What toys capture the 70's?

[MegoNinja]

Hey guys,

I was thinking, what toys exactly capture the 70's in there essence. I am referring to ones that have some what gained cult status, such as
-Bullet Man
-ROM Space Knight
-Six Million Dollar Man
etc
Isn't there like a list of this sort of thing? I would love to have a collection with all of what you could call the 'essentials'.

[Hotfoot]

For me its Star Wars. That was the movie of my Senior Summer before I headed off to College and the grown up world. Unfortunately the toys were release after I had gone to college and I didn't buy them.
Hot Wheels were also one of my favorites.

[MegoNinja]

For me its Star Wars. That was the movie of my Senior Summer before I headed off to College and the grown up world. Unfortunately the toys were release after I had gone to college and I didn't buy them.
Hot Wheels were also one of my favorites.

yeah I think the 3 3/4 vintage Darth Vader is one of the classic 70's toys that cannot be missing from any collection of vintage toys.
Hot Wheels are great as well, I never got many of them as a kid though because they were expensive (weren't they?). I remember having a heap of knock off version of them.

[Bo8a_Fett]

Although Star Wars figures do it for me any toy where the packaging shows kids playing with the toys really sum up the 70's for me. I remember going round mates houses specifically to play certain toys/games as they did when they came round to my house and if you could take a photo of that happening it would fit right on any box for any toy of the time...

[monkey tennis]

In my house it was these...

[Bo8a_Fett]

Ah action man....he was one of the reasons you went round ya mates...there was always one mate with all the vehicles...so it was nearly always playtime round their house...5 or 6 of you...so you could have a really good war...then you stayed for fish fingers and chips and peas for tea....

[darkmonkeygod]

The toys of the 70s are defined by AHI, WGSH, Micronauts, SMDM, Stretch Armstrong and Monster, Evel, and SSP Racers for me. Oddly, G.I. Joe doesn't factor in, as the Super Joes came across as weak WGSH, and the big ones seemed to be in the wrong scale to my 4 to 9 yr old self. Then Star Wars heralded a new era of grand playsets and giant spaceships, and even though I got those first four figures via the early bird pack for '77, they seemed to usher in the 80s, and seem to me know as well. There were only 21 figures by the time Empire ramped up (1980), and the explosion in that next half decade is what makes them feel from then, more as a progenitor to the small Joes.

Today, since I focus on the monsters, the AHI brand - not just their monsters, but all the tchotchkes they produced - really exemplify the off-model, anything goes, pirate-like nature fantasy that I have of the 70s.

[MegoNinja]

yeah the stretch characters are definitely 70's to the extreme, Evil Knievel seems to capture a fair bit of peoples childhood.
I have to agree with you Bo8a_Fett, I really love the artwork of certain boxes, the best ones being kid playing, it adds to the 70's affect with kid's on there because they are often wearing clothing that only plaidstallions.com can provide. I love my Lost Continent box for that reason, it has this kid wearing a red turtle neck sweater. You can't not love it!

[HardyGirl]

Well for me:

Battery operated dolls (hey, I'm a GIRL) including Mego's Dancing Lainie!

Rock Flower dolls

Megos (well, DUH!)

GIJoe Adventure Team

Evel Knievel/Derry Daring

Big Jim

SMDM/Bionic Woman

Charlie's Angels

SSP Racers

Big Wheels

Skateboards

[MegoNinja]

yes, big jim, he is the essence of 70's toys I would say. Bionic Woman and Charlies Angels are great as well, believe it or not I was into Bionic Woman but hated SMDMan when I was a kid. Strange eh?
GI Joe has to be given some credit but really, what age are they from? They started in 1964 didnt they? So arent they toys of the 60's? Their 3 3/4" line are hugely popular too and they are from the 80's, GI Joe is more of an all round kind of thing, whereas thing's like Mego are pretty restricted to the 70's (unless you collect 'old mego' from the 50's etc).

[Delusional B]

Great Question!!

For me the 70's are split between pre-Star Wars and post-Star Wars. Before Star Wars my 70's favorites were:

Evel Knievel - No toy line has EVER been as fun to play with as this line. My first EK toy was the Canyon Sky Cycle for Christmas 1974. What a blast!! I ended up having several cycles and cars over the next 3 or 4 years. The sound these made alone gives me a huge nostalgic feeling for those times. When I rev one up today, it's like music to my ears. To my wife...not so much. It's so annoying to her that she'd like to hit me with a baseball bat.

GiJoe - 12" Joes!! I know many have fond memories of the little guys but the 12" ones were great fun in the early 70's. Some talked and they had great playsets and adventure sets.

Megos - Heroes and Apes. Nuff said. Pure 70's toy bliss!

