80's Toys

Let us start with probably the first toy that really hit home to me, 1982's Power lords. These figures were unique in that they were two figures in one. The back had another face and body that faced the other way becoming another character..weird. Now Magic sand apparently is still around, this stuff blew me away and used to come with those sea monkey things that I believe are just plankton shrimp...The Tomy space hopper was from a family of toy vehicles that ran on air pressure, it came with a little pump, these toys always broke very easily...The car went very fast though. Now I know fabuland was just lego for girls but there was one character i liked, this alligator a fairly tough animal who rode a skateboard, i believe i can be excused for this one...Smurfs were fucking everywhere, BP used to sell them for $1.50 with petrol. I am still reminded of smurfs every time I see a BP. Zoids were rad and were for the nerdier of the kids as they needed to be constructed and required instructions, I had a scorpion. in their heads were a tiny little plastic gold man, I think I once lodged one up my nose...Masters of the Universe were my favourite. I like the fact that his name was He-Man. You cant really get any more masculine than that. This Faker character was his imposter, he was rare, not many kids had him. I had Snake Mountain of which i did a rousing speech (show and tell), in the summer of 1985 to a mixed response....Starriors were silmilar to zoids as they had moving parts including blades which protuded from their chest, i discovered them in England as I did many toys, they got heaps of stuff way before Oz...Crossbows and Catapults was a magnificent game and should be used now to settle international disputes. You fired disks at your enemies adjacent castle that crumbled away as it became more damaged. A medieval pleasure, my friends dad used to give us mead to get into the mood...Transformers were quite simply an industrial design marvel. The two featured here, Slag and Cosmos(the inspiration for my first tag) were my favourites...I wish i still had them.There was a send away autobot symbol digital watch that a friend from Hong Kong had that turned me into a bubbling crackpot of jealousy...Thundercats were cool, Mumm Ra's dog came from Singapore airport. Its muffled growls and mutterings of the black arts kept me entertained on the plane trip back home...M.U.S.C.L.E men were bad ass and taking names. They came in a little garbage bin and there were hundreds of the little fuckers, my friend recently found one in his garden from twenty years ago, still in good nick. I had an ultra rare one that looked like a cube. Monsters in my pocket were a rip off and introduced me to shoplifting as they had a big barrel of them open in the foyer of john martins toy department, I used to cram my blazer pockets full of them....Tamiya cars were expensive and something your friends olders brothers had to remind you of how lame your toys were. The Hornet was the fastest, so therefore the best. You had to charge them for 5 hours to get 20 mins of driving time...Rock lords were cool because I think they were trying to make geology fun, when you think about it rocks are fairly boring...Super Naturals were right up my alley as they featured holograms of spooks and wraith like spectres.. Battle beasts were cool as there were so many different kinds and it featured the same heat pad technology that transformers had, where you rub a plate on their chest and a symbol would appear...I think the toys of this era are much better as they usually revolved around robots or barbarians, a beautiful marriage you must agree...