Reader Top Ten Greatest Toys of Childhood: Hugh Davis

My friend and reader Hugh Davis begins the Wednesday reader top ten with his selections for the greatest toys of his childhood.

Hugh writes:

“I love this topic, and my ranking of a top ten is aided since I have been finally cleaning out some of my toys, so I know which I still want to hold onto at this time, etc. (For that matter, perhaps your blog could offer a trading post!)

A caveat--instead of talking about individual toys, in some cases I am ranking the toy lines, as I group them in my head that way. I also should explain that I tended to mix and match toys to play with them. I had a play table which became the battlefield/wastelands of Eternia, and I had my own little mythos which pulled all of the toys together. In a nutshell, Skeletor had won a rebellion over He-Man and taken control of both Grayskull and Snake Mtn., and years before I ever saw the Planet Eternia set which had elements of both on it, I had the two large sets side by side as HQ for the evil forces, with the good across the table in the Hall of Justice, leading the resistance with He-Man and co. Basically, I created a logic for my young mind that the Eternians were larger because they were from another planet, and thus all smaller figures were "normal-sized" humanoids. Despite loving the Star Wars films, I never really collected the toys, having only a few I got occasionally for a random birthday present, like Han Solo and Lobot, in the resistance; the same goes for G.I.Joe: Real American Hero (I watched the cartoon but just had a couple of random figures in the mix), and I missed out on the 1980s Transformers craze. As you'll see, my toys had some eclectic qualities, particularly when it came to time periods.

Honorable Mention:

A) A plastic sword--this was a kid-sized plastic broadsword that I fought imaginary battles with until the plastic gave, and I duct-taped it for support. I loved it for my "quests."

B) Any manner of sticks--it's already been stated that the imagination is powerful, and I used, much to the chagrin of my mother, to "collect" a variety of sticks when we would go on family walks. This created a wonderful arsenal of swords, clubs, guns, and wizard staffs that I used when I would play outside. It was always a frustrating day when I would go out to play and find my arsenal had been removed by my mother, who seemed to think, for some reason, that sticks didn't belong on the porch where I kept them...

C) A couple of playsets I had with little plastic figurines. One was a plastic, four-walled castle which came with an array of miniature knights, warriors, and wizards, along with some cool little catapults that fired projectiles with rubber bands for tension. The other was a Battle of the Bulge set, with various elements of an overrun village and a variety of soldiers and vehicles.

10. The Monster Mansion board game--from the early 1980s, this used the images of Universal monsters on tokens as you navigated a haunted house. Your goal was to collect treasure without running into the different monsters. This was part of the boom of Universal Horror related items from that time. (n.b. I only ever had Frankenstein's Monster from Remco's mini-monster figure line. A friend offered me the carrying case/mad scientist lab set that he had and didn't want, but his mother stopped that gift; since she had given it to him, I guess she didn't like his generosity.)

9. Any number of Fisher Price toys, especially their Magic Kit, and a variety of Little People toys. I asked for the LP Western Town toy when I was just past the posted age and loved it; many years later, I was given their newer Western Town as a gift as I went to graduate school. It served as a conversation piece in my living room. FP always made great and imaginative toys.

8. The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons line from LJN. As someone who always liked fantasy, I was always interested in D and D, including both the cartoon and the role-playing game. An older friend played it, and I wanted to (though I found how much items in it cost and was deterred). These toys were happily in my wheelhouse, and they definitely featured in my battles on Eternia. I never had the Fang Fortress playset (though I especially liked the feature it had with walls closing in), but I liked the figures and thought they had excellent designs. 

7. Ventriloquist Dummies--I had dummies of Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, and Howdy Doody, and, as an "old soul," I especially liked the link they provided to years past. My father had OTR records Edgar Bergen, and I liked knowing about these pop culture icons from other generations. Charlie & Mortimer were especially important to me, as they provided a link with me and my grandmother, who used to tell me about listening to them in years gone by. I am still a fan of the characters to this day.

6. The Kenner Indiana Jones line--for me, Indy could easily fit into a variety of worlds, and he was a long-time favorite (the Cairo Swordsman and Toht were teamed with Skeletor, natch). I had the Well of Souls playset, and I can remember taking the Ark of the Covenant to Sunday School once as a visual aid.

