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Saturday, June 4, 2011

My Kinda Vintage

Ok - so maybe vintage isn't the word for it.  They are not old enough to be vintage yet, but they are not new enough to be cool... either way, I was thinking about the things I loved to do as a kid while I was growing up... here were some of my favorite things:

Awww yes, the skip it.  I don't know if they still make these things anymore, but I can tell you, the skip it was awesome.  In fact, if they still made them, and if they made them big enough to go around an adult ankle, I would buy one.  I'm sure I was in much better shape then than I am now!  This toy I would catch myself thinking about while I was at school, and I'd wait for 3:00 to roll around so I could go home and skip it!  





I'm ashamed to admit it, but from about three to five I was obsessed with this game.  My poor father (this shows the love of a parent, right here), was always the one I wanted to play with.  Granted, the phase didn't last as long as it could have, because when my dad realized how much I wanted to play games he thought he'd teach me a game he enjoyed... gin rummy :)   


Anybody remember these things?  The California Raisins.  Yep.  I had several of them, and I had no idea what they really were.  All I did know was that they made better accessories for my Barbie house than my Barbies did... so they lived there.



How about Polly Pocket?  I'm not sure what it was about these toys... you couldn't really move the little doll, Polly, around her little house very well, but every girl wanted them, and had several.  Of course these would never fly with the girls now-a-days... you'd have to have a Polly mansion, and, well, that kind of defeats the purpose.  Mansions don't fit in your pocket.  




And how about this lean mean baking machine?  I mean, how else can you bake semi-edible brownies in cakes in the convenience of your own... microwave.  Who thinks up this stuff?  Here's how I think that toy creation meeting went:
"I know, rather than sit the little girls on the counter and actually cook with them, lets make an oven where they can do it all on their own?"  
"Well gee, Bill, that'd be great except, well, how will they get the finished product out of the oven without the risk of burning themselves?"  
"Hmmm, I've got it, lets make a really long pole to pull the pan out with."
Either way - I had to have one.  I just remember it was a treat for me to get to use it at all.  Apparently the mixes were expensive, the clean up sucked, and light bulbs don't exactly cook things very easily... my mom wasn't a fan. 


And I'm not going to lie, this came around a little bit later in my 'toy years', but the tamoguchi was another toy that I thought about while I was at school.  It was like having your own pet without the mess or commitment.  You got an egg, that eventually hatched, and then you took care of the little guy.  I'll be honest, I still think it's a pretty cool idea for a toy, but, I have two really living things to provide for and feed and stuff... I'll pass on the electronic one.  





And Dreamphone... who could forget that?  I actually can... kind of.  I just know that I was a dreamphone - aholic for a period of time.  If memory serves me (and sometimes it doesn't) I just know there was something to getting calls from all of the right guys... oh buddy, what we were teaching young girls back then.  What mother's let their girls have these toys?!  Oh wait, mine did :) 

Apart from those, I had the Steve Urkel doll: (and I did a mean Steve Urkel impression, if I do say so myself - and yes, I did do that)

I had a Michelle Tanner doll: (you got it, dude!)



AND, if that wasn't embarrassing enough, I had a Pee Wee Herman doll:


aaaand... my own Chairy


To add to that, I also had all of the most common items:  My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Pound Puppies, and Cabbage Patch kids... 

Where did Cabbage Patch kids go, anyway?  I think Ansley needs a Cabbage Patch Doll for her first birthday... I think Build-a-Bear took their spots :(  Sad, they were the best dollies ever...

So, what were your favorite (and embarrassing) toys? :) 


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