Which toys from your childhood had the "wow factor" right from the moment you first saw them?

My mom bought me a hotel with a rotating door in the front. I think it was a Holiday Inn, but I am not sure. I loved that play hotel. It had two floors and furniture in the rooms and little play people.

Younger jellies may scratch their heads and go “Is this guy kidding???”, but when I was 9 or 10, my uncle built for me as a birthday gift a puppet stage, the kind in which you could operate marionettes via strings through the top. Complete with curtain, it was big enough for a couple of puppets. In the eons since I’ve gotten a lot of great toys (including countless electronic gadgets) but never anything I treasured more than that stage built out of wood, fabric and uncle-ly love.

My erector set, my chemistry set and my set of leggo blocks. And then there was the enema bag, but playing with it takes us into the NSFW.

I was 13, my little sister was 7 or 8, and someone gave her a Barbie with really pointy breasts….puberty was just hitting…

My phenomenal Winner the Pooh stereo (from the 70’s-which I still have) and my Donnie and Marie action-figures.

Santa brought me a p-51 model that somehow you were supposed to be able to stand in the middle and fly it around in circles. 3 months of construction. 4 circles and Crash! Boom Balsa all over the place! Still have a fascination with that plane though.

My Lincoln Logs were a source of great enjoyment to me, probably because my mother would spend countless hours building structures with me. I really prized all my toys, and beyond the logs, my toy piano and Barbie’s pink convertible were real standouts (at different ages).

When I was really young, my grandad made me a wooden dolls’ house, entirely by hand. It was so tall – it had three storeys! Compared with my height as a young child, it was about this tall. My mum decorated the inside – decorated craft paper for wallpaper, and very thin carpet. I absolutely loved it, and all my friends did too (they were so jealous). When I was about thirteen, I’d stopped playing with it for a long time, but still admired it greatly. My parents decided it was just gathering dust and was too big to just be a piece of nostalgia. Despite my pleas they broke it up and burnt it. :( :(

I loved my toy drum until it was left out in the rain one night and ruined.

@lookingglassx3 What a shame. We built a doll house with pie shaped rooms, a keyhole patio with a tree in it and which rotated, for our daughter. She just gave it away last year to a family with 6 kids. How could I not approve? We were surprised she kept it that long, moving it across the country as she changed residence.

For me it was my bike. It was a total surprise. I was late getting home for lunch and expected a scolding. Instead my dad asked me to get a screwdriver form the garage. When I opened the garage door, there was this bike! I thought, Oh oh, they got me a bike and forgot they put it here. I went back and said I couldn’t find the screwdriver. My dad said, “What!?” I said, “Is it for me?” Turned out they were happy I was late because they were still finishing up putting it together.
That bike gave me freedom from sticking around the neighborhood. I could go anywhere and did.

AMF American Flyer train set. Dad got it for me to keep me out of his Lionel trains.

@ETpro We reeeeally want to know about the enema bag
I always got major toy wood from Hot Wheels sets and Johnny Lightning cars/ sets. I wish I could find all those now.

The Millennium Falcon
Whoa mama

Robot Commando.

Christmas 1961, and I got a 3 foot high robot that had flashing eyes, shot missiles out of its head, and the arms rotated and threw ping-pong balls. Its greatest moment was when we had a babysitter, my older brother and sister had her sit in a chair in a dark room, while the robot entered and then attacked her.

@woodcutter Somebody will have to come up with a NSFW question to talk about those of us who grew up with one hanging in the bathroom. In the South in the 1950s, there was one in my house and all the kids I played with must have been subjected to them too. They were ubiquitous. The country doctors and books on child rearing all said they were to be used whenever a kid missed a single day’s movement.

The Easy Bake Oven allowed me to under-cook little chocolate cakes of pudding-like perfection with a light bulb. Amazing! The microscope was even better as it allowed me to better investigate what will grow in under-cooked little chocolate cakes created with a light bulb . . . After receiving the latter, I grew disenchanted with the former . . .

A radio controlled helicopter!

@ETpro You’re not talking about that weird red rubber thing are you?

@woodcutter Yep. And there was one hanging behind the bathroom door in my house, and all my friend’s places too.

@ETpro Ok this is something I have to know. They were used for two different functions right?

@woodcutter Yes, but judging from the nozzle attached, enemas were public enema number 1 (Or is that number 2?).

But why red?

@woodcutter I have no dies why ed is so preferred. I’ve seen white, pink, blue and black. There are probably other variants out there as well.

This reminds me of that douche bag scene in the movie “Freebie and the Bean”

Remember that one? I think it was a red one then also, I could be wrong.