5. The Dapol Doctor Who line--this actually came out at the very end of my collecting/playing with toys, but it finally allowed me to play some with the Doctor (albeit only the 7th one at the time). (I did not know about the Denys Fisher figures until I was in college.) Even as I stopped with getting any other new toys, it was hard to resist having Daleks alongside Lex Luthor and Warduke, and of course the Doctor and K9 were in place to help the good guys. 

4. Gabriel's Lone Ranger line--I had figures both from the larger figures in the 1970s (a great line with gorgeous box art) and the smaller Legend of the Lone Ranger toys in 1981. The smaller line, along with Gabriel's Zorro toys were great additions, especially since I have always loved the Old West, and they were wonderfully made toys.

2b (tie). Kenner's Super Powers, especially the Hall of Justice playset. This has to be one of the greatest lines of all time, and I loved it, from the great designs, to the action features to the mini-comics, to the information given on the card-backs. I collected proofs of purchase for the Steppenwolf figure (but never got Clark Kent back then) and loved it and the free record which came with the mail-away toy. As you can probably guess, this line was quite dominant in my playing, and I still vividly remember the Christmas where I got both the Hall of Justice and Batmobile.

2a (tie). Mattel's Masters of the Universe, particularly the Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain playsets. This toy line combined fantasy and science fiction (I remember a tagline in ads in comics: "Where science stops, magic begins!"), and I was an avid viewer of the Filmation cartoon (although I also loved the mythos from the original comic/storybooks packed with the figures, which had a slightly different saga unfolding). This also ties into strong nostalgia for me (such as the fact my grandmother gave me He-Man, Man-at-Arms (my favorite character) and Castle Grayskull, and this was, as I said above, the core of the mythos from which my own toy-playing adventures spun. Snake Mountain was one of my first "major" purchases, as I saved my money to get this massive-boxed toy and put it together myself. The somewhat clunky designs for the figures made perfect sense to me. (I should also single out some love for the Point Dread & the Talon Fighter vehicle/playset, which also came with a great read-along storybook & record. The Point Dread set could be split into a piece that fit onto the turret of Castle Grayskull--my favorite playset of all time--and a "stone" base with pieces in it to suggest computer monitors. Since I pretty much attached Point Dread and never removed it from Grayskull, that lower half was used as many things by me over time, including a TARDIS console, and it was an excellent example to me of the merging of SF and fantasy.

1. The Legends of the West cowboy line from Empire toys--my all-time favorite toy lines. This line has an interesting history, as it started as a line of 9" cowboy toys by Excel (offered in Woolworths and other dime stores as a cheaper alternative to Gabriel's Lone Ranger or Marx' Johnny West toys). All except Deadwood Dick (an amalgation of African American cowboys) were historical figures (although the line did include Pocahontas as a "western" figure, and the original larger line had 11 figures, with four women represented (and two of the males were minorities--Deadwood Dick and Cochise). Excel then shrank the line to 4", calling it Little Legends of the West (and anticipating this move by 1975 or so). By the time I got into it, the line had been transferred to Empire Toys, who expanded the figure line (although they never had as many female action figures) and offered several awesome vehicles (including amazing toys of a Stagecoach, a Peddler's Wagon, and a Fire Wagon). The box art for all of these is quite beautiful, and the line holds up fairly well, although they were somewhat cheaply made toys. I loved playing with them, and I had no problem having them back up the Masters of the Universe and Justice League. This is the one toy line I have continued to look for in my adult years. Except for a Western Town they produced that is incredibly scarce and a hard-to-track down variant fireman (they produced three figures, and I have two but lack the one based on an existing Wyatt Earp figure), I have everything made for this line and proudly have it on display.

Hugh: I love the detail in your list, and I remember so many of these toys.  As a kid, I loved those Gabriel Lone Ranger toys, and remember how happy I was when my granny (from Texas, naturally...) gave me a Lone Ranger figure. 

I can also second your enthusiasm for the Super Powers Hall of Justice Playset.  I have one of those toys for Joel, and it's still amazing.  I sometimes want to take it out and play with it when he has gone to bed.  And I'm lucky enough to have a Clark Kent figure, as well...

I must confess that I was not aware of -- or had managed to forget -- the LJN Advanced Dungeons and Dragons toy line.  That line of toys looks absolutely amazing.  I wish I had known about these back in the 1980s.  I also don't have much familiarity with the Legends of the West toy line, but it too looks really impressive...


Don't forget readers, send your top ten childhood toy list to me at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com!