The toys of our Generation X childhood were so much fun! Nothing gets us more nostalgic than thinking about the toys we played with as we grew up. Now a lot of these are collectors' items. I think I had as much fun putting together this page of retro toys as I did playing with them in 1970's and 1980's! Looking at this list now (which keeps growing as I remember more), I realize I was fortunate to have so many great toys. I started with all analog toys, and eventually had digital ones as I got older. I think our creativity begins during those early childhood afternoons among the crayons, chalk, and building blocks.
A sampling of the toys I played with when I was a tot in the late 1970's:
Fisher Price Little People
These little folks lived in my Wolverine brand metal dollhouse, which was furnished with dime store plastic furniture. They hung out in there with small Muppet Show characters, because it's always nice when Muppets can help pay the rent.
Things that resided in my magical toy box in the 70's:
The 1976 red, white and blue Bicentennial View Master that came with an assortment of patriotic 3D reels. |
| Hi Ho Cherry-O |
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| Baby Beans. I loved her. |
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Humorously, every little piece of my Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs would get separated in my toy box like a tiny earthquake had happened. Half-colored Smokey the Bear coloring book pictures would drift around in there, and so would those retro barrettes - just like the pink one in this girl's hair on the box picture. Those little barrettes would get tangled in the string on my paddle ball or yo-yo.
Other random things in that 70's toy box:
Assorted Happy Meal toys, broken crayons, Weebles, wooden blocks, a wind-up Snoopy that walked around, and a tangled slinky. If you reached in that toy box too fast you might cause my 1977 Tomy's Tutor Typer to start click-clacking and dinging.
Things that were added into my toy box in the early 80's when I was in elementary school:
A Rubik's Cube, Speak and Spell, Lite Brite (the colored plastic pegs sometimes got mixed in with the wooden Lincoln Logs), Fashion Plates, Spirograph, Etch-a-Sketch, a Cabbage Patch Kid, My Little Pony, florescent Crayolas.
Toys I admired at other kids' houses: Smurf Collections, Holly Hobby sewing machines, Monchhichis, Merlin and his cousin Skedoodle, Tree Tots, the mini pinball game from Dixie's Diner, Liddle Kiddles and Kiddle Kolognes. I especially had fun with the 1970's metal Tonka Winnebego because my neighbor and I would pull out her Barbies, throw them aside, sit on the little RV and drive it around on sidewalks. That thing was indestructible! 
Recent remakes of the original Gen X Fisher Price toys I have gotten for my daughter: The changeable disk camera, the change-a-tune piano, the chalkboard desk, the movie viewer, the music box record player. Mini versions of Gen X toys that Hallmark put in their stores a few years ago around the holidays as ornaments and I wish they'd bring back: A mini Simon, a mini Little Tikes sandbox, and a few others...
We got the mini Fisher Price school bus ornament, complete with a panda in the back seat.
1) The 1983 Easy Bake oven! The goal was to not eat the cake batter before baking. The goal was not often reached.
2) The Snoopy Snow Cone Maker! Turning ice into snow, shoveling it into little paper cups and drizzling on some cherry-flavored goodness...have this with a treat you just made with your Easy Bake Oven and you might experience happiness on levels you almost can't even handle!
Toys I admired from across my first grade classroom when it was raining during recess and we could take toys out of our backpacks we had brought from home: All things Star Wars. All things Transformers. Matchbox cars - especially ones that were a bit scraped up, like they had experienced life in the real world.... (c) 2011-2020
