Spin off of the Yo-Yo thread.... Toy Fads

[Basher67]

"Gobots were ghetto transformers"?-----How dare you sir!
I remember going to Kay bee toys in the mall and getting discounted gobots and super gobots. The best was the power suits. The standard size gobots would fit in the power suits and the power suits would all connect to this spaceship and make a monster size gobot. Sort of like Voltron. It was awesome.

[Basher67]

I seem to remember the lane changers, but the coolest track I ever had was the tyco track that had the ability to spin out and go the opposite direction on the track. I think it was the cars that made this possible. I don't remember the track being different from the other tyco track, except for the slideout sections where there was normally just fencing around a corner. One car was a cop car with working lights and I can't remember what the other car was. No good for racing, but pretty cool just for playing with.

[tamiyadan]

.

[Coelacanth]

I seem to remember the lane changers, but the coolest track I ever had was the tyco track that had the ability to spin out and go the opposite direction on the track. I think it was the cars that made this possible. I don't remember the track being different from the other tyco track, except for the slideout sections where there was normally just fencing around a corner. One car was a cop car with working lights and I can't remember what the other car was. No good for racing, but pretty cool just for playing with.

That's definitely the car itself that does the reversing; I have a few AFX cars that will run forward in either direction on the track. I thought they might be G-Plus cars but I could be wrong, as I have G-Plus cars that I don't think will run forward in the opposite direction...but they're definitely AFX car chassis' that fit AFX car bodies. The motors look like G-Plus motors.

[Basher67]

They were fun but they sucked if you were racing. Like Tamiyadan said, they were designed to let the rear slide around easy. Plus they were heavy and slow. When my buddies would come over to race, I would always run one of my tyco 440 cars.

[Coelacanth]

I personally find the old Magnatraction cars the most fun...the G-Plus cars stick too well and go ridiculously fast, there's not much strategy in driving those. (When slot cars started climbing walls and doing loop-de-loops, that's a sign that they're going too fast and realism/strategy goes down the toilet.) I much preferred the way the Magnatraction cars would fishtail, just like real cars, and you had to manage the inside turns in your lane or you'd flip off the track. You could also use the fishtailing to knock your opponent off the track, and that just seemed more fun & realistic than just pinning the controller to almost-max and seeing whose car stuck the best.

[tamiyadan]

.

[Coelacanth]

One thing I don't like about the T-Jets is the cars had great bodies, but the chassis' beneath were all out-of-proportion, with wheels & tires sticking out way past the bodies. The Magnatraction cars struck a pretty good balance between speed and stickiness, they'd definitely come off the track if you pushed too hard, especially going into an inside lane curve.

As for the hobby collapsing, that AFX Giant Raceway set is fairly recent...and the Scalextric stuff looks pretty nice. The cars are gorgeous and beautifully detailed, but go for over $100 each at the LHS. Definitely not a kid's hobby, anymore, but for the enthusiast. The scale is maybe triple the size of HO-scale, not as big as Strombecker...but that unfortunately means you also need a whole lot of space to build a nice track.

[tamiyadan]

.

[dave00beer]

Had tons of cool toys when I was young, (I think I was a bit spoiled...So I was told...)

Man I remember the days playing in the sandbox with my Tonka trucks, then later on us evil kids would play smash up derby with them in the driveway, all sitting in a somewhat circle and count to three and give them your best shove to the middle "demolition" pit, I can still hear my mother yelling at us about destroying or toys.

Tons of toy cap gun fights playing cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, etc.

Anyone remember the Mattel VertiBirds?

Jeeeeze...... I could go on and on.

Theres so many memories of all the different toys me and my brother and friends all had over the younger years of life.

I still have some of my things left, Two that really come to mind as favorites, that I just came across the other day.

Big Trak and Transport trailer (got for christmas 1979)
Coleco electronic quarterback game (got for my 9th birthday 1979 10 days before christmas)

Countless hours of fun with both.....

[Basher67]

Ha! I forgot about the electronic football games! I had a bigger one that was baseball also. You could select your pitch from one side and your opponent could work the controls for being at bat and base running on the other side. Those things were awesome until gameboys came out.

[Basher67]

Found a pic of one. Pretty sure this was it. It's been a long time

[dave00beer]

Oh yeah, That one was made by Entex, The 2nd player had a controller type pad that you could pull out on a cord. My cousin had the same one.

Coleco also had the head to head baseball game. along with their other head-to head sports games.

[Lowgear]

Nice, my cousins had the Electronic Quarterback and the Head to Head Baseball. I didn't fully understand how to play them due to how young I was but they were fun anyway.

[RC10th]