King Normans Toy Blog is your source of information about 70's and 80's toys. We try to cover complete lines of toys rather than individual toys. It's our hope to share with you the toy's from our childhood.
Spirograph is a toy I have pretty mixed emotions about. It was cool really cool and it game kids a nice introduction into art and drawing. But it automated the process to that you really developed no skill. It's almost art for the talentless math nerd. Its fun and sort of fractal but you really are not going to gain any skills with this.
I really didn't have any art training other than the mild art projects that were part of school. I took drafting in my freshman year rather than actual art. which is more like the high end of the spirograph technique.
The one thing I did go to religiously was a KTEH channel 54 show called "The Secret City Drawing Club with Commander Mark." This was one of the best drawing shows that a kid could watch. It was fun and had this on going mural that was awesome. There were loads of terms and techniques that were demonstrated and host make it all very easy to follow. I think any kid wanting to get into art should check it out and to make it easy here is a youtube video for you to check out. Yes it is an awesome mustachio my friend, yes it is.
This was one of the goofier toys I had as a kid. I am not sure how I ended up with it really. I know I was into Dungeons and Dragons and even had some of the figures that a present in this set but I really didn't know what to do with this thing. I hope I didn't beg for it, because it didn't get much use once I got it home. Sure i played with it but it wasn't a go to toy by any means.
ColorForms had a wide variety of sets for all sorts of things and basically were repeatable stickers that you would use to make some scene. The "Stickers" were vinyl and would stick with a gentle moistening of the display board. In this case a dragons treasure horde in dungeon. You had many of the characters from the D&D LJN action figure line present. Warduke, Strongheart, Melf, both wizards and the cleric even the troll was there. The problem was what if you got it to the point where you liked it, the "Stickers" eventually dried and feel off. For me colorforms were just sort of a bad concept but if you liked them more power to you.
I am not sure when I got this one. I was a fan of the smaller GI Joe stuff that came out in the early 80's. I guess the change in size made them seem like they were my own. They were not like Micronauts which my older cousin was into first, or even the big version of the Gi Joe. It was something that was brand new for me and I was getting into it on the ground floor. I don't know why that appealed to me so much. Star War I had gotten into late but being the first on the block to get Gi Joe made me feel like these were the toys I should be into. I guess I was being sort of like Cartman I got to have the toys first, well for a week then everyone had them and often better ones. I got the mortor soilder first which was cool but not the best of the group.
This was one of the vehicle toys that came out a few months later after the figures were established. It was sort of a trailer with missiles that could be pulled by the tank or jeep. I guess it was cool I mean what is going to sand up to freaking missile but it seemed like a bit of overkill considering Cobra only had three guys at the time.
I think I was most impress that the figure Hawk it came with was the commander. I somehow decided he was the top guy in charge of Gi Joe. I don't know if that was wrong or right but I had to have this because of it. I am sure I make my parents lives hell because of it.
I can't remember if this came for my birthday or Christmas. They are only a month apart so they sort of workout to pretty much be the same. I sort of liked Spider-Man because my older cousin was into him and comics. I really had no other interest in superheroes other then when my cousin had the mego dolls. I personally only can related to Daredevil because he is handicapped and after that terrible movie not even then.
I remember getting a bunch of slot cars stuff over the years, not that I was really into them. I have since learned that my Dad was a big fan of slot cars as a teenager and was reliving his youth through picking up slot car toys for me. I can remember this one being on that I liked. It was a fixed track that sat in a box you just took off the cover, plugged in the controllers and raced. That was nice and easy for me. It was pretty cool there were weird bits of fly paper on the track and points where you could bump. The game lost its luster as the card board bits wore out. I clearly remember the lizard bending and early on, and being forced to remove him. The spider tunnel went next.
All in all I would say it was a great introductory slot car toy. I still think the cars look cool though I have never heard of Spider Man having an enemy called the fly. Maybe that was just too easy. Aurora is still around though a much smaller player. They seem to focus on retro copies of their models. Sort of a shame they were pretty cool and Toy's R Us wasn't as cool when I wandered through over the weekend.
Continuing my lead up to Christmas, here is another present I got back when I was a kid. I was spoiled being a sickly only child. This one was from my Gramma. Its the Death Star Space Station from the good folks at Kenner. It was cool if a pain to get out and put away.
