The toys children have today bear no resemblance to the toys of my childhood. Growing up in the 1970s, we played outside much of the time, and many of our toys no longer exist. Instead, they have computer games and high-tech gadgets that, at the press of a button, whiz, whir, and come alive without you needing to do anything.
How many children now spend Sunday afternoons playing board games with their parents like my brother and I did growing up? We didn’t even have a T.V. in our house. We read books, listened to the radio, and played games, which is a novel thought for today’s youth.
But there were some childhood toys for which we saved all our pocket money. They were the ones we stood outside the toyshop window staring at and put on our list at Christmas time. So which of these have stayed the distance, and which have disappeared off the face of the earth?
Chinese Checkers
Chinese Checkers is one of those board games that gets you thinking. It’s a game of strategy mixed with a certain amount of luck. Growing up, it was a favorite in our house, especially on rainy weekends.
Two to six players can play it, which requires a fair amount of patience as it’s not a quick game. The aim is to move your marbles across a star-shaped board, and the fastest wins. It’s a simple concept, but you’re not playing across a clear board, which is the challenge.
We still have our old, battered version, although I’ve had to replace the marbles; my mom and I play regularly.
View-Master
My View-Master was one of my favorite toys growing up. It was a stereoscopic viewer that let you experience 3D images. Mine was red, with a bit of space at the top to put your cards, each with different images for you to look at.
As you turned the knob on the side, the shapes moved and seemed to come towards you. It was like magic as the scenes changed, and I was mesmerized. I couldn’t work out how the images moved and changed color and shape that way.
By today’s standards, it’s very tame and wouldn’t hold a child’s attention the way it did mine.
Speak & Spell
Speak & Spell didn’t come out until 1978, so I was a bit too old to use it, but I remember my younger cousins having one. It was designed to teach kids spelling and pronunciation and was one of the first toys to “speak,” transforming learning into an interactive experience.
Children could type words on the keypad, and the toy would spell them out, helping to improve vocabulary. Its popularity even landed it a cameo in the film E.T., as a makeshift communicator.
Weebles
Weebles were small, egg-shaped figures introduced by Hasbro’s Playskool in 1971 when I was born. I’ve never forgotten the slogan, “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” Each Weeble had a weighted bottom, allowing it to wobble back and forth without tipping over, no matter how hard you tried.
By the mid-1970s, Weebles had become a toy empire with themed playsets. I had a Weeble treehouse full of different characters and loved it.
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Hungry Hungry Hippos was hugely popular in the 1970s. It was a fast-paced, action-packed, hilarious, simple game featuring brightly colored hippos and a pack of twenty marbles. There were four hippos: Henry Hippo (orange), Happy Hippo (pink), Harry Hippo (yellow), and Homer Hippo (green).
Each player controlled a hippo, frantically pressing levers to gobble up as many marbles as possible. The goal was to collect the most marbles, creating a lively, noisy, and often hilarious scramble among friends and family.
Othello
Othello is a two-player strategy board game that became popular in the 1970s. It is based on the 19th-century game Reversi. Played on an 8×8 board with black and white discs, players must capture their opponent’s pieces by outflanking them in rows.
Like Chinese Checkers, it required tactical thinking and strategy. It wasn’t as hard as chess, but it wasn’t easy. The tagline, “A minute to learn, a lifetime to master,” makes perfect sense.
Spirograph
Most kids in the seventies had coloring books, and drawing and painting were popular. When the Spirograph came out, it combined drawing with geometric principles, but in a fun way. I had one and loved it.
It usually came in a set with various plastic rings and gears, which form countless unique shapes. By guiding pens through the geared templates it created kaleidoscope-like patterns on paper.
Magic 8 Ball
I was so excited when I got a Magic 8 Ball in my stocking for Christmas. They were a lot of fun and very popular at slumber parties. Shaped like a black billiard ball, it provides “yes” or “no” answers to any question.
You shake the ball and wait for the answer to appear. The sillier the question, the funnier it became. It was a children’s fortune-telling toy that starred in many T.V. shows and movies.
Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle
Evel Knievel was a motorcycle stuntman in the 1970s who inspired a generation of boys, including my brother. The toy featured a miniature Evel Knievel on a bike that could be wound up and released to perform jumps and tricks. It also included sets of ramps and obstacles to create daring stunts.
Our living room was transformed into an Evel Knievel race track one Christmas. My brother watched as Evel soared through the air, sometimes crashing but always ready to go again.
Subbuteo
Like many boys, my brother loved football. His pride and joy was his Subbuteo kit. He would spend hours playing it spread out over the floor in his bedroom.
The game lets players simulate a real soccer match with miniature teams and a flick-to-kick mechanism. Each player controls a team of small, weighted figures, flicking them to “kick” a tiny ball across a felt pitch. My brother was quite happy to play on his own, working on both teams.
Connect Four
Connect Four is a two-player strategy game in which players race to align four discs in a row. Players sit on either side of a blue vertical grid, dropping red or yellow discs into the top, aiming to outmaneuver their opponent while blocking their moves. My brother and I played it for hours during the holidays, and it was a lot of fun.
Simon
Simon was an electronic memory game that combined lights, sounds, and colors. Four colored buttons lit up in random sequences, each with a unique tone. Players repeated the sequences, which grew increasingly complex.
It tested your short-term memory, and players competed against each other to see who could follow the longest sequence. Playing was always fun and often got quite loud as the excitement grew and the sequences got harder and harder.
