Recently I have spent an inordinate amount of money on Lego models. I am 24 years old. Now while this this makes me a very sad individual, I do have my reasons. Last year my parents home burnt to the ground and they lost everything - including all our childhood toys. As a kid I had an awesome Lego collection, though for the better part of the last decade they sat in a cupboard - assembled - but shut away and collecting dust nonetheless. However, knowing I'd lost all those little blocks of awesomeness sucked and I wanted them back. So I went on an ebay binge and bought up a whole heap of my favourite old models I used to have, as well as a few new ones for shits and giggles. After gleefully assembling them they're all now sitting in a cupboard again and will probably not see the light of day until someday when I have kids, but damnit I feel happy knowing I own all that plastic fantastic again. Focus: What was your favourite childhood toy and do you still have it, or how did you lose it? Still got Bobo the bear from when you were 3 or did your parents just give you an empty box to amuse yourself with? Any particular things you would want to ensure your own kids have? Alternatively: Do you collect anything and do you share details of this with friends/dates/coworkers?
I had the original Optimus Prime toy and man did I love that thing. I remember it wasn't some cheap plastic model but was actually made from metal. I took this thing everywhere, some kids had blankets, I had Optimus. When my parents moved for the first time I thought they packed it with all the toys but they hadn't. I died a little that day. I still leave the porch light on at night hoping he finds his way home. As for collecting, I collect cologne. It's weird I know.
For the win: The GT SNOWRACER, a toy no man can outgrow. Why? Too much awesome. Imagine owning a toboggan that you can ACTUALLY STEER INTO PEOPLE. Bonus that they're tougher than space shuttle tile. They have been making them since I was about seven years old and are as timeless as they were back in the Miami Vice days. I still have no shame in using one.
You lie. No one actually owned that. It was a mythical toy, lusted after by all, and enjoyed by none. Hasbro merely shrunk down a picture of a real aircraft carrier, superimposed a couple of boys having a fucking kickass time into the picture, and then fed upon the tears of disappointment of Christmas morning when there was no Aircraft Carrier under the Christmas tree. FocusI had an unusual large number of penguin shit as a kid. I knew everything there was related to penguins. I had penguin stuffed animals, figurines, statues. I pretty much had a penguin colony without the smell of krilly penguin shit.
He no lie. I had that monstrous beast too. I had EVERY GI Joe toy I could think of: The "Base", all the planes, The hovercraft AND the Cobra hydrofoil, Zartan (his skin changed colour and he was a schizo), even the limited edition HOODED Cobra Commander you had to send away for.
Ah, the good old NES. I pity the child who didn't have one of these growing up. My original NES still works and I've been known to hook it up from time to time to rock through some Tetris or Zelda. Whenever I played Tetris as the last game of the day, I would see the blocks falling when I went to bed, forming lines and blocks in the darkness of my room. Does that make me crazy?
I remember a period of time when I had collected a number of Star Wars figures, a really nice set of Return of the Jedi prints by Ralph McQuarrie that were supposed to be collectibles, and a crapload of Archie comics and a collectible book detailing the history of Archie comics. http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/gallery_1/star_wars/jedi/index.html Then when I was 12, I spent the summer at my grandmother's, while my parents prepared to move to Germany (Army). As an adult I can understand their rationale for chucking the lot, considering the moving restrictions. As a kid I wanted to murder them when I found out my stuff was gone. Actually, given that some of it might have netted me some cash, as an adult I am still mad.
I developed great lungs from blowing into it's counsel and cartridges billions of times. However, there is STILL no greater game than the one and only Tecmo Super Bowl. I CHALLENGE ANYONE.
I've recently been going on an ebay binge of buying Super Nintendo games. Had a SNES since I was little, then it somehow got lost. Then apparently my sister found ours while I was away at school so she took it up to her apartment (bitch...I will get it back). Then my roommate brought her Super Nintendo to our house a couple weeks ago, and that's when it all started. I looked through all the games she had and started to think of the ones I used to play: Zombies Ate My Neighbors, all three Donkey Kongs, NBA Jam, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Frogger, the Marios etc. There were so many of them and the ones that she didn't have and I don't remember owning, I either have already bought or will be buying soon. Some are ones that I would never play now like the Lion King, but I don't give a fuck. I loved those games when I was a kid. Other than that, I never really had that many favorites toys. Most of our stuff was sold in garage sales. Though I'm pretty sure that this little tikes doll house is still in my parents basement somewhere with ALL the fucking accessories.