It gives you the option to play several scenes from the movie all crammed into a kid friend play space. You have the trash compactor, retracting bridge, tower that Obi Wan shut off the power and so much more. No figures included those you have to provide on your own.
I remember there being two problems with this thing. The middle two sections have you inserting a cardboard wall which quickly got into bad shape and was eventually unusable. The trash compactor was another bit of poor design. You have foam bits that constantly were getting lost so the compression of figures never would force the doors open after a point.
All in all it was pretty fun but sort of wanting when compared to the space ships or land speeders that everyone had. It was better than the early cardboard only playsets like the Gi Joe cobra missile command base but still a little lacking considering the price. I remember this thing costing a bit but I don't remember the exact number
One of my favorite toys of yesteryear was the Micronauts Star Searcher. Micronauts were sort of weird toys as they came from Japan and felt like several lines of toys all thrown together. This one fit in with the see through Time Traveller Micronauts and their little vehicles. They all had parts that could connect together in some fashion and work to build new never through of toys. I always liked that, it allowed you to use your imagination and was cool for those of us without legos. This one was great as it was almost more of a building platform than a vehicle itself. It has all sorts of components from a gun to a crane to a cockpit.
These toys really provided hours of fun with all you could do with them. I wish they would redo the micronauts and make sure to keep in the building aspects of the toys. But with Mego gone I really don't see that happening. Any way a great toy from my youth. The image comes from the good folks at Final Frontier Toys.
Here is a toy I dug out of the closet over the weekend. I was actually surprised I still had it. It was something of an odd ball toy for me , i was a bit young for an RC toy when I got it. I don't really know if this was something really appreciated at the time. But here it is in all it's Cylon glory. There was a lot of interest in Battlestar at the time as they had a big flap over the toys shooting missiles down kids throats. I only ever had the lame slightly pop out missile versions of the toys and this thing. In looking at the toy there are some marks in the bottom corner that look like Toy's R Us style text. I am not sure but the toy may have originated at one of their stores.
Popping open the much battered box here is the carton with controller and the actual space ship. you have pretty long RC wire antennas on both. You sort of have to feat them back into the box every time you want to put it back. I remember a Styrofoam cover square but that appears to be long gone.
Here is the remote with an idea of scale its not massive, i have short fingers and big hands. its pretty old school push the button and steer via the wheel. I remember this thing was not very tough and would only really work on the linoleum and hard wood portions of my parents house back on Fallwood.
Here is the Cylon itself with both top and bottom shots. You can see some of my Atari collection looming in the background. Having not been a go to toy for me I think its in pretty decent shape. I am not sure the thing actually works though. I sort of thing it does not but I could be wrong. It's sat for year and years so is missing a battery cover on the controller.
Pressman toys saddens the fuck out of me. I am looking at their web side and all i see are goofy games that seem to be targeted at the drug store family game section. This is not the company that released the Witch Doctor Headshrinkers Kit or the Dick Smith Monster Make-up Kit. How can a company go from the coolest crap around to the lames game in town.
The headshrinkers kit is something I would be thrilled to use every halloween and am a little sad I missed out on as a kit. It was before my time, you ever say you wished this toy was out during your childhood for an older toy? New awesome toys sure, yes; but an old toy that doesn't happen.
The Witch doctors headshrinkers kit was some thing that allowed you to make and paint up heads that would really shrink. WTF that is so cool, I want it now. I could paint up my own shrunken head custom? Of Myself? Take my money!
The Dick Smith stuff of the 70's was a holy grail level toy for my friends. In my mind this stuff was like seventy bucks or so for the set. Having seen the prices it clearly wasn't this bad but for kids living in the crappier area of San Jose it was pretty much the same. So out of the question our parents would have kicked our ass for asking.
But where are you going to get your own monster make up kit. We thought this was the stuff from spy movies or the John Waite's video that you peel off your face after completely impersonating someone else as kids. It was the stuff of legend. But made real like the banned hoover board, but this shit somehow remained on the shelves.
The Omni Entertainment System is a bit of a wonder to me. It is a multi player quiz game that is run off an 8 track tape. This confounds me as I can't really think of a way an 8 track could work as a tape drive.
