What were your favourite toys as a child?

Post Reply New Topic

I think one of my first "obsessive interests" was dinosaurs. When I was about 4 years old, I had all these plastic toy dinosaurs and I memorized all the different kinds of them. I really don't remember any of them now, except the one with the long neck is called an apatosaurus. And I guess liking dinosaurs is a bit unusual for a girl. I do remember playing with Barbies and baby dolls around that same time too, so I don't think I was a tomboy, but I just loved dinosaurs!

When I was about 7-8 I became obsessed with American Girl dolls. I loved the historical aspect and how they were all from different time periods. I would obsessively read the books too! My first AG doll was Molly, the one who lived during World War II. Then I got Kirsten, the pioneer girl, and Samantha, the one from the Victorian era.

-Radio control cars throughout my life.
-4-12 Model trains.
-1-12 (collecting till 16)Die cast cars and airplanes.
-9-11 I played the Pokémon Game boy game, built up my characters without cheats so they could beat most any kid on the playground, good for social reasons much like Joe said, the sense of belonging kept me engaged in it I think.
-Also had Super Nintendo, my only other console system, I began computer gaming at 8 and really never looked back.

Legos
Ninja Turtles
Bat Man
GI Jo
& when I was a little older I got a Supper Nintendo

Lego.
I can remember having a spinning top that I used to be hypnotised by for hours.
Anything that spins round.
Bikes.
I had a jack-in-a-box too.
Spiro graph was fun.

Legos
Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars
Play-Doh
Lite Brite
TMNT action figures
NES and Sega Genesis

My toys that had to do with my favorite animated characters, like Winnie the Pooh characters, Lion King characters, the Dwarves from Snow White. Some Gen 1 My Little Ponies a neighbor girl gave me, the tiny Pound Puppies, Tea Bunnies, Toobers and Zots, dominoes (I loved to line them all up and then knock them over), one of those "Pin Art" toys (I loved to gently press it against my face and feel all the cool pins against my face), all the toys I used as coping/security items, such as my plastic Super Mario, a plastic Pongo toy, a squeaky toy of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, a Koosh ball puppy, a keychain of the screaming woman in Edward Munch's "The Scream" (I called her "Ingrid"). I also had a dollhouse, but didn't really play in it with actual dolls...I mostly put my stuffed animals in it (like re-enacting the "Raptors in the kitchen" scene in Jurassic Park with my stuffed Barney and Baby Bop, lol )...and of course, all my stuffed animals and plushies! I was never without one or two of my favorites; like a little barking dog named Brownie, Pooh, Eeyore, Lamb Chop, a rabbit named Lazy Mary, Snoopy, etc. I also had this huge, sad-looking anthro dog named "Big Dog," and he was big enough so that I could sit in his lap and wrap his arms around me in a hug. I would imagine him talking to me in a deep, soothing voice that sounded like Jackie Vernon (the comedian) or John C. Reilly. Big Dog also had several holes in his legs out of which leaked this orange-ish foam and styro pellets...he was a pretty old plush by the time he was given to me.

Later on when I was about 14, I got into collecting die cast cars because the "Cars" movie became one of my special interests....I still collect them. And a lot of you know that I still have plushies and that many of them are my designated "coping items," like Dory the dolphin.

For me it was mainly construction toys - building blocks and especially Lego. Along with Lego, we also had Duplo (basically larger blocks, also made by the Lego company). For my brothers and I, stuffed toys (each had a personality, and some were "bad" and others were "good") and Matchbox/Hotwheels cars also played a major role in our playtime. There was also plenty of "crossover" among the different toys. We used the building blocks to construct elaborate towns and parking structures for the Matchbox cars to drive around, and the Lego men would never dare scale Mount Bookshelf to venture into the Land of the Giant Teddy Bears, though the Duplo men, being slightly bigger, may have a better chance at survival.

Legos!

My favorite toys when I was younger were a bunch of toy horses that I got for my birthday one year. My sister had a little plastic barn of horses too, and my favorite game to play with them was this one game where we both pretended to be park rangers.

After a couple of years, my sister kind of "outgrew" hanging out with me, (because apparently it was "just not cool" at her age to be hanging out with your "annoying little sister") so I was pretty much stuck playing with the horses by myself. Well, imagine my surprise that year when she took me horseback riding in the park for my birthday.

I still have my horses now, but no, of course I don't play with them anymore. It's just not cool to be doing that at my age, and besides, they remind me of my annoying older sister.

Let's see...in random order..

Legos..I enjoyed many sets, mostly remember the space ones ( I'd still play with them)
Matchbox cars..had a few hundred of those
At least one train set, HO scale..with scenery, engine whistle/smoke, buildings etc. Was laid out on a ping pong table in the basement
That programmable Big Trac truck
Lite Brite
Girder and Panel!
The Atari 2600, then soon the ColecoVision system

...a sampling anyway

Legos
Stuffed Animals
Game Boy w/ Pac-Man cartridge (I wish I knew where I lost it)
Etch-a-Sketch globe thing
Play-Doh
Toy train and tracks
Pokémon cards

Lego was probably the all-time favourite. My era co-incided with the first "Space" sets and the earliest "Technic" stuff.

Second was the OO gauge train set. Sadly we didn't have enough room/money for me to have much of this.

Also:

Meccano
Aurora Prehistoric Scenes and other model kits
Dinky Toys (especially the Gerry Anderson related vehicles)
Scalextric

plus a toy microscope, chemistry set etc.

At the end of my "toy phase" (or "1st toy phase" ) came the first Star Wars figures and the Atari VCS

Legos.

K'Nex (I preferred them to legos)
Bionicles
Model cars
Model spaceships
Model trains (still play with them, not surprisingly)

Far and away Transformers. I had lots of them. And then, I also had a lot of fake, faux Transformers of which the designs were directly copied from Hasbro's real Transformers. I actually owned mostly 'Generation 2' toys (being a 90s kid), I did have a couple of the originals, like the Protectobots, Stunticons, etc.

I played with them so much from my earliest childhood all the way down into my teenage years. It just never got boring for me.

I liked a lot of toys growing up, but there was one special toy I had:


I took this guy everywhere with me, including Disney World one time.

I didn't care what others thought of me for it, either.