"Childhood Toys"
by Marcie Glanzer

 I recently had the pleasure of having my two granddaughters here for a few days. It was time for spring break, so Jordan headed up this direction with daughters in tow, hoping for a break from schoolwork and to give her husband a chance to finish his thesis. I had cleaned the house prior to their arrival (that was stupid…) and within minutes, they had pulled out most of the toys I keep within their reach. We had Fisher Price toy foods, books, Barbie’s, toy farms and animals, plus many other miscellaneous playthings that my kids once enjoyed. I am not used to the chaos and mayhem that ensues when toddlers are turned loose with toys, so I tried in vain to keep things picked up. It was useless, but I gave it my best effort. As I said, most of the toys they play with are things my kids had when they were little. I saved the majority of the toys, so we have bins full of Barbie’s and the cars, vans, boats, clothes and accessories that go with the vivacious beauty. We have Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, He Man characters…there are shelves of books, coloring books and puzzles. Fisher Price Main Street, dollhouse, farm, and kitchen paraphernalia abound. These were pretty cool toys back in the 80s and they have stood the test of time, continuing to enchant the next generation.

As cool as these things are, they can’t compare to the toys I remember from my own childhood. Now those were fun! This was back before there were so many warnings and worries about safety. My mom had a soft spot for Christmas and birthdays, so we always raked in a lot of loot. We would sit for weeks prior to Christmas with the 3 major Christmas catalogs (Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Wards) and make lists of what we hoped for. My mother worked full time at the bank from Monday thru Friday and worked in the post office on Saturdays, so her shopping time was pretty limited. As a result, I think she ordered most of her purchases through those catalogs.

One of the best toys ever was made by Mattel and was called a “Thing Maker”. My brother, Brian, got one for Christmas and it was an oven type gizmo that got really hot. It came with metal molds and bottles of goop in bright colors that you squeezed into the molds, then using a metal tong type thing, slid the mold into the blazing hot oven and cooked until the timer went off. When you pulled the mold out (again, using the metal tongs) you would pull the mold out, plunge it into ice water and wait for it to cool off. Then, you could pull out the rubbery figure you had created. This particular set he got made “creepy crawlers” if I remember correctly. You could make centipedes, snakes, worms, scorpions…all the cool things that would scare the girls at school. This toy was created by someone who assumed that kids had the good sense not to handle the molds with their bare hands, the patience to wait for the ice water to cool the creepy crawler figure, and some parental guidance. There were no warnings about the dangers of burns…if you touched the hot metal once, you learned to keep your paws off until it was cool. It’s called “common sense”. Not long after, I also received a thing maker, but mine had the “Peanuts” characters in it, like Snoopy and Charlie Brown. The only downside was that the goop didn’t last long and it was expensive to replace. Along with the thing maker, I had the famous “Easy Bake Oven”. What fun it was to make a brownie or cookie…you had to have patience once again, as it took 45 minutes to bake a bite sized morsel. I recall a rather gruesome event that occurred in my little oven. It was springtime and I had taken it outside to try an experiment. I plugged the oven in near the garage and set a little blue robin’s egg in the compartment to see if I could hatch it. Unfortunately, that’s about the time my mother called me to come in for supper. By the time I got back outside, the little fellow was hatched and cooked. I can still see his little lifeless body lying in that crematorium of sorts. He never stood a chance, and I never had the heart to fix another treat in my little oven.

On a happier note, I once received a magic set and did I ever have fun! The tricks in this set were actually pretty good and I put on many an act for the family. Another fun gift was the chemistry set that my mom had foolishly gotten for me. It was bound to cause trouble and it didn’t disappoint…(you may notice I keep referring to the gift giver as my “mom”…that’s because my dad never had a clue as to what each gift held until the paper was torn away, he just pretended to be savvy to the contents). As you may remember from a former column, the aforementioned chemistry set caused quite a stir when my friend Nadine, and I set about to perform the “rotten egg experiment”. It was a full blown success and nothing short of burying the beakers outside under a rock would help the smell dissipate. I’m not sure why my mother thought I was responsible enough to be tampering with caustic chemicals…perhaps she had high hopes of me becoming a Nobel winning scientist. More likely, I had highlighted it in the Christmas catalog on a whim.