The basic game is pretty similar to the multi player version of the Quiz Wiz. It allows four players at answer various questions, you are presented with a series of buttons to answer the questions. The difference here is you were not reading from a book but rather the tape provided pre-recorded questions from a host. Some of the hosts were the quiz show masters of the day and even Vincent Price shows up on one. There were only a few different tapes available for the Omni, and it appears that the original launch series is it, no second series.
The odd thing about the game is those 8 tracks. If you know how an 8 track works, its a single spool that uptakes while it unwinds. This is opposed by a cassette tape which had two reels or even a 9 track tape drive. The difference functionally is that the 8 tracks don't allow rewind but rather just play forward. Basically this made them an infinite forward loop. I am not sure this could work in a tape drive. There is the other option that the tapes were just to play the questions and that the device was pre-programmed for each quiz. This would have made the device not compatible with expansions. I am not sure if this or the dependence on the 8 track was the cause of the product not launching subsequent releases.
Really as a game it's sort of ahead of its time. This would probably make a fantastic iPhone application. Allowing people to answer each from their own device. As I have mentioned in my Quiz Wiz review, I could even allow players to each have their own questions. Sorry that is sort of my dream quiz game where everyone has their own area of expertize.
The 8 tracks as I know them are the original launch titles
Words Words Words
Music Music Music
Jeopardy
Password +Plus
For the Fun of It
Sesame Street
TV Trivia
Movie Trivia
Baseball Quiz
Football Quiz
Sports Quiz
ReAction Quiz
And a Variety 8 Track that came bundled with the toy itesel
Pressman toys saddens the fuck out of me. I am looking at their web side and all i see are goofy games that seem to be targeted at the drug store family game section. This is not the company that released the Witch Doctor Headshrinkers Kit or the Dick Smith Monster Make-up Kit. How can a company go from the coolest crap around to the lames game in town.
The headshrinkers kit is something I would be thrilled to use every halloween and am a little sad I missed out on as a kit. It was before my time, you ever say you wished this toy was out during your childhood for an older toy? New awesome toys sure, yes; but an old toy that doesn't happen.
The Witch doctors headshrinkers kit was some thing that allowed you to make and paint up heads that would really shrink. WTF that is so cool, I want it now. I could paint up my own shrunken head custom? Of Myself? Take my money!
The Dick Smith stuff of the 70's was a holy grail level toy for my friends. In my mind this stuff was like seventy bucks or so for the set. Having seen the prices it clearly wasn't this bad but for kids living in the crappier area of San Jose it was pretty much the same. So out of the question our parents would have kicked our ass for asking.
But where are you going to get your own monster make up kit. We thought this was the stuff from spy movies or the John Waite's video that you peel off your face after completely impersonating someone else as kids. It was the stuff of legend. But made real like the banned hoover board, but this shit somehow remained on the shelves.
Quiz Wiz was a "toy" that your grand parents would have bought for you. Sort of cool for the time considering it was a semi hand held that basically had cartridges but also lame in that it was a learning toy. Also the no screen made it sort of a problematic toy to use. The idea behind it was get the computer and purchase extra quiz books. The computer would plug into the books sort of reversing the standard console set up. Each book had a topic which it would quiz you on. The original version of the toy was produced by Coleco, though the rework that came out in the late nineties was by Tiger.
I was not aware of variations of the product at the time but apparently there was a four play game version of the Coleco Quiz Wiz and a Star Wars version of the Tiger updated computer.
I am not really sure of the game play of the four player version. I don't know if it allows you to play from a single or multiple quiz books. From the picture that I snagged off eBay it looks like it used a single book for the questions. That is sort of lame I have long thought a trivia game where players each brought topics to the table would make for fun. It would make it so everyone had some topic they knew well. I guess I will have to work on that idea for another post. I have used the basic idea for a music party game I created.
As you can see the updated tiger version is a little different I am not sure how it work with the books from the original. It almost looks like it would not accept the old books but perhaps the old computer would accept the new.
