Appalling toys

[idunnosomename]

The most appalling about that is it cost $49.50 in 1951. Which is a extraordinary amount really. They're only uranium ores after all.

And here's the book inside, Dagwood splits the atom. Seems to avoid quantum mechanics for classical Bohr models. No Blondie in two places at once

https://www.sparehed.com/2007/05/14/dagwood-splits-the-atom/

[pigamus]

Couldn't afford Transformers as a kid so Rock Lords from the market were one of my fondest toy memories. I protected the gold one from any scuffs like it was a wounded chick in my palm. I wonder whether I could buy the IP for less than a hundred quid nowadays. I might actually do it. Thanks for the memory.

I nicked one from Woolworths

The green one that turned into a pterodactyl

All these years I have cheated justice, but one day they will come for me

[Small Man Big Horse]

For some reason, I am imagining your step-father as Chris Chibnall.

Astonishing I'd have preferred Chibnall as a step-father, and I truly do not say that lightly.

Impossible to judge the toy lawnmower without knowing if it was the kind that had all the little balls spinning in it when you pushed it.

Nope, it was just a hunk of plastic on wheels, but no little spinning balls. I didn't even know there was a (very slightly) better version, which makes me think even less of him, if he was still alive we'd be having words I can tell you, though luckily for the whole family he died a long time ago.

Also on the appalling toys front (though I was to blame this time around after asking for it for my birthday) was a remote control car from c. 1980. The problem was that it needed a completely flat, blemish free surface to run on or it'd either slow down to about a mile an hour or just get stuck, so if you tried it on carpet it rarely moved, the driveway had asphalt so it would just get stuck, and if it ran int a blade of grass or two in the garden it'd be unable to move, and the only way I could use it properly was driving it around the dining room table and that got boring pretty quickly.

[Fr.Bigley]

I didn't have toys as a kid, I really wasn't arsed. I wanted transportation devices. In fact, come to think about it, it was probably cos I wanted to get as far away from my house as possible.


Thanks, now I'm depressed.

[Cuntbeaks]

As Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 fever began to reach peak excitement levels, i was presented with a Vic 20. A fucking Vic 20.

I didn't know anybody who had one so couldn't swap games and i wasn't allowed to use it on the colour TV in case it "broke" the TV. The enforced usage of the 14" black & white portable TV just pissed in the open wound of disappointment, a wound that it yet to heal.

[Replies From View]

Also on the appalling toys front (though I was to blame this time around after asking for it for my birthday) was a remote control car from c. 1980. The problem was that it needed a completely flat, blemish free surface to run on or it'd either slow down to about a mile an hour or just get stuck, so if you tried it on carpet it rarely moved, the driveway had asphalt so it would just get stuck, and if it ran int a blade of grass or two in the garden it'd be unable to move, and the only way I could use it properly was driving it around the dining room table and that got boring pretty quickly.

This was all remote control cars in the 80s and 90s, I thought.

As I was growing up, I knew "remote controlled cars" to mean there's a wire connecting the car to the controller, and the thing can't even drive on a flat carpet because the friction would be too huge.  Kitchen lino, bathroom floor or nothing.

At the proper end of the spectrum you had "radio controlled cars" - these were the ones with the luxury of not needing a wire between the controller and the car, they went fast enough to please whoever owned one, but they were unaffordable as all fuck.  They were the exclusive domain of the much bigger, richer kids who'd buy everything from a place called "the modeller's den" which was what existed before Games Workshop etc. but afterwards went bust.

[Replies From View]

As Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 fever began to reach peak excitement levels, i was presented with a Vic 20. A fucking Vic 20.

I didn't know anybody who had one so couldn't swap games and i wasn't allowed to use it on the colour TV in case it "broke" the TV. The enforced usage of the 14" black & white portable TV just pissed in the open wound of disappointment, a wound that it yet to heal.

Hindsight is a powerful thing, but you really should have made friends with William Shatner.

[Gurke and Hare]

As Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 fever began to reach peak excitement levels, i was presented with a Vic 20. A fucking Vic 20.

I didn't know anybody who had one so couldn't swap games and i wasn't allowed to use it on the colour TV in case it "broke" the TV. The enforced usage of the 14" black & white portable TV just pissed in the open wound of disappointment, a wound that it yet to heal.

I had a Vic 20 and I won't hear a word against it! The TV thing sounds shit, I'll agree, but that's hardly Commodore's fault.

[pigamus]

I had a liitle Knight Rider car that was surprisingly brilliant. You sort of wound it up and then it would bash into the wall, flip over, and come back at you. One of the best toys I ever owned. I think I fucked it by dropping it in the bath.

[Replies From View]

They never crop up in lists that aren't "remember these brilliant" lists, but they were always shite because I knew it at the time:

POGS




ooohhh little discs of cardboard are they that you have paid money for.  Fuckin saw you coming.  If they'd come free in packets of Rice Krispies you'd think they were a shit "gift" but slap a price on them and you'll spend your pocket money on the little shiters.  What a load of absolute bollocks though, and fuck you forever if you disagree

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had a liitle Knight Rider car that was surprisingly brilliant. You sort of wound it up and then it would bash into the wall, flip over, and come back at you. One of the best toys I ever owned. I think I fucked it by dropping it in the bath.

I had a ricochet rc car that could run either way up. It didn't have a steering rack either, the wheels were fixed but you could control the left and right drive independently and even run them in opposite directions so it would spin round.

[pigamus]

Found it! They were called Pow-R-Trons apparently. Hits the wall, turns into a robot, coms back! How cool is that?

http://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/robot-toys/pow-r-trons-powertrons-ertl.htm

[Cuntbeaks]

I had a Vic 20 and I won't hear a word against it! The TV thing sounds shit, I'll agree, but that's hardly Commodore's fault.

