Monday, November 20, 2006

Odd Christmas Toys 2006

Forgive my time traveling nostalgia for Christmas Past. I know I'm a few years older than dirt and the toys I desired, even lusted for, when I was a boy were likely to be composed of only two elements: plastic and my imagination.

I do remember the time a friend's older brother one post-unwrapping day brought out an amazing gift he had received. It was the holy of holies It was James Bond's attache case based on the "From Russia With Love" movie. It had the hidden dagger, pistol with barrel extension and stock and silencer, passport, code book, money and even business cards. It sold for around 20 bucks.

Here in 2006, you can get a "new" version of the case for ... wait for it ... $4300. It comes with a Vaio TX Notebook, and various digital goodies. Can't be a spy without the digital toys. (And yes, I marvel at the Bond video game of the entire movie "From Russia With Love" available now. But the comingling of Bond and Barbie is just wrong.)

Way back in the ancient times of my own childhood, I lived in a town so small that toys were available at a dry goods store, or in a teeny section of four-aisled grocery store. And we aren't talking depression era days here. Still, since I was barely eyeball-high to the counter at the dry goods store, I took more pleasure than most could imagine scanning the bins of green army soldiers, red and yellow and blue Indians and Cowboys, and for the hi-tech kids, there was a Hot Wheels section with lengths of plastic track which could create the physics-defying looped section. If memory serves, after about an hour of hurling the wee plastic cars down the ramps, we dismantled the track and used the pieces as swords and smacked the crap out of each other.

Good times.

The knowledge needed here in 2006 for most-popular toys and the amount of money needed just zaps my time-addled brain. And truly, some of the stuff out there is just plain freaky.

Take a look at the kid's tattoo parlor playset. Yeah, kids can now pretend to be practioners of body modification with a toy tattoo gun. And who doesn't yearn for their kid to wear a camo cap backwards?

Maybe you can find a Home Mullet Salon playset for the kids too.







Then there's the most curious looking Dora toy. Kids are never too young to think in Freudian imagery I guess.








For the 0ver-18 game and toy lovers, I'm sure Honky Tonk Homicide, a redneck murder mystery dinner party, is gobs of fun. Marks the first time I've ever seen the words "redneck" and "dinner party" used in conjunction.





11 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:00 PM

    And here I always thought "redneck dinner party" was a euphemism for something......
    I, too, lusted after the 007 Attache Case! You could take pictures AND shoot people! Gimme!

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  2. Anonymous3:01 PM

    Just what the heck is Dora exploring?

    In a time when children rush home and log on to their laptops and email, IM, blog, play video games, rip music, and make entries in their web diaries, where does imagination & plastic fit?

    These days I feel like a depression era adult faced with the prospect of color TV and pong!

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  3. Anonymous3:04 PM

    ooooh! I want the CSI Facial Reconstruction Kit!

    I'll be sure and mark it in my Wish Book.

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  4. Cinemonkey-
    I must confess ... i'd take the new Bond case if only for the Viao TX. But then again, if i had the $4300 to spend, it would be for one honking laptop without the 007 logo.

    Carpenter -
    IM, blog and ripping were actual names of medical conditions among depression-era hobos. and it wasn't pretty .... heh heh.

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  5. You are great. Absolutely great.
    This made my day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous12:17 AM

    This was my favorite childhood toy:

    http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/monsters/1.html

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  7. Anonymous4:17 AM

    Yeah, Tim! Any Vincent Price-approved toy was aces!
    Remember the Revell (I think) torture chamber? Would give any Gitmo guard pause.
    I think it's a shame you can't burn yourself on the current versions of the Easy Bake Oven or the ThingMaker.....You gotta learn somehow, dammit!!

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  8. Anonymous8:01 AM

    Dora is WAY too young to be, ahem, exploring that . . .

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  9. Paige -
    heck, the state of Tennessee almost outlawed "devices" like that Dora ... um ... toy.

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  10. Anonymous5:22 PM

    I feel left out. Our favorites were big cardboard boxes, a box cutter and a lot of masking tape. That took some imagination.

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  11. Anon -
    you really weren't left out!! I did mention Imagination as a component of my favorite gifts!! And it is likely to be the finest gift we can provide today!!!

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