40pm

IA Big army tank can't remenber the name, ah old age creeping in

John'oneliner' Gatto

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Permalink Reply by Randall Benvenuti on December 2, 2008 at 10:11pm

As a kid in the '60s, I remember many personal if not popular favorites: one popular favorite I received was Mr. Machine (that should hve made at least Honorable Mention in the '60s category)! My personal favorite gift toys were: Mr. Barney's Auto Factory; a Cape Canaveral set with a rocket launcher (which I had to wait until summer to use)-did that rocket lift off or what?!? For outdoors and indoors, the other platform of this set had Nike and Bomarc missile launchers; and the Flying Fox: a four-engine prop passenger plane that operated attached atop a control stand, with running propellers! Finally for the jet age, Jimmy Jet!

Randy Benvenuti

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