PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

100 Greatest Toys with Jonathan Ross 2010

There's a watchable copy of the three part mini-series 100 Greatest Toys with Jonathan Ross. It originally aired in 2010 and all three episodes are packed together on YouTube in one 2.5 hour video. The British public ranked the shows in order of popularity. There's a mix of old and new going back to the era when I was a kid. I won't tell you what #1 is but I bet you can guess.

Imagination and Colorforms

I saw a mention on Boing Boing of an article at Collector's Weekly by Ben Marks. The article is about Colorforms. You might have had some as a kid, I know I did. I even had some as an younger adult and there might be a set or two in the attic or the garage. It isn't a toy that I am much interested in today but I enjoy reading about toys in general so I read the article. What was interesting to me was Ben's comments on children's imagination. Here's the opening two paragraphs.

One of the most cherished myths about children is that they possess incredible imaginations. Put a child on the floor in front of a pile of blocks, this magical thinking goes, and she will assemble veritable Roman Aqueducts and Towers of Babel, making the efforts of most adults look, well, like child’s play.

In fact, psychologists have long known that the imaginations of children are actually kind of lame. That’s because most little kids are unfettered by the rules and conventions of life that the culture at large relentlessly pushes them to embrace. Adolescents are somewhat better in the imagination department because they have more life experiences to draw from, but the real kings and queens of make-believe are adults. Think about it: Children pretend broom handles are horses and throw tea parties for their dolls; adults sit down and write “Game of Thrones.”

This helps validate what I have long believed about children and their imaginations. The article I posted the other day about the 1981 LEGO ads with the cute little redhaired girl seems to support this thought. If you go look at the ads you'll see the younger kids have created stacks of blocks which they believe to be something and the older kids make models that look more like the object they are making. I hear from a lot of adults that their kids or grandkids are really imaginative when it comes to playing with LEGO but when you actually see what they make it's pretty lame. When you observe the kids free building at the LEGO store they mostly just stack blocks up and knock them down. Once they get into their early teens the ones that work at it can be really quite creative.

But when it comes to making really cool LEGO creations it's the adults that have the ability to really make something that knocks your socks off. It's not just because they have the cash to have a large collection of parts either, it's their knowledge base and experience that really help. They can stick to a project longer than a child and they can imagine better what the end result will be.

The article in the "long known" link above talks more about imagination and while it is dry there were some pretty interesting bits and pieces though out. It might not be worth a read for everyone but Collector's Weekly has a good variety of interesting articles that were worth looking over. There's a nice bit of variety so I'm guessing that you'd find something that interested you.

Nerfman

I used to have a Nerfman, back in the 1980's. I found this picture and it made me laugh. I like the intense eyes. He really did fly fairly well. Eventually the stickers fell off but he still flew. I wouldn't want one now but I like having the picture.

Meccano Tintin - 4x4

While I was looking around for more info and pictures on the Tintin nanoblocks sets I found that Meccano has a series of three sets that are based on vehicles from the recent Tintin movie. The jeep set has 270+ parts and costs about 50 bucks. I had some Meccano (Erector in some countries) when I was a kid but I never became a fan. There's just too many nuts and bolts to put together for me. I also feel that you can't quite create something that is elegant with Meccano. It looks patchwork and clunky with all the bolts sticking out of every surface. There's only a minimal amount of detail. Not something I can appreciate I guess. I do like the gas can.

McDonalds Ad from Netherlands comics again

 

I really enjoyed these McDonald's ads. Much more than the food. 

Toy Ads From Netherlands Comics

I think the only 'Win' going on here is me finding that ad for Super Dickmann's. I can only assume that they are little chocolate covered cakes. I wonder what name they would replace Super Dickmann's with here in the USA?  I always enjoy ads where the product is encouraging you to eat it. Perhaps I anthropomorphize my food too much but he seems like a traitor to his kind? I'm not a K'nex fan by any stretch of the imagination but some of these ads look interesting. I never felt that they gave me the kind of model building experience that I wanted so I gave them a miss. Same with building LEGO Technic. Just doesn't give me a model I appreciate, I use Technic parts with System brick and that's fine, but I wouldn't buy or build any of the sets that are out there.

Again, Super Dickmann's, pop 'em in your mouth.

 

   

MCDonalds Ads from Netherlands Comics circa 1985

   

  

Here's some McDonalds ads from Danish comics 1980's and 1990's. I thought some of them were kind of amusing.

Toy ads from Netherlands Comic books of the 1980's

  

I got a bunch of ads from the Danish Donald Duck comic series. They are from random issues in the 1980's. I was interesting because some were LEGO ads. These are all toy ads that I thought had odd art or goofy toys or were of some other interest to me. Odd art in the HeMan ad. Not a cartoon or toy that I was a fan of. I understand there are people who love these guys. Same for Construx, not a toy that I thought much about. Thought the space ad was marginally interesting. The Power Monsters have claws on their wheels. That's just goofy. I bet the kids liked it.

 

I don't remember the Playmobile space sets. I could have missed it or they were only out in Europe. I never bought any Playmobile but I've always liked their nice figures and colorful playsets. The train looks nice too.

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.

7595 Army Men On Patrol

 

I've picked up a couple of these guys since they came out. I'm not building an Army but I'm sure that many will. They were limiting them to 5 per person at the LEGO Imagination Center. I'm just adding a few good parts to my building stock. There are a lot of parts you don't normally find in green, like all the accessories and those guys heads. I like the minifigs bases too. Might be good for Micropolis landscaping.