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Approaching christmas, what really disappointing toys did you have?
I remember a wee cone shaped basket affair, with a ping pong ball, you clicked a trigger on it and a wee popper projected the ping pong ball about 9 inches into the air, the idea being that you caught it in the basket again. Genius.
Another was a big hard plastic rugby ball shaped thing, with a hole through it, and about 20m of double rope/string going through, with kite handles on either end. you separated the handles apart, projecting the 'ball' at high speed towards your sis, who did the same back to you. That thing must've broken numerous fingers across our fine nation.
Gies yer worst.
Spacehopper - you couldn't really do anything on it other than shuffle around. Bouncing - as per the ads, never happened
Any battery power toys - in those days the batteries lasted 15 seconds
Aye, you really needed the core strength of a cossack dancer to do anything on those!
Can't remember being particularly disappointed by any particular toy at the time. But looking back at the 'in toys' from my childhood they were much more about make believe and imagination than the toys of today and really pale in comparison.
I had a radio control car. Sounds good. It didn't have steering. You could go forwards and backwards, and when it went backwards it turned one way. To drive it somewhere you drove forwards, then reversed until it was facing the right way, then drove forward again. I actually quite enjoyed it, though, so maybe not that disappointing.
Those clicker things where everywhere. It was always about toy fads back then. Everyone had a yo-yo, then everyone had a rubiks cube, then everyone had a nintendo game-and-watch
I never had one but played with friends ‘Computer Battleships’. Ages to set up
then it invariably conked out. The analogue version was sooo much better.
lol @ nickjb, aye, I'm sure it was really all about our low expectations!
My uncle had the rugby ball thing. Bloody terrifying.
Action Jacks figures - made of the cheapest, brittlest plastic ever.
Clackers. Just why?
Evel Kneivel - great toy but the plastic on the bikes always broke after a few uses.
Tamiya remote control Wills Jeep - only shite because I never had one.
For a trip down memory lane, other vintages are available through the links
https://www.flickr.com/photos/38301877@N05/3592588573/in/photostream/
I had a radio control car.
Radio control - Luxury! I had one of those, it was "remote" control, i.e. a wire that was about a meter long so you had to walk behind it. Yeah, walk, and a slow one at that. It wasn't even new when I got it. 😁
Flightdeck
My brother and I were always getting shred presents, and they were invariably board games, this was perhaps the worst. It "recreated the excitement" of landing a Phantom on a carrier deck...Essentially a small plastic Phantom slid down a string, you could "control" it with a joystick and and catch an arrestor wire, on a cardboard cut-out of an aircraft carrier deck and a flag would pop up to indicate a successful trap. It was super finicky to set up, and took and age (and invariably we got bored half way through) and in practice was a pretty dull game. I think we got it going maybe once, it took up the entire first floor landing (which our parents were less than thrilled about) and once you got your eye in was piss easy.
Flightdeck! I had one of them and thought it was mint. You missed out the rubber band catapult launch bit.
Mr ****ing Frosty. Absolute garbage. I'm not bitter though, no.
Mr Frosty. Absolutely gash. It came back recently as well, so another generation can be disappointed.
Action Jacks figures
Behave
Sure I’d have preferred gi joe figures, but action jack was about a 5th of the price. A perfect stocking filler
Plus when you pulled the head out the entire figure fell apart..
Tin Can Alley, absolute pish!
We had an ice cream maker. Sounded AMAZING when we got it.
Took an age to set up, took ages to freeze, made enough ice cream for one desert spoon each. Being in the freezer killed the batteries incredibly quickly. So when it was up and running you might get 2 teaspoons of ok I've cream or 2 tea spoons of something with the ingredients of ice cream that was inediblel.
My mum clearly got tired of the whining very quickly!
I think that you will find it was called Super Flight Deck.
Misnomer if ever there was one.
I modded mine with multiple elastic bands whicj then required longer and longer bits of string to allow the F4 to go all of 10 metres.
This then allowed an extra second or so of piloting to land safely back on the cardboard aircraft carrier
Probably played with 10 times before being retired to the cupboard of pladtic tat presents.
I think that you will find it was called Super Flight Deck.
I think you will find that was the sequel.
http://www.stuffwelove.co.uk/superflightdeck.htm
Flightdeck
I came on here to say exactly that. It never bloody worked.
Spacehopper – you couldn’t really do anything on it other than shuffle around
I crossed the Alps on a space hopper
Worst thing my parents got me was a morse tapper. Yep, build from scratch morse code thing, with no-one to send morse code to. I mean, I was a quiet kid but I wasn't that much of a freak.
