Batteries Not Included

 

I was poking about the Internet Archive site in the Classic TV section and I found a few toy commercials. Burried in those few was this compilation called Batteries Not Included. It's 58 minutes of pretty entertaining commercials put together by Jon Behrens. As someone old enough to remember some of those toys, I thought it was a nice flash back to the past. I had some G I Joe's back in the day when they were huge 11 inch dolls. Dolls with flame throwers and hand grenades. We didn't swear so much back then but we liked our army men. Good for adventures. I did not have that Mattel Sonic Blaster but I knew a guy who did. I don't think he killed anyone with it. They took it off the market because it was loud and kids perforated their ear drums.

   
As a boy, I didn't have any Barbie dolls, not even to play hooker to the G I Joe's. Sad for those Joe's, huh? We didn't have any VD either, so I guess it's a trade off. What's really sad was the Stony Smith - Battling Soldier from Marx. He couldn't even take his uniform off. Molded right on. Shower with your boots on, that's some man's dream. It's a Sick Sad World! That reminds me. Daria - The Complete Series is due on dvd May 11. All five season's and both movies for 47 bucks on Amazon right now.

 
I did have a lot of Milton Bradley games. My mom usually gave my brother and I a game each Christmas. She started us on simple counting games and gradually we came to like the money driven games that were so popular in the 60's and 70's. At least they were popular in our house.

 
 

Monopoly is the one people usually played. We had that, and played it alot, as well as Dealer's Choice, Masterpiece, some I cannot remember the names of, and one of our favorites, Stock Ticker. Too bad I can't remember more of the titles.  Perhaps I'll stumble onto them one day while cruising about the internet. It could happen.

  
My old pal Mike actually had the Stock Ticker game. It was a game that needed a few players. Mike also had a Girder and Panel building set. Make modern looking office type buildings with girders and beams, then attach the decorated panels to finish the facade. That was back in the 60's.Read more about the building system on Wikipedia. Here's a few random pictures of early sets.

 
 
I don't know which set Mike had, neither of these boxes looks familiar. The facade panels in the picture on the right look more familiar than the panels in the picture on the left. Now a days I would think those are some poorly choosen colors for a building but as a kid I didn't feel that way. The panels on the left picture look better, more of a uniform theme to the color scheme. It might be fun to have one of these sets to build but if I got one it would go into storage after a quick looksee and I'd never get back to it. Sometimes a picture is better.

Comments

[Max]

I loved those! I was pleased as punch when my friend gave his old set. I still find a piece when looking through old boxs of "junk". I kinda wish they still made them.