Toys In The Attic: Some of the Best Christmas Presents of All Time
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It’s Christmas time and the toy commercials are everywhere. So why doesn’t anything look like fun? Maybe we’re just being too nostalgic, but we could swear that the toys we played with were better even if they were a tiny bit less safe. So the Interrobang Staffers looked around our attics, basements and our dusty old photo albums to find the all time greatest toys that ever were.
1. Monopoly.
It was, and is, the best board game in the Western Hemisphere (India prefers Parcheesi). Monopoly was there to help kids bring out their inner Nucky as they scheme and greed their way to victory. You’d get the added bonus that it could be used used as an Atlantic City road map when visiting the beach town. Just remember to stay away from the Purple Streets and head towards the green and blue ones.
2. Stretch Armstrong.
As dumb as it sounds, Stretch Armstrong was a rubber man that you could stretch. The true fun of the toy was not actually the stretching, but seeing if you and your friends could push the toy to the limit so that it broke and that goop that your friend’s mom said caused cancer came spilling out.
3. Shrinky Dinks.
You want creativity? You want Shrinky Dinks. Sure they seemed slightly toxic and required small children to use an oven, but who could forget the intoxicating smell of those plastic sheets, and the exciting feeling of drawing figures (well, tracing really), coloring them in, cutting them out, putting them in the oven, only to watch them curl up into a tiny little ball. Then you hoped and prayed during those endless seconds when you weren’t sure if it would successfully uncurl and become the perfect microscopic version of what you had drawn.
4. Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
When you were a kid, what would be better than controlling a boxing robot? Being able to take off another robot’s head with an uppercut, of course. Eventually, however, the catch would loosen on one of the robots’ heads, so that robot always lost. And if you were really smart, you figured out which one it was, and always made your friends take the other robot so you had a guaranteed win.
5. Lawn Darts
Look out kids you may get killed. Nothing more fun for kids than throwing sharp spikes into the air while baby sister waits for her turn. Lawn Darts or JARTS were a backyard craze until casualty rates started to compete with Viet Nam.
6. Hot Wheels Track
The old Hot Wheels track pieces were a pretty simple concept. They were just sections of straight, flexible track that could be connected together. However, they allowed you to create intricate and incredible long courses for your Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, complete with hills, loops and jumps. Plus, using the track as a whip against the back of your buddy’s legs filled the summer with laughter and tears.
7. Nerf Balls
A ball game that you can play in the house ! The original Nerf ball or ” round sponge ” was the greatest thing to happen to the suburbs since affordable Blotter Acid. The ads forgot to mention that once it was wet , hitting your your lil brother in the head with it would put him in an instant coma and of course it ruined pool filters all over America.
8. Plastic Army Men
Ahhh, the imagination of a young boy. With army men there were no moving parts, it was all about your child’s creativity. Too bad your child’s creativity involved torture, military screams, and all kinds of sadistic role playing. Also, because these things were so cheap, they were almost disposable which allowed you to melt, explode, and amputate these poor guys to demonstrate the ravages of war without having your mom freak out because you ruined one of your good toys.
9. Mattell Electronic Football
This was the original handheld electronic sports game. You were always offense and had the world’s crappiest quarterback who never threw, but man what a rush. You were playing football! Okay most of the time you were just pressing buttons quickly until something happened, but still, it was thrilling. All you had to do was make it past the same three defenders over and over again to score. Yes, its technology has long been surpassed, but there’s still something about those sound effects that will make you want to play, even today.
10. Etch a Sketch
Two white knobs and a magic red window let you draw anything you wanted! Well anything that had right angles, anyway. But the best part was that you could instantly erase it by simply shaking it, then start all over again. Sooner or later you had to bust it open and find out what was inside. The more adventurous kid, of course would cut it into rails, snort it, and then pull on his ears till a square popped up on his forehead. But don’t worry mom, one quick shake of the head and it’s all clear again.
