Back in 1988 I got this building set from Sears. Winnie the Pooh's Gas Station. I know, it makes nearly no sense. I don't remember any cars in the Hundred Acre Woods, but, many of the Disney characters have worked in gas stations, so maybe, this is the case. Clutchin' at straws here, Walt. What up with that! It might be a bad cartoon where Winnie and Tigger run a gas station. It could happen. A fat guy and a goof running a gas station. Sound familiar? That's Disney Magic! As a matter of fact. It's a Disney Magic toy. I'm just guessing it's some sort of whacky alternate dimension, or some shit. It was a set sold exclusively by Sears. Common enough practice still. Target had an exclusive Harry Potter Lego set in 2005 that had extra figures in it. Missed that I did.
This set was made by Tandem, who were a second rate brick company that tried to compete with LEGO. They failed, which is probably why I couldn't find anything about them on the net. I did find a lady who was selling an 800 piece bucket on ebay. It was up to 99 cents and 6 bucks for shipping. No one much wants them. I bought a bunch of sets and gave most of them away to other people's kids. The bricks aren't anywhere near as good as LEGO. In many ways. Their people figures are very LEGO-like, except for the head, big weird heads. Creepy.
The side panel of the box has a long paragraph that promotes the toy and it ends with: And since these bricks are compatible, they can build many other things. I liked that, but I am having a hard time getting those two thoughts to join together in my head. Of course you have to think of something to build before the bricks can be formed into your vision. And they are not as compatible as they would have you believe. The studs that do the connecting of the bricks, top to bottom, have weaker clutching power when used with a different brand, but work better with their own brand. The worst, like Best Lock, barely work with themselves. I have ten thousand pieces out in my garage, banished from the attic, in shame. Still the imitators usually are much cheaper than LEGO and that offers low income havin' folk a chance to build. I've always thought someone could sell a building set with pieces of metal and cardboard. So you can build a slum. You get pieces of balsa wood. No piece the same as another. They give you paint, many colors, but never enough to paint any one structure the same color. You get the idea.
During the recent sorting of the toys I found the Winnie the Pooh and Tigger figures. I couldn't remember what they were from. Last week I found the box and most of the bricks from the set. They weren't lost so much as neglected and ignored. I think I built the model on the front of the box. I usually do. At some point I had taken all the pieces and stacked them up by type and somehow or another I had arranged them on the large plates into a sort of city scape. I was into building buildings in those days. Karen liked it, I had no other use for the bricks. so I left it. It stayed like that on a shelf for ages. Then it got packed away in a box. Now I'm debating. Keep, no keep.
Comments