Toys 2 Remember

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots Rock!

I have now begun blogging again about my favorite toys from yesteryear. This is a new site, but I originally started Toys 2 Remember last year as a different site and all of the below posts were migrated from that original site. The only posts that I didn't bring over were two that had to do with Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.

The reason that I didn't move them is because they were about the Dodge Rock em Sock em Robots commercials that were new at the time. If you are interested, you can see them Here and Here.

I just couldn't ignore this great game here on my new site. After all, it is prominent in my header picture. This is the actual photo of my original Robots that was used in the above logo montage:

My brother and I had so much fun with Rockem Sockem Robots! I guess we had too much fun because the "ropes" that go around the boxing ring are missing.

You can still buy this game, but it is now made cheaply by Mattel. The original was made by Marx and was much better. Just as I explained in the previous post, it isn't really Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots unless the sign on the front of the ring says "By Marx".

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

What was your favorite Kenner Star Wars Play Set?

One of my first posts dealt with Kenner Star Wars figures and playsets. My picture posting wasn't very good in that one, so I wanted to re-vist my favorite toys as a kid. I'm sure if you grew up in the 80's, you had some Star Wars toys. Everyone had some. I was crazy about Star Wars, so I had a lot of figures and playsets. My favorite one was the Death Star Space Station, followed closely by the Millennium Falcon ship. In bot cases, I wished that there was more to them, but toys are somewhat limited. Here are a couple pictures of my Millennium Falcon:

And here are some pictures of my Death Star Space Station:

I had a lot of fun with that Death Star. It was my favorite because I could fit many figures in it and play out stories there. I didn't like it at first though because I didn't think it looked at all like the Death Star. The only real resemblance was on the back panels.

After I realized that it did have many of the components from the movie, I began liking it more. It had the trash compacter, the tower where Obi-Wan Kenobi disabled the tractor beam, a cool elevator, a "bridge type area", the giant planet-destroying laser cannon, and my favorite - The spot where Luke and Leia swung across to evade the oncoming Stormtroopers!

Unlike the movie, you could choose to have the figure swing across or you could extend the bridge. In the picture, Luke is standing on the bridge after is has been extended. All in all this play set was great fun and is awarded the "my favorite Star Wars Playset Award". What was your favorite? Even if you didn't have any playsets, was there one you wanted to have? I would appreciate your comments.

Speaking of comments, please see the below footer that will now appear beneath every post:

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

Remember the original Fisher-Price Little Snoopy?

You can buy a white plastic Fisher Price Lil Snoopy at the toy store today, but remember the original wood Little Snoopy? The one I had wasn't even the original. It was from around 1965 and was catalogued as FP #693.

I loved that little pull toy dog! I still have it to this day. If you had one and don't still have it, Little Snoopy's are available on Ebay for CHEAP! I never understand why some vintage toys cost hundreds of dollars today, and others like 693 Little Snoopy, you can get for one dollar.

Maybe it is because they are so common. Just about everyone in the 1960's and 1970's had a little snoopy dog. Didn't you?

I like how you can pull it and it makes a clicking noise and the wheels wobble causing the dog to go happily up and down. His spring tail just wagged and wagged. He was a great dog. He followed me where ever I went! Here are some more pictures of him:

I wish Fisher Price still made simple toys like the wooden Lil Snoopy, Don't you?

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Mego Batman Was the Greatest!

Probably the best selling Mego Superhero group was Batman! I know that ALL of my friends had Batman, Robin, and at least one of their arch enemies. Those bad guys were pretty cool too. There was the Penguin, the Joker, and The Riddler. They also had a very funny looking Catwomen and Batgirl, but I didn't know anyone who owned them.

Batman and Robin went through several changes over the years. We had the original Batman with the removable cowl. That was great because we would actually change him to/from Bruce Wayne by using Action Jackson clothes. Maybe that is why our Batman fell apart over the years. We got another one later that had the cowl painted on. I think Robin had a removable mask as well in the beginning.