Funny thing was, I'd asked Santa for Mouse Trap (by MB Games!) and found this box of stuff outside my bedroom with my Dad's handwriting scrawl which I read as Mouse Trapper. Where's the little plastic man?? I'm freaked out by their cruelty to this day (approx 50 years on?!)
Matchbox Supa-track loop the loop.
Ok, I don't want to come across as if our parents just bought us rubbish present, so I'm going to say I probably asked for this one...Big long pieces of very flexible yellow plastic track that you set up by connecting together and at the end of a big long slope was a loop the loop...Never worked. The first problem was you needed height to mount the first bit of track, and the cars would fall off, any rouge junction in the track...the cars would fall off, and the as soon as they hit the top of the loop...the cars would fall off...
Presents in the 70's were shit.
⬆ eh? Those car tacks were ace! Think our was Hotwheels though, maybe that had better kerbs to keep the cars on. We had a starting gate for 2 cars so they could be raced. Brilliant.
Aye, I had the hotwheels one too (hand me down form my cousins) and used to build massive high tracks from big Mecchano towers (also HMDs). Magic.
Matchbox Supa-track loop the loop.
Yep, glad to hear I'm not the only one who was shatteringly disappointed by it.
Gameboy.
Now before you all kick off I totally agree, The Gameboy is probably the finest games platform ever prooduced. Lemmings, tetris, mario it was and still is fantastic*.
But tis not a toy to ****ing share on christmas day with your little sister is it? IS IT?!
*Also it was a mind bendingly unbelievable gift from my parents who I am pretty sure were extremely broke at the time. I also still have it somewehere and it still functions perfectly.
Matchbox Supa-track loop the loop.
Yep, glad to hear I’m not the only one who was shatteringly disappointed by it.
What you needed was one of these.
My mate had a load of track and 2 of those superboost things, the cars would pass underneath and a big flywheel thing would blast them out the other end. We had great fun.
Wanted Scalextrix, got this instead. Never worked properly from day 1. Totally Crap Racing.
Total Crap Racing. Worked OK if the cars were perfectly matched. Taping playing cards to the track to reduce grip and cut the power could result in a spin or two, but for most of the time it was crap. Spoilt Kid™ round the corner had it. Glad that I didn't. I think that he "livened" his up with some meths and matches eventually.
Chutes Away promised so much but failed to deliver.
After 10 minutes it turned from a rescue mission to a bombing mission by adding Airfix soldiers, and 10 minutes after that the soldiers were back on the model railway where they belonged.
^^^ TCR. I was just about to say that myself LOL
Got a TCR? You'll need one of these....
Christmas present when I was 9. What bloody good is a Christmas present your dad wants to play with! 😀
Still got it 45 years later
Mousetrap anybody?
Took so long to set up I’m not sure I ever remember actually playing it!!
Mousetrap? It was shit then but it is 1,000,000 times shittier now – at least it was quite well built in the 70s whereas it's built of cheese now.
Subbuteo. Bear with me. Football was ace, just flick to kick. Cricket was utter gash. Rugby even worse.
Test Match - like subbuteo but even shitter. Who actually thinks that a mini figure cricket game is fun?
Mousetrap anybody?
I wish! See above 😛
Just popped in to make sure Flight Deck is getting the hammering it deserves
My lad was having a huff about his game on the Ipad freezing. I had to explain the joy of waiting for a full 30 minutes for the tape cassette game to load on my Commodore 64, only for it to crash and have to start again. I then showed him on Youtube what he would have been waiting for. Don't know they're born...........etc.etc
Etch a Sketch!
Anyone remember Stretch Armstrong? When my kids complain about presents I point this out to them - an expensive doll that you could stretch until the limbs broke off.
Re TCR - I had Scalextric and was really jealous of TCR's swapping lanes thing. I demo'd one in Debenhams when I was about 9, several decades before the word demo'd was used in this way. 😀
Tank Command.
Basically, you pulled a string to drive up a line of plastic pegs. If your opponent's tank was sitting over said peg(s), it flipped over a bit.
WOuld've been better if you could play in in slo-mo with a dry ice machine in the room.
£7.95 - the robbing bastards.
I had loads of great toys but a few that were utter rubbish. Top of that list had to be Johnny Astro, basically a fan blowing a balloon.
Begged and begged and begged and begged for the Nintendo with bazooka attachment for Duck Hunter (or some such). My dad said I'd get bored it, and I did. On Boxing Day.