I was that retard that never had his own Transformer toys so when I came over and played with yours, it took me fifteen minutes to turn Optimus Prime into a big rig and I probably broke his arm in the process. Also, if I invested all the money I spent on Pokemon cards into Google instead, I'd be a billionaire right now.
I had a whole shit ton of these: That's right, Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures. I even had the Bridge Playset. Also, this was one of my all time favorite's as a kid: Yep, I was all kinds of cool. I eventually gave all the action figures to my friends little brother when I realized that that I had a collection of Star Trek toys. Dunno what happened to the ship though, I actually kind of wish I still had that.
This bad motherfucker hauled rocks, sticks, dirts and He-Man action figures. I can't wait to buy my future child one. If I have a girl, I'll spray paint it pink. EDIT: Not me in the picture. I was 4 when I got my Bigfoot Power Wheels truck, which coincided with my balls dropping, too.
Right before my son was born I went on a Little People collecting rage. Ebay has tons of the stuff, so I grabbed a bunch of the stuff I had growing up, found some that my mom still had and cleaned it all up and stored it away for my son to play with when he was old enough. That ended up being when he was about 9 months old and we were working on our house and forgot his toys. Luckily my mom had dropped off some of my old stuff that included the Little People bus, barn and accessories. He is two now and plays with them all the time, as did (uh, do) I. God, I loved Little People and my girlfriend never has & never will understand that love. I am sad for her.
I always got cool model cars (nice ones, the kind not meant to be played with) but ended up breaking them because I was an idiot kid indulged by relatives. My favorite toy was my Ferrari F40 pedal car, which was horribly maimed by my rich friend who had his own fleet (yes, fleet) of Power Wheels. He mercilessly broke the rear spoiler off of it, and it wasn't until 2003 that Ferrari released a supercar which did not require a rear wing. At that time I was also 5'10 and much too large for the Enzo pedal car, and the real thing was $995,999 beyond my reach.
Fuck and yes. I'll second GT snow racers. If you live where you can toboggan, you MUST own one of these. They're 10 times more fun then they are fast - and they're damn fast.
I was really let down to see that newer GT Snowracer's are really cheaply built - my cousins got some and broke them by hitting.. .a jump. Seriously. beyond that there was plenty of razor sharp plastic trim on it before they broke too. Focus: my Sega Game Gear. More specifically because i wasn't allowed video games officially until I was 13, but I bought it with saved money from a neighbour when I was 8 and hid it in my sock drawer for... well, I still have it though I'm more open about it.
The only thing I have from my child hood are my hockey cards and I have over 60 000 of them. Way back when ebay was first starting Id buy boxes of cheap hockey cards and sort them out for sets (A series of a brand of cards for that year). I always kept a set for myslelf as an investment and sell any sets I had if they were doubles for about $400 or so and reinvest it into more boxes of cards. The odd time though I'd find a cool card like a Gretzky rookie or a Lemieux in one of the boxes. Doing this taught me so much about buisness at such a young age, It's why my current Auto shop buisness is doing so well. And people say cards are a waste of money.
I have quite a bit left over from my childhood-all of it in varying states of (dis)repair - Transformers, Star Wars, He-Man and M.A.S.K. being the main ones. I had a full blown nerd out/OCD attack a few years ago, and sorted everything out, so now I have cardboard boxes filled with varying sizes of those sealable sandwhich bags, each of which contains a figure of some sort and its relevant accessories. I even went through a spate of buying stuff on ebay to replace what was missing. Yeah... I had loads of Lego, but when I was with my ex I gave it all to her little boy (must have been hundreds of pounds worth of Star Wars stuff that I'd collected as an adult too). A few years back I started to collect the new He-Man figures because I thought they were cool. I now have about 40 of them still unopened, sitting in a box waiting to be unloaded on ebay if the interest in them ever picks up. I also have four 'Force FX' lightsabres sitting in my bedroom as I type this. That's not everything, but as 33 year old man I feel I've shamed myself enough.
When I was really small I had heapos of stuffed toys that got passed over to me from where I don't know but there were two in particular I remember, about 4 ft tall versions of Sylvester and Bugs Bunny. Those things were awesome and I have absolutely no idea what happened to them. Also when a bit older I collected various different types of cards and also marbles. Mum gave the marbles away to our school when we moved country which pissed me off no end and my brothers got a hold of the cards and there went any chance of them being sellable.