Fantastic Toy Friday

A little more political incorrectness. but somehow it's hard to get away from cowboys ans Indians in the 1950's.  I loved my tepee and would spend a large part of July and August camping in the backyard over night! Enjoyed the bow and arrows too - and I never put my eye out - honestly, that's not why I wore glasses!!!

Fantastic Toy Friday

Remember Wagon Train? I never missed it - the covered wagons, the wagon master, the scout, the Indians?  The wild wild west! I'd put on my cowboy duds and sit glued to the old black and white TV set. and when it wasn't on I'd play with my my little "Wagon Train" set. Wow - we surley went for cowboys and Indians back in the late '50's, early '60's - never realizing how much of it was so politically incorrect.  Still, a fond memory of childhood.

Favourite Toy Friday

Every weekend when I was in elementary school we'd watch The Shirley Temple Story Hour. It was akways a little disconcerting to see her in TV in her old movies from the 1930's and then see her all grown up reading fairy tales to her own children. One year for my birthday I received the Shirley Temple doll complete with the costumes from CaptainJanuary, The Little Colonel , and Rebecca of Sinnybrook Farm - all tomboy roles, you notice. I had a lot of fun with this and acting out the stories to go along with the different outfits.

Favorite Toy Friday

My doll house!  I was 7 almost 8 the Christmas I found this in the Sears wish book and then under the tree.  This was a little before the cowboy and civil war sets.  I loved rearranging the rooms and making up stories for the doll house family.  Mine was the one on the right - The Colonial Mansion.  Lots of prime playtime and make-believe! Definitely one of my favourite childhood memories.

Favourite Toy Friday

Two of my all time favourites, my glove and 

my Louisville Slugger bat.  Both of which I still have.

 I would spend hours every evening  and weekends during baseball season 

 in the backyard and at the ball park.  Working on my swing, playing catch, with friends

 or by myself with the Pitch-Back.  I was a baseball fanatic and followed every Dodger game.

Favourite Toy Friday

Every Christmas I could look forward to a new package of Silly Putty (or Nutty Putty, as it was originally known) in my stocking.  It really did do all the magical things it promised!

What I loved the most was the way it would copy the comics from the Sunday newspaper.  And then you could stretch them out in all different directions, change the faces, etc. Give me a comic page, a roll of Silly Putty and I spent hours pulling and pushing and changing the pictures.  Ah well, we were easily entertained in the '50's!

Frightening Toy Friday - Almost as Scary as Clowns!

So this ones's interesting - because as I've gotten older (and older) I find ventriloquist dummies rather scary - there do seem to be a fair amount of movies and TV shows that picture them in a less than happy/jolly atmosphere.  I mean take a look above - that makes me a little nervous!

And yet back in the early '60's I got a Jerry Mahoney dummy one year for Christmas (not the deluxe model - the $5.79 version) and I remember playing with it a lot and really enjoying it.  So is Jerry a candidate for "Favourite Toy Friday" or "Frightening Toy Friday"?  I guess it depends on whether I was 10 or whether I'm older and wiser ( or at least, more scared).  But one thing I think most of us agree on - clowns are still scarier!

It's a Stereopticon!

A few weeks ago a library patron gifted me with this wonderful vintage invention.  I had seen them before, but never handled one or looked through one. Over the years i had come across a few of the pictures whilst perusing cabinet cards at flea markets and antique shows.  But now I could actually load the pictures and experience the "sorta" 3D effect.

 The turn of the last century's answer to our View Master from the 1950's.

From Wikipedia - A  stereopticon is a slide projector or "magic lantern", which has two lenses, usually one above the other. These devices date back to the mid 19th century, and were a popular form of entertainment and education before the advent of moving pictures. Americans William and Frederick Langenheim introduced stereopticon slide technology—slide shows of projected photographs on glass—in 1850. For a fee of ten cents, people could view realistic photographs with nature, history, and science themes. At first, the shows used random images, but over time, lanternists began to place the slides in logical order, creating a narrative. This "visual storytelling" directly preceded the development of the first moving pictures The term stereopticon has been widely misused to name a stereoscope. A stereopticon will not project or display stereoscopic/three-dimensional images. The two lenses are used to dissolve between images when projected. All stereopticons can be classified as magic lanterns, but not all magic lanterns are stereopticons.

And that's no April Fool's joke!