Shrinky Dinks - Make your own character keychains and necklaces for Mom.

Shaker Makers - Mix up the white chaulky batter. Pour into a character mold. Watch it shrink and turn into a pourous chalk statue. Give it a terrible paint job. Shaker Maker!

Ice Bird -"Ice Bird, Ice Bird, you're such a nice bird. Let's make an Ice Bird treat."

Big Wheels - pre-handbrake era.

Marx Johhny West - practically industructable heroes of the West

Six Million Dollar Man - What a great line of toys!! They didn't have the playability of the Evel Stuff but the features packed in Steve and Maskatron alone made up the difference. I also loved the rocket that folded out into a bionic operating table. I feel sorry for the kids today not having anything like this line. Nothing like a weekly TV show, too, to fuel the fires of kid toy mania. This line and the Evel line are the primary toy lines that remind me of the 70's. They were exclusive to the 70's and didn't carry on into the 80's like many other toy lines of the seventies did. How can a toy line with a Bigfoot figure NOT be cool?

Star Wars - When Star Wars hit, I was already getting a bit old for toys (10) but I did have a blast searching out the first few waves of Star Wars figures. I remember trying to complete my set of the original twelve figures. The hardest two to find were the Sandperson and the Jawa. I remember finding the Sandperson in Tulsa, OK while visiting relatives. My Dad found the Jawa at a Kresges in town while buying birthday presents for my little brother. My brother got a Mego Batman and Robin and a bunch of Micronauts. I finally got my Jawa. It wasn't long after that images of the next wave of Star Wars figures started showing up on cardbacks...which was a bit disappointing and exciting at the same time. It was cool to be getting more figures but it was going to be hassle all over again to find them all. I can still remember the toy aisles at Kresges in 1978...Star Wars, Mego Heroes, Mego Star Trek, Micronauts, cheap non-licensed lightsabers that lit up, Remco monsters, monster model kits, etc. What I wouldn't give to walk around in 1978 for a day and visit a bunch of toy stores.

The Mego Kiss dolls were pretty cool, too. You're favorite Rock Star/Super Heroes on the toy shelf of your local supermarket!

Shogun Warriors - Who ever heard of figures this big?!! They were expensive so it seemed that every kid that had them had only one. My buddy had Mazinga and I had Dragun.

Slime - So simple, so clammy, so hated by my parents.

Kenner 18" Alien - How did this thing ever get made and marketed to kids?! This was a scary looking toy but infinitely cool! I had one in perfect condition but my Dad gave it to a kid who had come over with his Mom while I was away at college. AAAAGH!!!

For my money, the best toys ever were made in the 70's!!!

[MegoNinja]

wow,
that was one hell of a post. I have to agree with almost every one of those points. Shogun Warriors though, I totally missed the boat on that, I never even knew they existed until I started collecting toys, as for the Alien, that is a really cool toy, it is some thing that macfarlane would make, not kenner.
Lol, your description of Shaker Maker sounds hilarious, I wish I had one right now to play with, oh and that Ice Bird!

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I think 12" GI Joe was more a 60's thing... they had the "Action Team" in the ealry 70's, and "Super Joe" by the mid; but I don't think either really caught on. I'd hafta go with Star Wars. The 3.5" figures really summed up the good AND the bad of the 70's.

PERSONALLY I'd hafta go with the Micronauts; my all time favourite toy. You could get all sorts of Japanese robot toys around here in the 70's; and weird alien robots figures a great deal in my mind as a kid.

Don C.

[Delusional B]

Yeah, the 12" Joes started in the sixties but I don't feel that negates the 70-ness of the Adventure Team Joes. Just as the 80s kids can claim the 3 3/4 line as their own, the 70s kids can claim the Adventure Team. Just about every kid I knew back in 73-76 or so had at least one Adventure Team Joe. Many had several. As an adult, I've run into countless people who claim the Adventure Team Joes as their primary 70s toy memory and have little to no interest in the military 60s Joes. Also, since the AT was a re-boot of the GiJoe line...moving away from the military theme and into an adventure one, I feel it's valid to consider them indicative of the 70s. The flocked hair and beards also took them a step away from the Joes of the 60s.

I can see why you would want to label all Joes as 60s toys carried over, but I think most people who weren't aware of their 60s origin and got into each new Joe line in their respective decades might see it differently.

[Surfsup]

For me it was SMDM, Lone Ranger, Fighting Furies, Stretch Armstrong, Evel Kneivel, Palitoy 8 inch figures (POTA, Star Trek, Space 1999 and Super Heroes), Flight Deck, Action Man, Space Hoppers, Slime and Squirmles (I think that's what they were called...the little worm things on wire that wrapped around your fingers, pencils etc).