Sorry, but my mind is made up.

It was the retarded brother of the C64, colour TV or otherwise. The C64 was a thing of power, wonder and pizazz while the Vic 20 lumbered to produce diseased facsimiles of games.

I think the answer is nothing, but what could the Vic 20 do that the C64 could not? I couldn't for the life of me understand why the Vic 20 wasn't exterminated the very second the C64 became available.

[Greg Torso]

Remember Battle Beasts? from Tomy?

Tiny little plastic animals with hologram earth, wind or fire that appeared when you rubbed their arses.

They had some brilliant names like POWER LION, SLAG KING and VIOLENT HORN. They were tiny though, I can remember going to a friends house and taking my beasts into battle and we lost half of them in the carpet. I think they came in packets of 2, a good one and a bad one, e.g. KILLER CARP vs HEDGEHOG NORBERT. And they all had a missing hand with a prosthetic weapon in place, drills and lazers and hammers.

All your favourites:

WAVE MOOSE WALRUS



TRIPLE THREAT OF SNAKES



SQUID GAME



Just small bits of plastic guaranteed to lose their weapon and/or arm within minutes.

[JesusAndYourBush]

...and i wasn't allowed to use it on the colour TV in case it "broke" the TV.

I remember this excuse being trotted out in the late 70's/early 80's, some guff about it'll burn the image into the screen and break it.  The only time* I ever heard of a computer burning an image into the screen was a plasma not a CRT, about 10 years ago.


*I'm sure there are others, I just don't go seeking them out.

[FredNurke]

Remember Battle Beasts? from Tomy?

Hasbro - but originally made by Takara, like Transformers, and actually sold as an adjunct to the Transformers toyline in Japan. Yeah, they were pretty shit.

[dissolute ocelot]

This was all remote control cars in the 80s and 90s, I thought.

As I was growing up, I knew "remote controlled cars" to mean there's a wire connecting the car to the controller, and the thing can't even drive on a flat carpet because the friction would be too huge.  Kitchen lino, bathroom floor or nothing.

At the proper end of the spectrum you had "radio controlled cars" - these were the ones with the luxury of not needing a wire between the controller and the car, they went fast enough to please whoever owned one, but they were unaffordable as all fuck.  They were the exclusive domain of the much bigger, richer kids who'd buy everything from a place called "the modeller's den" which was what existed before Games Workshop etc. but afterwards went bust.

I had a wireless remote control car that didn't steer, if you put it in reverse it would go round in a backwards circle, and then you could make it shoot forwards again in a straight line.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Just small bits of plastic guaranteed to lose their weapon and/or arm within minutes.

Battle Beasts were considered a supreme rip off in my group because we all got them because of the considerable hype, and they were expensive so that meant begging like a dog in Woolworths for most of us, and the main gimmick - the little thermal hologram thing that changed colour -  used to come off just from the warmth of a finger leaving a sticky patch of goo.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Speaking of re-branded  Japanese stuff, did anyone else suffer the disappointment of a Barcode Battler?

[Zero Gravitas]

[confettiinmyhair]

Rock Lords. Whatwerthaddabout?



Seriously though, shithouse transformers, 50% of their incarnation was crap. How were you supposed to play with them when they were rocks, roll them about? Appalling toy.

I had the gold one of those, remember never playing with it.

I'd nominate movie based toys from the 1990s, tat and figurines. I was expecially disappointed by Robin Hood Prince of Thieves figurines where the hands wouldn't grip the accessories.

[Huxleys Babkins]

I had the transparent red Rock Lord and it was fucking brilliant.

[Cuntbeaks]

When all my pals seemed to be getting Astro Wars, Scramble and Pac-Man table top games, i was the lucky recipient of Missile Strike. An electro-mechanical dinosaur that devoured batteries for fun.




https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRSUWppGb_Q 

It made so much noise just whirring and grinding away that it could never be played discreetly. It was roundly mocked by all my friends and i understood why.

I tried my best to make it pay it by meshing the moving components together in ways it wasn't designed to. However, it was built like a tank and nothing that I did could destroy the mechanism.

A truly shit toy.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm pretty sure I saw the film "starring" those rock lords.

[touchingcloth]

How has no one mentioned Tamagotchis yet? Absolutely pointless eggs for cretins.

[Better Midlands]

Haha, beat me to it.

[Small Man Big Horse]

This was all remote control cars in the 80s and 90s, I thought.

Quite possibly, but after the disappointment of my first I never bothered with a second.

As I was growing up, I knew "remote controlled cars" to mean there's a wire connecting the car to the controller, and the thing can't even drive on a flat carpet because the friction would be too huge.  Kitchen lino, bathroom floor or nothing.

At the proper end of the spectrum you had "radio controlled cars" - these were the ones with the luxury of not needing a wire between the controller and the car, they went fast enough to please whoever owned one, but they were unaffordable as all fuck.  They were the exclusive domain of the much bigger, richer kids who'd buy everything from a place called "the modeller's den" which was what existed before Games Workshop etc. but afterwards went bust.

I guess I fall in to the rich kid category (though only due to the aforementioned step-father, we weren't before he came on the scene), but it was still a slow fucker that failed to work on 99% of surfaces and only caused misery instead of joy.

When all my pals seemed to be getting Astro Wars...

Christ, I'd not thought about Astro Wars in decades, but my friend had it and I was incredibly jealous. I did at least have a Nintendo Game and Watch "Snoopy Tennis" game (which I wish I'd hung on to given how much they go for on ebay nowadays) but it wasn't anywhere near as fun.

[JaDanketies]

Gotta Go Flamingo does a shit on the toilet and then you feed it the shit

[Mr Banlon]

Thanks mum.

Just what I wanted.
A fire..egg

[pancreas]

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=73498.0