Toys from the 70's... help me remember one

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Blackjack, Aug 16, 2007.


  1. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    My wife and I we're talking about toys we had as children, and I'm trying to come up with the name of one. It was a plastic football player that kicked a plastic football when you hit him on top of the head. There was a basketball one too.




    Some we came up with for your retro pleasure:
    Stretch Armstrong
    Tabletop rod hockey
    Tudor Electric Football
    Green Army Men of course
    Marx Prehistoric Times Playset (plastic dinosaurs and cavemen)
    Spirograph
    Lite Brite
    Rock'em Sock'em Robots
    Evil Knievel Stunt Chopper http://cgi.ebay.com/Evil-Knievel-vi...egoryZ30QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem
    My Favorite... The Strange Change Machine http://cgi.ebay.com/Mattel-Famous-S...goryZ723QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
    The Atari 2600 of course.... I still have one and a couple hundred games.
    Matell hand held LED games... football, hockey, auto racing
    Viewmaster... she had the talking version
    Lincoln logs and tinker toys
    Barrel O' Monkeys
    AFX Slot Car Racing Set (I was WAY into slot cars)
    Marx Rabbit Hunt Dart Gun Set (wind up rabbit ran in circles)



    What we're some of your favorites?
     
  2. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    [winkthumb]Loved that "strange change machine"... along with the "creepy crawlers"
    rubber bug maker( hotplate, molds and bottles of colored "goop".) Seems there always a purple rubber spider with the legs torn off laying around somewhere.[own2]
    Mattels "major matt mason:: bendable astronaut figure ( big around the time of the moon landings '69)....
    "Etch a sketch" ( the first laptop)
     
  3. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    My favorite 1970's toy:
    bomb2.
     
  4. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    Now this looks like a hell of a lot of 70's fun:

    Homemade Flame Thrower

    Mirrored from the Something Awful Forums

    Posted by: RolandTower
    Posted on: Jun 27, 2004 Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry. You should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming $100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn't appeal to you, you're a goddamn pansy. Also, you're probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will. Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will be nowhere near as humorous as mine. For those of you who laugh in the face of hypersonic shards of plastic puncturing your spleen, here's an intimate look at how I've kept myself busy for the past week: building a PVC flamethrower. If you're not interested in the building process, skip to the bottom of the post for the fire.

    My flamethrower has two main parts, a gun/hose assembly, and the tank. I made the gun first:


    <center>[​IMG]</center> It's made entirely of parts you can get at your average hardware store. The hose connects to a stop valve, which connects to a short pipe nipple that's tapped directly into the tank.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> The tank took a while to make, because I let each set of chemical welds dry before doing the next ones. The ends of the tank are two 90° elbows and two 90° street elbows, welded to make two full 180° "U"s. One side of the tank is a 2' length of 4" sch.40 PVC, the other is a 4"x4"x1.5" T with standard pipe attached to each 4" socket.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> Before assembling the parts, I drilled and threaded the two holes I needed in the tank ends: a 1/4" standard pipe hole for the outlet to the hose, and a 1/8" standard pipe hole for the valve that I would use to pressurize the tank. Interesting note: 1/4" and 1/8" pipes have no actual relation to the measurements of distance commonly known as the quarter inch and eighth inch. The holes are actually 7/16" and 11/32" respectively. Hooray for non-metric measurements.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> Next step: cement one end of the tank:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> Then the other:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> After the tank dried, I dredged up an old camping backpack to hold it. I cut a hole in the bottom of the pack and screwed the gun/hose assembly into the base of the tank.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> Finally, I screwed in the Schrader valve (tire valve) to complete the tank:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> Now the whole rig was ready for some pressure testing. Since I would soon be running the distinct risk of giving myself heat-assisted, deep tissue exfoliation, I was extra-careful to make sure there weren't any leaks. I used up a lot of Teflon tape.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> And, after filling the tank with water for a trial run, made sure the cleanout cap was on nice and tight

    <center>[​IMG]</center> before flipping on the air compressor.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> No leaks! At this point, I had quite possibly the world's most kick-ass super-soaker.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> Of course, I didn't go through all that effort for a damn squirt gun. So I added a pilot light in the form of a blow torch.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> Much better! The finished product:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> There was only one thing left. Add some fuel (denatured alcohol; PVC is soluble in gasoline)

    <center>[​IMG]</center> And TURN UP THE MOTHER****ING HEAT. I accidentally set my camera to long exposure, so some of the pics look blurry. It worked out well for capturing the flames, though.

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> And two animations I made from video clips:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center> Two more animations:

    <center>[​IMG]</center> <center>[​IMG]</center>
     
  5. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    You type perty good for a guy with no fingers...
    ohnol
    ...
    We used to soak pool chlorine tablets in gasoline, light them, they burn like a road flare, burned all the adolescent hair and some skin off my shin one day, ( unfortunately I was going through catholic "confirmation" indoctrination and had to go to mass that evening ( kneel; up, kneel; up, kneel; sit..._owwwuuch...gasoline scares me now.)
     
  6. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Erector set
    Hotwheels and Matchbox
    Johnny Lightning
    G.I. Joe
    Pedal cars
    Tonka trucks
    Kerplunk
    Star Wars stuff
    Yo-Yo
    Frisbee

    That's all I can add to the list off the top of my head, some of them might not of come from the 70's but a few I remember having as a child, besides the numerous board games that are still around.
     
  7. Tracy

    Tracy Insatiably Curious Moderator Founding Member

    Wheel-O
    Simon
    Baby Alive (now I have the jingle stuck in my head)
    Slime
    Colorforms
    Shrinky Dinks
    Paper Dolls
    Magic Rocks
    Pet Rock (because once you realized it was dead... ;) )
    Ricochet Racers
    Speak and Spell


    Did you ever get the name of the football guy??
     
  8. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    Nope, it still eludes me..... and man, how could I forget slime!
     
  9. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    I had one of those footbal kicker toys. Came with a plastic "Field" and goal post. But that was in the 60's or maybe very early 70's and I still can't remember the name.
    Thanks Blackjack!
    I was thinking "Blockhead" but IIRC that was the boxers.

    Clydes post reminded me of some videos I have "A Poor Mans James Bond". Kurt Saxon is showing how to make improvised explosives. He has his right hand in his lap and during one shot half way through he raised it up and he only has 3 fingers on it! I don't think I want to learn how to make kitchen explosives from a guy with fingers missing!!!
    That would be like having a shop teacher with a hand missing, or a home-ec teacher with burn scars!
     
  10. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    That was him...... gotta remember the name...driving..me..crazy ;)
     
  11. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    cabbage patch kids
     
  12. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Am I the only one who remembers Stretch Armstrong. Good old Stretch was a favorite Christmas present for my daughter during the 70's
     
  13. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Nope, you are not. Ol' stretch got stretched a mite too far once.
     
  14. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    Wasn't Stretch Armstrong filled with some kinda poisonous goo? or just urban myth?

    And iirc there was another stretch doll, some kinda monster?


    Yep, just googled and look what I found... http://www.stretcharmstrongworld.com/

    It appears there was a limousine for stretch worth about a hundred bucks now, and there was a stretch hulk (14 known to exist worth 10 grand) and
    a stretch batman (2 known worth 15 grand) wow.
     
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