Frightening Toy Friday

 Not near as scary as Teddy Ruxpin - My Pet Monster!  My younger daughter Jenny wanted this and her Uncle Paul came through and gave it to her for Christmas one year.  Lots of blue plush, complete with horns, painted nails (!), lots of teeth and a bulbous nose - what's not to like?

Later it turned out she really wanted it for 

the handcuffs so she could play murder squad!

She still has him 30 years later,

 he sits on her closet shelf.

Frightening Toy Friday!

A bit of a departure - not a beloved toy from my childhood, 

but one that ended up being rather scary from my daughters' generation. 

Remember Teddy Ruxpin?  How he was supposed to cuddly, and sweet and tell bedtime stories? And how in reality, the tape recorder in his torso made him painful to hug with all those sharp corners, and how the batteries would begin to run down and his bright cheerful voice suddenly sounded like Boris Karloff on crack?  It was the toy every kid wanted that Christmas in the mid '80's and then it went horribly wrong!  My little sister was so excited that she was able to purchase one for my girls and the girls were so excited.  Oh well, every toy can't be as cool as a civil war set, LOL!

Favourite Toy Friday

I loved baseball when I was a kid. Listened to all the Dodger games on the radio with Vin Scully announcing. Played at school and in an after school girls' softball league.  And spent most evenings during spring and summer in the back yard - throwing up the ball and batting it.  One night my dad came home from work with the above!  A pitch back!  I could throw and the ball would come back- revolutionary! It was fantastic and one of the best things was it felt like an endorsement from my dad - "OK, you're not the daughter who sews, you play baseball and that's just fine!"

Favourite Toy Friday

Here's what my Civil War set looked like on

 Christmas Day when I set it up on the dining table. 

 The colour of the table actually made a pretty good backdrop,

 but my friend Destiny had a better idea!

Using the pix I took on Christmas and this page from  an old Sears Christmas 

catalog, she used acrylic craft paints, brushes and sponges to make a drop

 cloth using a canvas floor cloth from Dharma Trading Company.

And here's the result, showing the supplies she used.

I'm eagerly awaiting time this weekend

 to set the whole thing up.  Thank you Destiny!

Favourite Toy Friday

 When I was in grade school my big sister Becky Anne, who was 6 1/2 years older than me, made me these wonderful Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.  The bodies, the clothes, everything! I had read the books and was thrilled to have the rag dolls.

They come out every Christmas to play.  Ann has lost her apron and mob cap over the years, and Andy's bow tie and sailor hat have fallen along the wayside.

Not surprising considering how much I played with them.  If you know me, you know I wasn't a doll person, but these were special and so well loved.  Thank you Becky, definitely a gift from the heart that has continued to give for over 50 years.

Favourite Toy Friday

I know that in this day and age, toy guns are politically incorrect,  but back in the '50s and early '60's it seemed like almost every kid on the block had a cowboy outfit complete with a pair of six-shooters - remember the smell of the caps?  I played cowboy so much that almost every year I wore them out and would get a new pair for the holidays. On Christmas afternoons my dad and I used to play cowboys on the back porch using all the big boxes from under the tree as cover. For several years of my childhood Christmas wouldn't have been Christmas without a new set of cowboy pistols.

Favourite Toy Friday

I wonder how many of us mixed media types out there

 can trace our love of toy theatres to this classic toy

 from the early '60's?

My dear brother got me one for Christmas one year and

 I loved putting on the plays, coming up with new ones,

and of course having my little cowboys and civil war soliders

attack it every now and then!

Aren't childhood memories precious?

Favourite Toy Friday

Writing about my red and yellow buckboard 

in the last post, made me think of this.

My dream toy when I was 10.  The Marx Civil War set. 

 It was a bit expensive, so I didn't have one. 

 But the little boy next door did - 

 and I occasionally got to play with his,

Ten years ago, my older daughter found one on eBay 

and surprised me for my birthday!  Every now and then I order 

some extra pieces to add to it, a dead horse, an ambulance wagon.

I was so amazed by the gift.. Even almost 50 years later,
 the magic held.  I love setting it up and playing with it.
 One of the best presents ever - 

and definitely one of the biggest surprises. 

Past Recaptured!

 I was playing around on eBay the other day and just for fun I entered some clues into the search box to see if I could bring up one of my favourite toys from over 55 years ago.

And there it was!  My good ole red buckboard with yellow wheels. Exactly the same.
Just like I remember it. We had some great times, playing with my miniature farm set and all my cowboys. Pretty cool when you can recapture such a happy part of your childhood for less than $10.00 and free shipping!