That was the snes with the bazooka
Duck hunt was an orange pistol
That was the snes with the bazooka
Aye. The "Super Scope".
Duck hunt was an orange pistol
That was on the NES I think?
Totopoly was also pretty duff from what I remember..
Ferry Mucking Xmas son 😀
Stretch Armstrong. Attacked him with a penknife to reveal treacle guts.
I had a radio control car. Sounds good. It didn’t have steering. You could go forwards and backwards, and when it went backwards it turned one way.
I vaguely remember having another variant which the only action of the remote made it turn left(or it may have been right) so you could actually make it go in a circle but had to run after it as there was no stop or start.
I never had a stretch Armstrong but that seemed a pretty useless but well marketed toy.
Flightdeck! I had one of them and thought it was mint. You missed out the rubber band catapult launch bit.
I had one of these but remember it breaking pretty quick…
Cascade, a "perpetual motion" toy
Hours to set it up so it actually worked (mostly) then scrambling around under furniture to locate the ball bearings.
You're right. It was definitely a NES. But I might have been given it when the SNES was out and I lusted for the bazooka. In any event, it was most certainly shite!
On the subject of shite motorised cars, I had this Ford GT40:
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Completely pointless as it didn't "drive" forward or backward. It simply (and tediously) lurched about on this powered wheel located between the two passive front wheels:
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Thankfully, two C size Flying Bomb batteries (off Salford market) lasted about half an hour which was 29 minutes too long IMO.
Aye. The “Super Scope”.
I thought it was the Nintendo-scope?
Spirograph , the easy ones were ok but you try doing something with the high geared small cog it was too tough to do
A chemistry set !!!
A microscope !!!!
Or any battery operated toy truck that worked from 5am to 7am then packed in no spare battery or recharge back then
Best ever was a second hand scalextric , I still have bits since 1967 hump back bridge, bales etc
My brother and I spiced up flight deck to take it to another level. The line went from a bedroom window to the garden, the Phantom (and a succession of old airfix planes) was stuffed with a few french bangers and cotton wool, lit up then launched. The challenge was to land the burning plane before it blew up!!!
@Nobeer
Another was a big hard plastic rugby ball shaped thing, with a hole through it,
Aye a pal got one for christmas in the early 70s. On boxing day my folks and my sister and I went around . My pal and I got sent out to play with the rugby ball thingy. It went from warm-up to fisticuffs in about 3 minutes. So much for goodwill to all men
Cascade, a “perpetual motion” toy
I'm glad you mentioned that because I was thinking the same and couldn't remember the bloody name. Fundamentally, the 'play mat' didn't line up with where everything needed to be.
Boing-boing-boing-kathunk.
Slinky. Also known as "the big spring that went down a full flight of stairs on TV, but in reality went down one stair and stopped".
Then got tangled up in itself.
lol @ Gordimhor, it was a hideous contraption!
Etch-a-Sketch was a competent early CAD package that really stuck with me...I still shake my monitor to this day...
Ker-Plunk. Took an age to set up. Got played a couple of times then was consigned to the cupboard after having been stripped of its marbles.
Tank Command however, was ace.
This thread also ought to have an Shite Toy Adjacent theme of
"Really crap games/plastic tat that you really wanted as a kid, asked for every year, were cruelly denied, and subsequently found out later were a bit shite"
Mousetrap fits here
I had a .22 calibre BSA Mercury S with Tasco 4x40 scope at the top of my xmas list from 10-16. It never arrived. My mother was staunchly anti-gun. Cow.
Ker-Plunk. Took an age to set up.
Ditto Mousetrap, Buckaroo...
It was no wonder that we spent hours playing in the street with kids we hated, because the choice was to spend even longer tie sitting in the house getting a game ready to play, only for your youngest sibling to stand on it just as you were ready to go. And then be sent to bed for trying to murder her..
Found a slinky while cleaning out my parents' house. Me and my brother ran it down the stairs a few times, it was awesome the first time, awesome the second time, suddenly boring the third.
Nobeerinthefridge
Free MemberI remember a wee cone shaped basket affair, with a ping pong ball, you clicked a trigger on it and a wee popper projected the ping pong ball about 9 inches into the air, the idea being that you caught it in the basket again. Genius.
I absolutely loved mine. Literally wore it out and it took years.
Think I only played with the rugby ball on strings once, it was fun but bloody painful!
As an only child anything sucked if you couldn't play with it yourself, poor me!
