Top 5 Toys from Your Childhood

My co-worker, Irina, found an app on Facebook called, “5 Toys that Remind You of Your Childhood.”  (I know, right?)  My Top 5 were:




1. 1. Pan Am Toy Mechanical Plane.  It was battery-powered, taxied, had a red light on top and stairs that automatically lowered and raised.  (Unfortunately, they didn’t have that exact one in the app so I had to use a TWA image instead.)  If anyone knows what I’m talking about — or, better yet, where to get one — please let me know. 
2. Merlin (pictured above.)  This was an electronic game that played Tic Tac Toe, Magic Square and a bunch of other games I never learned.  It was, by far, the toy I was most excited to receive on Christmas Day ever.  (Full disclosure: So, I actually found where Santa hid Merlin that year.  As a result, my parents made me PAY MONEY for it since I was being “nosey.”  Still, it was the best $20 I ever (unintentionally) spent in my life.  And I was STILL excited when I opened it on Christmas. 
3. Spirograph.  I loved this toy so much that I actually asked for (and got) another one when I was in college.  (I still have it.) 
4. Lester the Ventriloquist Dummy.  Lester was all over TV back in the day and lots and lots of kids had one. It was the closest thing to being friends with a celebrity back in the day. 
5. A Smurf.  I had one of these in kindergarten before the TV show started.  The only reason I remember it is because I used to chew on his nose and all the paint came off of it. (Mmmm…lead….) 
6. Honorable Mention:  Sesame Street Colorforms.  So, one year on my birthday, my parents gave me $20.00 and told me I could buy anything I wanted in Higbee’s toy department (yes, the department store from A Christmas Story.)  I chose the Colorforms kit.  We would find Cookie Monster and all his pals clinging to things for years to come.





What’s in your Top 5?  A Cabbage Patch Doll?  Hot Wheels?  A slinky?  Let us know! — E. Christian Moore (Special Thanks to Irina!)