I have to admit that my dad did take part in one gift. For years I had looked longingly at the pictures in the catalog of a boy or girl jumping sky high on a “jumpin’ Jimmy”. This was an inflated tube with bouncy canvas stretched over it, rather like a small trampoline, and

boy, did it look like fun! My dad took it upon himself to save a bit of money and make one for me. He took a large inner tube from the gas station where he worked and had the man at the hardware store stitch canvas to fit over it. That toy got a good workout, not only by me, but from the neighborhood kids. It was fun to jump on, but also worked great at the lake. We would float way out and climb up on this thing and dive and jump for hours. This brings to mind a memory involving my good friend, Darlene. This was in the spring of 1969 after we had gotten record snowfalls all winter. The snow was piled high all over town and when the weather began to warm up and all that snow melted, we had a virtual rushing river across the road from our house. It was pretty deep and cold, but after several months of being bundled up, Darlene and I thought it was warm enough to put our swimsuits on and take the Jumpin’ Jimmy out for a spin in the swirling rapids. (Again, danger with no parental supervision, but we survived). We were having such fun, that we lost track of time. The sun was beginning to go down when we noticed a figure storming towards us…it was Darlene’s dad and he wasn’t pleased to see his young daughter in a swimsuit in March, riding on a fast, dangerous current on an inner tube. I can still picture Darlene getting spanked all the way home. Those were the days! She had some pretty nice toys too, one being the hippity hop ball. I think they are still sold, but my kids never had one. Darlene brought hers over to our house one day and lots of kids were trying it out, including my older brothers. One thing led to another and we began to have a contest to see who could leap the farthest and it was great fun until Brian took a running leap, landed on the hippity hop and flew so far into the air that his head hit the overhead light, shattering it. Again…those were the days!

I could go on and on, as more and more toys are popping into my head, but I don’t want to be labeled one of those old kooky people who drone on forever about the good ol’ days. I just wish I had kept some of those classics…my granddaughters could be making memories of their own as they burn their hands, kill innocent fowl and play with potentially deadly chemicals. Yep, those definitely were the good old days!

I got to thinking about my Thingmaker and found a website where former kids of the '70s left their memories of the Thingmaker for others to read...I'd forgotten about the distinct smell of cooking goop, but it was very distinct. Here are a few of those memories:

This was one of the best toys I ever had. First of all, what the hell kind of twisted mind came up with this thing? LOL think about it...an open hot plate with NO OFF SWITCH, used in close proximity to a bowl of water! Not to mention metal tongs, and needed a straight pin to get the bugs out of the molds. Even better was the 1001 uses it had AFTER all the molds and goop were gone and/or lost. The funniest thing I remember was my cousinns and I putting the little gteen army men on it and watching them slowly melt as if they had just gotten nuked. Hysterical! I dont even think the metal tongs would get past the Consumer Product Safety Commission today. It was a more innocent age to be sure.

(This reminded me too, of the woodburning set we had...there was no such thing as suing a company for injuries and we had alot more fun with our toys...that woodburner was really dangerous!)

I was in the 4th got the Creeple Peeple set for Christmas one year. and my sister got a woodburning set. were our parents crazy? No supervision ever..why we were the trusted generation! I had a blast making the people, and selling them to my classmates for $.25 cents each- I will NEVER forget their smell cooking and cooling off! what fun...and great memories.when the days were fun and carefree

Wasn't it great to have toys that could injure you so badly? After school we would crank this thing up and dare other kids to touch the hot plate..... what fun..!!!

(Now here's a kid after my own heart!)
I remember using the hot-plate for my other "dangerous" toy -- my chemistry set. Great for heating up stinky stuff and filling the house with sulphorous fumes. Amazing -- I probably wouldn't allow my kids to use a "Thingmaker" without some adult supervision.

I had almost all the Plasti-Goop sets; Creepy Crawlers, Fright Factory, Creeple People and the mini-sets with Batman or Tarzan figures. If water got in the mold (after you cooled it) and you didn't dry it properly, the next thing you made came out all bubbly and weird. My kids have one of the new "safer" versions. Pathetic! The Goop cooks over a light bulb and takes half an hour! The old oven heated up like an S.O.B. and was always good for a burn or two.

Another kid wrote about shoving food down the mouth of his Charlie McCarthy doll...I HAD ONE OF THOSE, TOO!!!! I had forgotten all about it, but it was a ventriloquism doll that came with a record to teach you how to throw your voice. He had a top hat and tuxedo and was so cool! Why in God's name didn't I save these toys? I could be a wealthy woman.