The folks over at hand held museum have a listing with the original books or carts whatever you like to call them
Cartridge list:
1. 1001 Questions
2. The World of Sports
3. Movies and TV
4. People & Places
5. Trivia
6. Music & Books
7. Math Mania
8. The Book of Lists
9. Greatest Sports Legends
10. Super Heroes
11. Disaster! When Nature Strikes Back
12. The Ocean- Mankind's Last Frontier
13. Energy- The Fuel of Life
14. How Things Work- Aerosols to Zippers
15. NBA Teams
16. NFLPA
17. MLB
18. Guiness Book of World Records
19. The People's Almanac #1 & #2
20. Sherlock Holmes & Other Famous Mysteries
21. Greatest Sports Legends- Volume II
22. Monsters, Vampires, Witches and Ghosts
23. Words- Used, Misused and Confused
24. Super Trivia- Movies and TV
25. Rock 'N Roll- Doo Wop to Disco
26. The Bible- The Old and New Testaments
27. Soap Opera Digest
28. Ripley's Believe it or Not
29. Celebrity Trivia
30. Fascinating Facts about Animals
Per eBay i have seen that the newer line some different
1. General Knowledge
4. Greatest Sports legends
5. Ripley's Believe it or Not
6. Famous People
8. All About Science
10. Rock and Roll
11. MLB players
12. Amazing Video Games
14. Computers and games
15. Travel and Language
18. TV Trivia
16. World Records
22. Dinosaurs
24. Where in the World
25. Music
30. Monster Mania
33. Movie Trivia II
36. Great Americans
37. The World Championship Games
40. Box Office
41. Heroes and Villains
43. Automobiles
44. Soap Operas
45. Music Video
46. Congo The Movie
47. World book encyclopedia Animals
49. Teams of the NFL
50. Quotes and Quotable
51. World Book encyclopedia People
54. Computers and Video Games
55. Facts about the Earth
56. American History
57. Mythology
58. Sports Stars of the 90's
59. Pro Sports
60. Fats, Events and People of the '90s
There are some more like the magic school bus - flying things but i have no idea on the number from that. I am finishing out with the Star Wars version. Thanks to Sci Fi Blog for the pic
The folks over at plastic fetish give us the inspiration for today's toy posting. Einstein was Simon for the pic n' save set by way of castle electronics. It was pretty fun and was a solid enough alternative to Simon that no one would make fun of it. Simon seemed a little more portable but this wasn't a piece of crap that you felt a waste of money.
This toy, just like Simon is an electronic memory game. The object is to push button in the same pattern that Simon spits out. It comes faster and faster and continues to create increasingly longer patterns for you to match. The Simon toy is still available today in a backpack clip form.
At the time there were a variety of Simon Clones like the Einstein. Atari had the touch me, Parker brothers had the cooler looking Merlin and there was something called Milton from another toy company.
The Simon line continued to spawn no versions as well. We had the Super Simon with eight buttons, A Star Wars Simon with an xwing, Simon2 (read that as squared). There was something called Simon Sticks that I have no idea what they are and the Simon trickster and flash.
The original Simon was invented by Ralph Baer, who you will know as one of the fathers of video gaming. He was the inventor of the Odyssey one.
As you can see the Merlin looked like some sort of cool submarine
control, like you were going to dial in a torpedo attack on a German
U-boat. They changed the buttons to have numbers later on in the toys
lifeline. I think its cooler without them though. Thanks to tawnya marie at blogspot for the picture.
The Star wars version looks like another abomination from the phantom menace era of marketation. Exploitation and Marketing all rolled into a fan boy cash grab of epic levels.
Being a boy growing up in the early eighties its pretty safe to assume star wars was a big part of my youth. I had loads of figures along with the x wing and other stuff. I enjoyed it but got out of star wars around the time the smaller line of GI Joe came out. While I enjoyed star wars still, GI Joe was something I really ran with. Perhaps it was the increase in figure articulation or ninjas; both were are really cool. One of the Star Wars toys I continued to play with was the Droid Factory. That was something that really captured my imagination.
There Star Wars droid factory was basically a play set for the jawas at least in theory. It was actually a fun robot construction toy. You could build several robot or droids including R2 D2, though I never really did. I liked making my own weird droid creations and seeing how strange I could get. It was really a really a well put together toy for the time. Everything had a spot and most things plugged right in. There was very little mess which my mom liked and I could take it anywhere in the house which I liked.