All of our Batman figures fell apart except Penguin. This is what our Batmans, Riddler and Joker look like now:

I posted a picture of our Penguin in the Last post about Mego Superheroes.

We also had a lot of fun with the Batcave playset, the Batmobile and the Batcopter. The only one left to show a photo of is the Batcopter:

I found some good pictures of the Bat mobile on Ebay from user Ringer 1808. He gave me permission to show them to you:

I love the fact that Robin is wearing a Superman costume and that Batman has lost his chest decal. That is the way most Mego Dolls ended up, isn't it?

As for the Bat Cave, I remember it to be lots of fun. When I look at it on internet sites like Mego Museum, it sure doesn't look as good as I remember. We also never had the BatCycle. Probably because we thought of that as belonging to Batgirl.

I finally figured out how to embed a youtube video, so I want to close this post with a Mego Batman commercial that shows all of what I have been writing about here.

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Now, does that bring back memories or what?

I hope you've enjoyed remembering Mego Batman with me.

Mego World's Greatest Super Heroes!

Probably the best Superhero toys EVER made were by MEGO in the 1970's. In one of my earlier posts, I talked about Star Trek Mego. Since I only had one picture on that post, here are a couple pictures of the Mego Star Trek Figures that survived my childhood:

Of course this is the Klingon, Captain Kirk, Spock, Scottie, and Dr. McCoy. The other bad guys were pretty cool too! Here is Neptunian and Cheron:

Hey wait a minute, this post is supposed to be about the Mego Super Heroes! Sorry, I always get sidetracked to Star Trek or Star Wars.

When it comes to Mego Superheroes, my brother and I spent countless hours playing with them. We had just about all of them (well actually, most of them were his). They were called "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes". Most of them were Marvel, but the heroes made from D.C. Comics were probably the most popular. Among them were Superman, Aquaman, and Batman and Robin! We played with the ones we had so much that this is what most of them look like today! :(

Many of them broke or were altered by our imagination. Remember how much fun they were? It wasn't just the figures either, the playsets were so cool! Our dad always called the figures "dolls" wich used to make my big brother so angry!

Anyway, we didn't destroy them all. These guys survived:

The Thing from the Fantastic Four and Aquaman

The Human Torch (also from the Fantastic Four) and Ironman

The Incredible Hulk and Batman's enemy, The Penguin

The Green Arrow and Shazzam

And now for our all time favorite:

Mego Mighty Thor with his hammer Mjolnir!

Thor was one of the later releases in 1976. I think he was the first to receive the newer body type, often referred to as Body type II. He had "real" hair, a removable metallic helmet and hammer, and rubber boots. All the other figures had plastic boots. Wait a minute, now I'm beginning to sound like a collector! As kids, we thought all of those new features made him the coolest.

I could go on and on but I need to bring this to a close. I will write a Mego Batman only post soon. Please comment below and let me know what your favorite Mego Super Hero was, or what you think I should post about next. I will try to be more frequent in my posting.

Thanks for remembering Mego with me!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Familiar Places McDonald's by Playskool

While I was writing my last post about Shogun Warriors, I remembered that I had pictures of me and my brother from the 70's holding our new warriors. I searched my old childhood photos and could not find them. Instead I found this picture from Christmas 1974 of me opening up my new Playskool Familiar Places McDonalds play set.

It is a pretty special picture to me because my wonderful late Great-Grandma and Great Aunt are behind me. I loved that McDonald's Playset. Do you remember it? Playskool had three or four sets that they called "Familiar Places". I wanted the Holiday Inn Familiar Places set but never got it. I have heard that there was a Texaco Station Familiar Places set but I've never seen it. Playskool made other sets for their square "Play Friends" (that came to be known as "Blockheads"), but they weren't called "Familiar Places". I had a great National Park set that had a bunch of animals. I also had a Fire Rescue Tower and I think I remember them making a horse or pony stable set. Of course Playskool was competing heavily with the popular Fisher-Price little people of which there were many sets. I have a lot of them to show you in future posts!

This post however, is supposed to be about the Playskool McDonald's, so here goes.

