Archives

Carson City : One Cool Cardboard Town

I don’t own any of the Gabriel Lone Ranger series nor did I as a kid but I do have a lot of respect for it. It’s one of the best made toy lines of the 70’s and holds it own. Case in point this Carson City playset, what a quality product this is. I’m […]

AMT Model Catalog from 1975

AMT was a pretty big deal in the mid seventies, they had some terrific car model kits but for those whose tastes ran geekier they had an amzing line of kits based on Star Trek. I can’t tell you how many of these great kits I ruined with my crummy gluemanship and sloppy testors paint […]

More Welcoming Back for Mr Kotter

Seeing as Gabe Kaplan is making news as an author these days it seems cool to revisit the Mattel Welcome Back Kotter dolls. The classroom playset had a record so you could reenact your favourite moments, the Sweathogs motorcycle was a clever recycling of Big Jim’s motor cross bike. Mattel never throws anything out!

1977 True Value Toy Catalog

Today, we go back 30 years (!) to the 1977 True Value Toy Catalog to look at some of the hot items of the day, it was a banner year for toys with memorable items such as Telestar, Stretch Monster, Fuzzy Pumper Barber shop, The Sunshine Family, Pulsar, Charlies Angels and so much more…….Previous True […]

Batteries not Included

Remote Control seemed to come on real strong in the late 70’s, wireless toys became more cost effective I guess. I had the remote controlled R2-D2 (which broke quickly!) and remember desiring Tobor greatly. That Batmobile by Remco would have been killer too.

More Rack Toys at Plaidstallions.com

Two killer updates to the rack toys section at plaidstallions.com, the first being this very rare Filmation Space Sentinels Magnetic Figure. This is one of the only pieces of merchandise I have ever seen for this series. I remember reading about this Ghost Rider set in a heroes world comic back in the day, I […]

Ready Ranger : a whole mess of promises

I’ve always been intrigued by the Ready Ranger pack, in comic ads and catalogues it seems to make a lot of promises. I mean, Power Pack, signal light, compass, weather forecaster, PA and a compass? If that all worked it would be so bad ass. I’ve heard from friends that this was not the case […]

The Adventures of Big Red?

I found this odd toyline in a spiegel’s 1974 Christmas catalogue recently. I was first caught by his resemblance to Dr. Quest but then I started to recognize the pieces. Big Red is actually better known as “Mr. Action,” a G.I. Joe wannabe produced by LJN that we all probably have pieces of in our […]

The Empire is still striking back

Not many movies can still keep selling toys two years after their debut but I guess that’s why Star Wars was such a phenom. The kenner toys were kind of in a state arrested development by this point, next year would see Jedi and tons of new toys but at 13, I found much of […]