I got an Lamborghini Countach, remote or radion controlled car once, pretty sure it was second hand, the actual control method was irrelevant as much like a real one it never bloody worked. My parents were broke and my Dad prefferred to spend money on beer, so I suspect it was free or found somewhere!
I got an Acorn electron too, just before Apple bought them out an killed it, so any periferals were quickly gone and it turned into an expensive reason to never get another good present.
Eventually I got old enough to utilise the birthday 2 weeks after Christmas a reason to pick 1 thing and get a few people in on it, cue my first MTB and Tamiya LunchBox!
Took an age to set up.
Ditto Mousetrap
If you played it properly, as you go round the board you set the various pieces in place as you go. You've not supposed to set it up in advance.
In reality there was an interminably dull bit only worth sticking with for the exciting bit at the end
Reminds me of something else, that....
I think one of my earliest memories of empathy was when a friend proudly unwrapped his Evel Knievel Stunt Bike, put it on the launch ramp, wound it up, and watched it shatter landing after jumping off a 4” kerb.
Whoever made it must have really gone out of their way to find plastic that brittle and inappropriate for a toy.
My lad was having a huff about his game on the Ipad freezing. I had to explain the joy of waiting for a full 30 minutes for the tape cassette game to load on my Commodore 64, only for it to crash and have to start again. I then showed him on Youtube what he would have been waiting for. Don’t know they’re born………..etc.etc
Ha, exactly this. Put me off coding for life 😠
TCR - put me off Motorsport for life.
Flightdeck - might as well slide a coat hanger down a washing line.
Spacehopper on the other hand was one of my best presents ever. Gave me the thunder thighs I have today.
The Matchbox version of Scalextric. Consisted of plastic track, with two groves into which you feed a huge spring, that was driven by a small electric motor. You then fitted a small plastic pin to an ordinary Matchbox car and fitted it onto the track, so the pin engaged with the coils in the spring. You could put loads of cars on at the same time, but all went at the same speed.
Made a huge noise and was useless. I think mine is still at my Mums, like this:
https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Matchbox_Motorway
Spacehopper – you couldn’t really do anything on it other than shuffle around.
as a means of transport - crap. As a ball sport, ideally lubricated by alcohol, hilarious. With plenty of air in them you can boot them really high Headers are an experience not to be forgotten - once you regain consciousness
Mr Frosty was dreadful
i think the toy I felt the most instant disappointment with - despite really really wanting it- was an Evel Kinevel chopper style bike ( rather then his stunt bike) - it just just fell over all the time - straight off the launcher thing it would just be on its side
Spacehopper – you couldn’t really do anything on it other than shuffle around
Never tried pillow fights with the pillows replaced by spacehoppers?
My worst was a pong computer game- just had football/tennis/squash pong games.
Not a patch on Gameboys etc but in the mid to late 70s I was the only one with a “computer game” out of my mates when I got this. Only drawback -it had to be plugged into the tv- not much cop when there’s only 1 in the house.
Then the summer after I got it, my mate on an Atari for his birthday. Mine was instantly redundant.
Bending the rules slightly. But I wanted a Game Gear one year for my birthday. I'd been asking for it for months. The day before I saw my mum come home with a Comet bag (I think) with a box about the correct size in it. I got all excited. The next day I opened my present and it was a hair dryer shaped like a duck.
I'd like to say this was the worst gift she got me but she also got me a bathroom tile mounted clock to go in a shower. We only had one bathroom so it would have been for everyone, but for the fact we didn't have a shower. And my dad had never got around to putting any new tiles up in the bathroom when he started redecorating 10 years earlier. I ended up putting in my room on the window, which was the only thing I had it could stick to. Unfortunately, I had a venetian blind that largely obscured it. And a digital alarm clock that was considerably more visible. Pointless.
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It looked like this only with dull grey legs.
A Wendy house. I am a twin and generally got the same presents as my brother. He opened his first and it was a tent. Mine had been packed in the wrong box.
I had to wait until the new year for my parents to return it.
I had one of these. The idea was that you launched a polystyrene model with an oversized peashooter that had a screaming whistle on the end of it.
Provided you were a fan of straight line flight, the polystyrene model flew fine, until the ball bearing that provided it's centre of gravity invariably fell out the back of it.
My parents followed this up with the amusingly named Blow Jet Interceptor, that featured a canard and wingtip fins. That too was disappointingly rubbish, but with the dubious benefit of more stickers with "BJ" emblazoned on it.