This was a great set with a large plastic building that looked just like the McDonald's buildings did at the time. It had a plastic mat with the parking lot and was marked where you were to place the building, sidewalk & sign piece and the playground. Many McDonald's Restaurants of the '70s had normal playgrounds like parks did, so of course this set had a working merry-go-round!

My favorite parts were inside the building. The dining room had a couple of tables and the kitchen area was great! It had the drink machine and burgers on one side, the fries and shake machine on the other, a cash register that went "ding" when you pressed it and a working tray return in the back.

On one side of the outside of the building was the restrooms and on the other side was the tray return that led inside to the kitchen.

If you remember, the Playskool Play Friends suffered from the same ailment that the Fisher-Price little people did; NO HANDS! The best thing about the Playskool people being square was that they could still "hold" things! In the McDonald's set, they could hold the trays under their chins. In the National Park and camping sets, they could hold a backpack on. Look at the picture at the top of this post to see a man from the park set with the backpack.

All sets also came with cars that 4 people could ride in. When these pictures were taken, the cars were still at my Mom's in the toy box that the grandkids play with. There are still many of our old vintage toys in that toy box. Some are probably valuable, but that's okay. Toys should be played with. Besides, its because of my mom saving them that I am able to take pictures of all of these great Toys 2 Remember!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Shogun Warriors-"Invincible Guardians of World Freedom!"

I have had some email commenting on the Mazinga Shogun Warrior that is prominent in my Toys 2 Remember banner and picture on the previous post. Wow, remember how cool they were? We had many of the smaller diecast metal figures, but the best by far were the 24" Jumbo Machinders. The way they fired rockets, shooting stars, missles or even their fists was pretty cool in the eyes of a 10 year old boy! Luckily for us the time was before the "projectile ban" on toys. There is a lot written about the Mattel Shogun Warriors if you want to know more details. One good site about Shogun Warriors (amoung other toys) is WildToys.

Shogun Warriors were from Japan and were the predecessors to the Transformers, Power Rangers and many anime TV shows. In this post, I mainly want to show you some pictures of the Shogun Warriors that my brother and I enjoyed as kids. We had the first five that were released: Mazinga, Raydeen, Dragun, Godzilla and Gaiking. First up is the Mazinga pictured in my banner:

Our favorite thing about Mazinga was his accessories: His rockets, swords and his "spaceship brain"!

Raydeen shot little yellow airplane shaped missles from his chest and his left fist!

The way Dragun looked probably mad him my favorite. He shot, or rather "flipped" battle axes from one hand and shot stars from a contraption strapped to his other hand.

Godzilla is probably the most sought after now, but he was the first one I parted with because I never thought he fit in with the others. I was never impressed with his "fire breathing" which actually looked like he was sticking out his tounge. And I never saw a Godzilla movie where he fired his fist, but the Shogun Warrior Godzilla's fired fast and furious!

Last but not least is Gaiking. A sort of funny looking warrior, but what he was lacking in looks he made up for in fighting ability! He shot his fist as well as Mazinga-like rockets from his chest.

So the only Jumbo Shoguns not pictured here were Daimos, Goldorak and Rodan. All three look odd to me since I do not have any memories of seeing them and/or playing with them. As for the others, I saw them a lot! How can you not when they are each two-foot tall! Wow, There's just nothin' like 'em!!!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Remember Pistol Polo by Marx?

Towards the end of its toymaking tenure, the Louis Marx & Company began creating wonderful games with moving parts. Everyone remembers Rock'em Sock'em Robots, but do you remember Pistol Polo?

It was a great shooting game that even moms liked because the BBs didn't get all over the house! It was two guns attached to this clear plastic case the the BB's shot into. You would fire at a yellow ping pong ball and try to keep it on the other player's side.

There was a timer that activated a yellow stop sign to pop up. If the ball was on the other person's side when the stop sign appeared, you won! The concept was exactly like G'nip G'nop. Does anyone remember that game? We had it too, but I don't have any pictures of it. I want to do some research on it. If you know where there is a good write-up or pictures of G'nip G'nop, please let me know. Today's feature however is PistolPolo by Marx!