You can see just how nice and neat everything packed away with this photo. Yes the orange tubing was the first thing I lost. I decided I wanted to cut it to make my own custom lengths that would fit my droids. That was a mistake. The picture is lifted from this IGN article that list several other Star Wars playsets. I actually had the Death Star Space Station set as well. It was pretty fun after you got it out of the box and built. The trash compactor was fun but you quickly lost foam blocks.
As a Kid I had plenty of toys, but one of the toys I liked that I never got was the Marx Magic Shot. This was one of those toys that I never really asked for but just admired from afar. One of those things you somehow know will get boring but still enjoy when playing at a friends house.
The toy was a pretty neat idea, basically a plastic box with a few targets inside. Ball bearings would rolling around trapped inside the box which you would shake to the front and trap in a series of holding grooves. Once set up like this you would use the little magnet gun to draw the buck shot up and then press the trigger to shoot.
I only played with these a few times and never got enough time to check them out to figure out how the shooting works. I mean it cant be magnetic or we would have rail gun tech going on right now. I guess it has to be some sort of spring but that seems like it would fuck up the plastic face plate pretty quickly.
There were a few other toys with similar designs at the time. The Electro Shot Shooting gallery I think was also by Marks, or Ideal. I was checking a sight called Sam's toy box and Saw something called Midway shooting gallery that is, well lame. You can check out Sam's description it sounds terrible. There is a recent attempt at this sort of thing called the Executive Shooting gallery which can be picked up here. I think the Magic shot is probably the best of the bunch or maybe the Electro just because its design lends itself to shooting rapid fire.
I was trying tell someone about a series of Halloween costumes from my childhood. They didn't remember or get what I was trying explain so I decided to track it down on the Internet. The costume in question was something called Kooky Spooks which got a lot of people confused with a line of toys called Kooky Spookys. One was a terrible line of inflatable head Halloween costumes and the other a series of ghost figures. The later are almost cute and the former were for lame wads.
The Kooky Spooks were a series of costumes that included an inflatable plastic head and make up to paint your own face. It's sort of a goofy idea you have a plastic head on top of your own head. Its not even a mask just an extra head. This was back in the days when most costumes were a vinyl smock and a plastic mask that came out of box. The good ones looked basically like the character you were trying to be, the bad ones had that character printed on the front along with their name. So Chachi or something like that. I remember the TG&Y people getting made at me for opening up the little boxes to see if the smock was cool or not. So the inflated head thing isn't totally out of the scope of reason for the time.
The Kooky Spooks had five or six variations. One seemed to be a green pointy nosed woblin goblin, another a black cat and scarred cat. There was a pumpkin, a goofy looking witch, a weird alien called spacey casey, some sort of red devil that looked to be sitting on your head. And finally a skull with a candle on it that actually looked sort of cool. Well cool except for the smock thing that had all their pictures on it. Lame! I am going to put the year on these things around 1980.
The Kooky Spookys were a line of little ghost toys from Hasbro, that came out in 1968. They were cute if a little contrived as they were presented as hippys. The toys glowed in the dark which was fun they needed this as they were more figurines than toys. They had names like Teena Terror, Big Brother Mortimer and Daddy Booregard. You will see some in this little flyer, I think this is the first series there appears to have been more or there were many items for each figure to hold and be posed with.
Someone who blogs under the name have phaser will travel has actually done some of his own custom Kooky Spooks that you can see here. I think they are pretty nice and get the feel of the original toys right though they seem to have taken a bit of a turn away from the hippy flavor of Teena Terror and Momma Kaskit.
There was apparently a mail away haunted house for the figurines as well. It was not really anything other than a cardboard display with punch out windows for each of the six figures. I am calling the figures but someone has mentioned they were intended as finger puppets. Thanks go out to the enchanted world of rankin bass for this info.
The Laffun head from the 70's was a weird novelty that seem to show up in all my dad's relatives house. For a long time I thought they were some sort of German folk art like that Cuckoo clock, as if they were something my family brought back from the fatherland. You have to understand they were usually in a long time smokers house or up on a wall with at least fifteen clocks. They were never dusted and sort of looked crusty to begin with. They looked more wooden than plastic in my great uncles clockwork man cave.
