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Did anyone else have the "Magic Mary" series of magnetic paper dolls? The dolls were heavy, layered cardboard with a magnet embedded in the layers; you cut out the clothes, taped a sliver of metal to the back of the clothing, held the clothes up to the doll, and presto! Magic Mary was properly attired.
There were a bunch of them: Magic Mary, Magic Mary Ann, Magic Mary Lou, etc. I had a couple of them, but can't remember which ones ... LOL ...
My sister had all of the above. We used to make deals where I would agree to spend x amount of time playing Magic Mary stuff with her, and in exchange she agreed to spend the same amount of time playing Fort Apache or knight castle stuff with me. I think she swindled me everytime, always going first and then not living up to her end of the deal. So I have unpleasant association memories for Mary and the other magic cutouts.
My favorite toy memory is of the Slip n' Slide from, appropriately enough, Whamo! This was a sheet of plastic about 20 feet long and a couple of feet wide. You attached a hose to it and it filled the slide with flowing water through a series of holes in the plastic. The idea then was to get a running start, dive onto the sheet and slide the length of it. It was a lot of fun to do, but what made it especially memorable was that the thing was a personal liability lawsuit waiting to happen. I mean the entire concept involved diving onto the ground and losing control of your body, so safe this was not.
It must have looked like irrestiable fun to adults, because sooner or later, relatives who should have known better, would insist on trying it themselves, which was typically followed by first aid or emergency room visits.
Glad the Evel Knievel stunt bike was mentioned, man that sucker could go !
A couple lame toys I remember......One was a clear plastic cylinder that unscrewed in the middle, and it had holes that you inserted plastic sticks thru. You filled it full of marbles, screwed it together, put in the sticks, then turned it over. You took turns pulling out the sticks, the loser pulls out the stick that drops all the marbles. Another one was a tic tac toe game that had squares that you flipped to X or O by throwing bean bags at the squares.
Yard games were always good family fun, unlike the 70's, today you cannot find one family setting up their wire hoops and stakes to play a nice game of croquet. Always one of my favorites. Then of course, it was always fun to get the yard darts out, tossing them into the hula-hoop target laying on the ground off in the distance. They were large, plastic darts with a heavy metal tip (not sharp but dangerous). They hurt you if you get one lobbed at you with any force. Some kid got killed by one and they took them off the market.
Then there was this construction set I got one year in the mid 70s, kind of like an erector set with all plastic parts. It was cool, it had plastic girders and beams that you snapped together to build the skeleton of a building. Then you snapped credit card sized panels onto the exterior of the building, they were decorated as windows (transparent) or doors. You could build any size building you wanted, had roof panels too. Had a board with holes in it to snap in your foundation girders as a base. You could build a portable twenty story building if you wanted, about 2 or 3 foot tall or so. Lightweight and strong, it looked like a modern glass office building when you finished. Can't remember the name of it.
I thought lawn darts were great! Then one time my new bride and I were at a friend's family gathering where this was one of the activities. Much like horse shoes - some folks are pretty good at it and some just want to give it a try. Either way, everyone usually has fun. My wife, bless her soul, on her first toss threw one quite wildly and way off target. I can still see the high arc and it landing on the trunk of a shiny new car. And that's where it stayed. It actually pierced the sheet metal. This happened so long ago that I have forgotten just what happened next, but I do remember writing the check to the body shop that did the repairs.
Yes those lawn darts came back down with some power, thanks for your sharing your unfortunate lawn dart story with us, square peg. You could lob one of those darts half a block easy. You could get a nice grip at the back of the dart and with all the weight at the front, made for a nice design. One could sharpen the tips to make them stick in the grass better too.
Also have to mention the pivot pool set we had too. Remember, it had a cannon shaped shooter in the middle of the table, rotated 360 degrees. You put the cue ball in position, pulled back the spring loaded shooter, a little or alot, then fired the cue ball. All the balls were about one inch in diameter, had a mini rack for the balls, just like a REAL pool table, LOL.
I guess the casualties had already done their job on the sharp pointed darts, we had the rounded ones. When I think about it, at least half the good (and not so good) toys we had, have been eliminated for some safety issue.
I've still have my Merlin, played some blackjack on it last night. What a great christmas gift for 1979. 6 games in one, plays "simon" too, up to 9 sequence. I Like game 6, where you have to find the order and sequence of a 9 digit code. I remember we had a colecovision (first one you hooked up to the TV) that played pong and had a tank game on it. My favorite hand held game was intex pac-man2 (no longer have it, but still have Atari 7800), but those were 80s games. Got a hand held Galaga game that I'm still fond of too.
I grew up in the 40s and 50s. Most popular board game was Parcheesi. Monopoly was still newish, and the houses and counters were still made of wood. Some of the card games we had were Flinch and Touring, which required forming table layouts, and Authors, where I memorized the titles of four books by each of 11 great authors. It was played like Animal Rummy.
I had a simulated electric football game, I forgot what it was dalled. Maybe electromatic. It wasw a box with a light bulb inside. One player was on offense, the other on defense. The offnese player would put in an 8x11 card with a line on it showing the route of the runner of the flight of the pass. The defense would put in another piece of paper with defender spots all over it. Then, an opaque board would be slowly pulled out from under the play sheets, and the light below would reveal thorugh the papers the development of the play. When the runner line hit a tackler spot, you determine the yard line and move the ball on a field diagram, and each player then chooses a new play. All plays not starting from scimmage were revealed with dice against a chart. In those days, a game that had to be plugged into the wall was about as high tech as it gets.
There was also an electric baseball game. The ball was a steel ball=bearing about a half inch in diameter, and it would be flicked through a channel by the pitcher., using a spring plunger. The batter would press a button when it got to the strike zone, releasing a spring-loaded "bat" that would jam the ball against a contact point, turning on a red light on the field to show where the ball was "hit".
A friend had an electric football game. You'd position the players and hit the ON switch. The playing field would vibrate and the players would push against each other in total chaos. What fun!
A friend had an electric football game. You'd position the players and hit the ON switch. The playing field would vibrate and the players would push against each other in total chaos. What fun!
I had one of those, I thought it was a ripoff. You spent all this time setting up your team members, and then when you turned it on, they either just fell right over or went off in a random directions. Your ball carrier was as likely to head for your oppnent's goal as your own. They had that little catpalt doohickey for passes, and you couldn't hit anything with the felt football which had zero aerodynamic qualities.
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