Check out the above pictures and see if you remember!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Great Toys from Louis Marx & Co.!

Louis Marx & Co. Has been long forgotten by the average person. Most people do remember some of the individual toys that Marx made, like the original Big Wheel and Rock'em Sock'em Robots, but not the company.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive history of the Marx company and its toys. Marx began in the 1920's and ended in 1978. Some of the toys that were handed down to me from my dad were Marx. Early on Marx mostly made tin toys and trains. Their logo had a railroad crossing sign as the X in Marx, so I guess in the beginning they specialized in model trains. Then in the 50's, 60's and 70's the were famous for their Johnny West and Best of the West action figures. I have a bunch of my Johnny West, Sheriff Garrett and Sam Cobra that I need to take pictures of for a future post. As for now, if you want to see some Best of The West toys, visit the Vintage Toy Room site.

One of my favorite toys as a kid was the Marx Dinosaur Mountain that is pictured at the left. I have better pictures of it that I will eventually highlight on my Toys2Remember website (When & if I ever get that built). This was the largest dinosaur set they released. I think it was one of the later sets, but it is pretty hard to find. The plastic mountains come apart in 4 pieces and there is a plastic "wood" bridge and vinyl mat to set it all on. Of course there are also a bunch of dinosaurs, cavemen and trees. I even used to play "Land of the Lost" with this by putting some of my other figures in this set to fight with the dinosaurs. What fun!

The pictures below are couple of the older O scale railroad pieces. We used to have a train, but I'm not sure what happened to it. It's too bad that Marx quit making toys because in my opinion, everything they had was great. Stay tuned for a post on Best of the West and one about some of the unusual games by Marx.

Have you seen any Marx exhibits at museums? My Stormcloud horse for my Chief Cherokee is in a traveling exhibit that began at the Indianapolis Children's Museum! There are also some museums dedicated exclusively to Marx. A good one with an online presence is the Marx Museum of Glendale West Virginia. Did you have any Marx toys? If so, what was your favorite? Do you still have it? If not, I bet you wish you did.

Marx definitely made some great Toys 2 Remember!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Fisher-Price Adventure People

Fisher-Price has always had great toys. Unlike Marx, Fisher Price has stayed in business and has continued to be very popular. Even still, I think the toys they made back in the 70's were better than the ones they make now. Everyone loved the old pull toys and the Fisher Price Little People or as we always called them, "round people". A lesser-known series from Fisher Price is the Adventure People, or Adventure Series.

There were many different sets of Adventure People. They were made for older kids than the little people. I did exactly what Fisher-Price wanted me to do. I went straight from loving FP Little People to loving FP Adventure People. According to ThisOldToy.com, The Adventure Series began in 1975 with four sets. They were: #303 The Emergency Rescue Truck, #304 The Wild Animal Safari, #305 The Air-Sea Rescue Copter, #306 The Daredevil Sport Plane. I had all of these sets and many others (shown above). The first one I got was the safari set, which was and still is my favorite!

They look pretty good for being over 30 years old don't they? These toys have really been played with too. They logged many hours, inside and outside. When I grew up I let my little brother and sister-in law play with them, and then my own kids played with them too - very durable toys! The saying "They don't make 'em like they used to" is definitely true with these adventure people.

I have much more that I could write about, but in case you are already bored with this post, I will save the rest for later. I do want to show you my 2nd and 3rd favorite sets though. They were the 5th and 8th sets made (both in 1976), #307 The Wilderness Patrol and #310 The Sea Explorer.

There were many other sets made. You can see them all detailed at ThisOldToy.com.

Do you remember The FP Adventure People? What was your favorite? Even if you didn't have any of the sets, chances are good that you had the Daredevil Skydiver. Remember the man in the white suite wearing a vinyl parachute with rubber harnesses. What fun it was throwing him high in the air and watching him drift down, down, down... right into a tree or on the roof!

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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