Funnier still was that everyone seemed to think they were the only one that had them and that they were hilarious. I can't tell you who many of my dad's uncles and cousins insisted I shoot myself in the face with water by pulling the little tie. I was just grateful if they forgot to fill the water bowl so I didn't get wet.
My friend picked up one recently and got it working again. He said the first time it played the laugh it sounds like something out of hell, but after it getting the dust out it started sounding mostly normal. These things are battery powers but mostly mechanical on the inside. They have a water bowl that you need to keep filled for the squirting to work.
Basically you pull down the tie and they open their eyes and squirt water at you then begin laffun. This is pretty low humor I think there is a larger application of it in Austrian Hellbrunn palace. As you can see there are a variety of figures from Santa to a Wizard. I think the hobo was the most common. They had a new edition by Jobar in the 80's with a bit different head design.
I wanted to take a little time to talk about one of best toys of my youth, the Tomy Mighty Man and Monster Maker. This was a fantastic art toy that created comic bock super heroes and monsters for you to color. You could pick and choose the head, torso and legs to make all sorts of creations. I probably could do the math on the combinations, but some of the plates were textural for hair and stuff which would mess up my count. But lots how about that.
The toys of the time , the late 70's/ early 80's were going through a shift in packaging. Toy's of the 50's and 60's often were identified by maker as they were all making toy guns and dolls. In the later 60's and onwards toys became much more branded as is the case with the monster maker. There was also a girls version of the toy called fashion plates, which was not compatible. As a boy I was really not even aware of the Fashion Plates toy. I am saying that to illustrate the branded single toy concept. This started changing In the later 70's when lines of toys started becoming the norm. Thinks of toys like Rom or Sucker Man they are the toy with nothing else. Then look at the micronauts when what a whole line that basically worked with each other. The toys we see today are even greater expressions of the line of toys with video games, toys, movies even coloring books. I am mentioning this change because it eventually pushed Tomy to create other plate drawing sets and the release of many competitors.
For us boys The Mighty Man and Monster was the go to art toy. It was great It had wolf man and lizard man bodes along with super heroes and all sorts of junk. You could set up the head torso and leg bits, put down and piece of paper and rub the image with a crayon to get a nice newly made coloring sheet to play with.
For girls the Fashion plates toy was the same but with fashion related figure and square piece rather than the monster makers trapezoidal bits. Apparently this line was expanded a bit in the 90's Introducing a newer version of the Fashion Plates, a New Kids on the Block Fashion Plates toy and something called Fashion Faces, which was more of a head shot creator.
After the success of the two toys the maker Tomy produced a couple of lesser known sets. These being the Fashion Plates travel set and the Little Van Goes sets. I had the Van Goes toy I think we got it at Pic N' Save in Milpitas, CA. This says it may not have been the success Tomy intended as mostly unselling toys went here. This set was a small box that had a drawer to hide the plates and rubbing tool. The plates were vans and dragsters from what i remember. A very similar idea
Actually an Ebay search turned up a few for Cabbage Patch kids, Polly Pocket and The lion King. Even some knock off products like Fashion Designer, the same idea just more grocery store toy section quality. Even Gi Joe got into the act with Trace Plates. The trace plates line include toys for Batman, Jurassic Park, Dinosaurs and WWF. <- The wrestling not the animals. Though a picture of Hack Saw Jim Duggan giving a panda a flying arm bar is pretty bad ass.
Hi, I want to welcome you to my new project King Norman's Toys Blog. You may know me from my original blog Crescent Star. I have written a couple of Toy related posts that just feel out of place on Crescent Star which is focused on writing. After some thought I have decided to test the waters of a second blog. My hope is to work on this with a few other people so we will see what happens.
As you can see from the photo the inspiration for the name King Norman's comes from the best toy store ever to grace the Eastridge Mall. That would be King Norman's. They were the best toy shop with all sorts of crazy stuff from the Pressman toys "Dick Smith Monster Make up Kit" to Bristle Blocks. I am grateful for Plaidstallions having a picture of the old place, I haven't seen it in years but it all comes quickly back.
I will be moving some posts over from time to time and working on new ones as well, thank you for visiting.
