Childhood toys and activitys

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I remember Care Bears. Each sibling had his or her own Care Bear. My brother had a lion. I can't remember who I had.

I alwayss had trouble with Lego as they were quite small.

I remember I had bigger version of yellow, but all I would do was make a big block out of them and just leave it until I was done. I would get really stressed that the base was Green as well as I like to put all the blue bricks together then all the green on top of them, then yellow, then red. And having a green base ruined that.

Hold on a minute.. I'm thinking of Popples. Not poppits.. sorry my mistake.

Thats what I meant, I've just gone back and Noticed I put Poppets!

No I meant popples! There the one that roll into a ball or something and pop up out of pockets or something.

Poppets here are chocolate sweets with cream in them!

Ok yeah, me too. I remember Popples

Here's some media from the cartoon http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/the-popples.html

And - A plush for sale on Ebay

-edit- aww the video at the bottom doesn't work

I vaguely remember Popples.

Thanks!

Wow looking at thaat 80's cartoon list really brings back memorys!

Bananaman! Captain Planet!

They haven't got the snorks though!

Ha I remember that too.

Ah the 80's

80's nostalgia (more specifically: cartoons) is one of my favorite subjects

The oldest show I can remember is Dinosaucers - a cartoon about dinosaurs from space. But, considering that I was 2-3 when it aired, that's a pretty darn old memory lol.

Slinkies! I loved slinkies. When I was a kid (in the '60s), they were made of metal, and I played with mine for hours. It would inevitably get tangled, and I would try to untangle it, but it would never work right after that. I always got another one at some point. They were quite popular.

I also loved spirographs. The repetition and the symmetry really appealed to me. They still make them and I've vaguely considered getting another set, but I'm trying to keep my house (and attic) free of clutter.

Does anyone remember "Colorforms"? They were these figures made of some kind of plastic, and you could mix and match the head and the arms and the legs. They were like cartoon cutouts but would stick to a plastic board.

I also used to love matchbox cars. I collected them and would spend hours just looking at them and all the little miniature parts.

I was very partial to my Light Bright set, especially in the dark, when it would light up in whatever shape I wanted.

Gosh, I sound like such an Aspie. Cool.

Last edited by aspergian_mutant on 17 Dec 2008, 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was another one who loved Spirograph. I still have my complete set.

I also liked my train set, plastic farm animals, and Lego. Probably I spent more time playing with those in various combinations than anything else. I also had another construction toy called Rondi, which I can't find many references to on the web (it was German; my family lived in Germany for a while). This consisted of blocks and shapes with grooves in, enabling you to slot them together.

I drew sometimes; I used to produce very detailed cutaway diagrams of new robots and machines for performing daily tasks that I thought required one. With rulers and compasses, all very precise.

When I was a little older, I did have Barbies, but I spent most of the time arranging and making things for their house and very little actually playing with them. I would dress them, and then just sit and look at them. I remember quite distinctly one occasion where another girl who was at my house wanted to play Barbies, and I didn't feel I really knew how to actively play. I had no idea what to do.

I preferred animal toys to dolls; I would usually want the animals that were supposed to be pets for certain dolls much more than the dolls themselves. Like I would want a Barbie horse more than a Barbie. Before I ever considered the possibility of AS, I always analyzed this as an early manifestation of some innate aversion to/disinterest in people. I think I also liked the fact that the animal toys' appearance was usually gender-neutral; I've never really felt like I should be either male or female, but somewhere between the two.

I had a microscope, which although it was only sold as a children's toy, was actually quite good (I've been thinking lately that I'd like to find the money to buy a professional one) and chemistry sets. I would say that the constant theme of my toys was that I liked things that you could make and construct and have a final, visible outcome, rather than things you just played with randomly. I stopped seeing the point in random play after I was about six; it just seemed to be silly.

I used to like toy cars. I'd design and build elaborate road systems for them to drive on. I also liked lego, I could build all sorts of things out of them too.

Action figures were fun too. I'd always create elaborate adventures for them to have, it was like infinite worlds in my room. I could play for hours and hours and be happy by myself with their adventures.

The problem came when my sister was involved. She always had to have everything done her way, she had to be the dominant character, etc. If I tried to ever assert myself and try something the way I liked it, we'd get in a fight and she'd storm out of the room and go read a book, which was fine with me because I preferred playing by myself anyway. I always thought my adventures were more creative and exciting than her's.

Walkie-talkies were kind of cool to me too. I liked the idea of being able to talk to someone without wires. However, my sister had one and I had the other, and she wasn't as interested in it as I was. We do something on them for 5 minutes, she'd say goodbye and go read a book. She was a real bookworm as all of you can tell I'm sure. Those walkie talkies actually got me interested in radio communication, later shortwave radio, and later, ham radio.

When my parents got on their kick about my having to swim when I was 11, alot of that play went by the wayside, since my sister wasn't into it anymore, she could declare that playing with my action figures, legos, etc. were not doing anything and my parents' rule was when I wasn't doing anything and there was someone swimming, I had to swim too. I was so miserable that my adventures in imagination with these toys were taken from me randomly, based on the whims of my sister. She'd basically ask if I was doing anything, I'd say I was playing with my action figures, and she'd lie and tell our mother "he's not doing anything" even though I was. I think action figures are just as valid an activity as swimming and I should have been allowed to pursue it, even if my sister didn't like it. If I'd try to tell our mother what I was doing, she'd say "You can do that anytime 7 days a week." I didn't understand why I couldn't do it then.

I still hurt from that, even now.

I was a very typical lego builder. I also had a ton of lincoln logs (which would often be combined with the lego buildings and spaceships) as well as my favorite: Micronauts. As an adult I've collected Transformers but have since given those all away.
I was an only child and a very introverted player: I would build tiny houses and disappear into those tiny worlds for hours and hours at a time.

I had Micronauts too! They were alot of fun and like you, I could disappear into those little worlds for hours on end. I ended up selling my Micronauts stuff on Ebay several years ago since I needed cash and didn't have a place to store them. I used to combine legos and other things with them too.

Of course, when my parents got on their swimming kick, it all went by the wayside. In fact, they'd even tell me there was no way I could be having fun playing with those toys, because that wasn't fun, swimming was fun, and every child needed fun. That made no sense to me at all. I used to be so sad when I couldn't play anymore, and usually cried because I was so hurt by what they were all doing to me. It was just wrong.

I was happy, why couldn't they let me be?

This reminds me of other kids telling me, when I was a little older, "Oh, you never have any fun!" They just didn't seem to understand that what they thought was fun wasn't what I thought was fun.

I recall palying with both Transformers and G.I. Joe as, during that timeline there were days I'd spend outside sometimes going through all sorts of imaginary scenarios in my mind whereabouts, I'd use the figures to sorta re-enact what I was seeing in my mind's eye if this makes any logic here? In many ways one could say, that my toys were some sort of means of helping me to relax as well, being able to cope with things that tended to bother me from time to time with the likes of bullies and difficult academic troubles in life generally speaking.Nowadays, there are no toys for, they were discarded many ages ago yet, I still do have my imagination to remember times that from a realistic sense had a a much greater amount of calmness for myself as a person.