retro toys Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Did you have Shark Pack?

I felt that changing the discs to make it do different maneuvers meant you might as well have pushed it by hand. Was I wrong?

Shark Pack was a 1970s toy boat line from Ideal, and the big feature was its interchangeable program discs. Instead of radio control, you put in a disc, set the boat loose, and it would follow a preset pattern, turning or circling depending on which disc you used.

For the time, that was a pretty clever idea. It gave kids a way to “program” the boat before home computers and remote-control toys became common. The commercial made it look exciting, with the boats cutting through the water and changing direction on command.

Like a lot of toys from that era, the real fun probably depended on where you used it and what you expected from it. If you had a pool, pond, or enough room to let it run, Shark Pack may have been a lot of fun. If you were expecting total control, the disc-changing part may have felt a little less magical.

That’s why I’m curious. Did Shark Pack really live up to the ad, or was it one of those toys that looked better on TV?

Who had a Secret Sam?

With all it could do, there were still many other toys I wanted more. I remember seeing the commercials and thinking it looked impressive, but I wasn’t sure it would live up to the way it looked on TV.

Secret Sam was a Topper Toys spy set from the mid-1960s, right when James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and secret-agent gadgets were everywhere. The big item was the Secret Sam Attaché Case, a black briefcase that hid a toy gun setup inside. It could be used as a pistol, converted into a rifle, fitted with a silencer, and even fired from inside the case. Some versions also had a message missile and a small working camera.

So did it live up to expectations? Probably yes if you were deep into spy play and had a good imagination. But if you expected it to work exactly like a TV spy gadget, maybe not. Like a lot of toys from that era, the commercial did most of the heavy lifting.

Looking back, Secret Sam was the kind of toy that looked incredible under the Christmas tree, but the real fun depended on how much secret-agent adventure you could create around it.

Speedline Race Cars: The Hot Wheels Rival

Many of you asked about these when I posted the Hot Wheels advertisement. So now I have to ask: which did you have? Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Speedline, or all of them?

Speedline race cars were part of that late-19660s toy-car boom, when every company wanted a piece of the racing action. Hot Wheels had the orange track and wild colors, Matchbox had the more realistic little cars, and Speedline tried to get into the race with its own fast-looking cars and track sets.

They never became as famous as Hot Wheels, but that’s what makes them fun to remember. Some kids had the big names. Some had the off-brand or lesser-known racers. And honestly, when you were on the floor setting up races, it didn’t always matter what brand was stamped underneath. If the car was fast, it made the lineup.

For a lot of us, these little cars were more than toys. They were races across the living room, arguments over whose car won, and the beginning of a car collection before we even knew we were collecting.

So which ones were in your house?

Whenever I saw the Barbie Cut ’n Curl commercial as a kid, I always wondered if it really worked as smoothly as it looked on TV.

The idea was great: give Barbie a haircut, style her hair, curl it, and somehow keep the fun going without ruining the doll forever. Of course, commercials always made these toys look effortless. At home, I’m guessing it depended on patience, steady hands, and whether Barbie’s hair ended up looking salon-ready or like she had just lost a fight with a brush.

But here’s what I really want to know: Did you have Barbie Cut ’n Curl? Did it actually work the way the commercial showed?

And even better, did any of you start by cutting and styling Barbie’s hair and later end up becoming a hair stylist, barber, or working in cosmetology? Sometimes those childhood toys really did point us toward what we’d do later in life.

The Swing Wing: The Toy That Looked Like a Neck Injury Waiting to Happen

The Swing Wing was a wonderfully weird 1960s toy introduced by Transogram Games in 1965. It was worn on your head like a little cap, with a long ribbon or tail attached. The idea was to whip your head and neck back and forth until the tail spun around like a helicopter. Think Hula Hoop, but for your head.

The commercials made it look like pure kid fun: boys and girls swinging, twisting, dancing, and making the Swing Wing fly around them. But watching it now, you can almost hear every chiropractor in America screaming.

It was supposed to be Transogram’s answer to the Hula Hoop craze, with company hopes that it might become the next big toy sensation. It didn’t.

That’s probably why people remember it now more as a “what were they thinking?” toy than a classic. It had the perfect 1960s formula: bright colors, a catchy commercial, kids moving around like crazy, and absolutely no adult in the room asking, “Should children be violently snapping their necks for fun?”

Looking back, the Swing Wing is peak retro toy madness. Simple idea, great commercial, questionable safety, and the kind of thing that makes you wonder how any of us made it out of childhood with our heads still attached

Probably no toy gave me more joy than Hot Wheels.

It was great the first day you got the track, but the fun didn’t stop there. A new car didn’t cost all that much, even for a kid, and suddenly the whole race changed. One new car meant new matchups, new winners, new arguments, and another reason to reset the track and try again.

Hot Wheels were introduced by Mattel in 1968, created to compete with Matchbox, but they had a completely different attitude. Matchbox cars looked more like regular cars you’d see on the road. Hot Wheels looked like something a kid dreamed up: wild colors, big wheels, racing stripes, spoilers, flames, and hot rod styling. The first line is remembered as the “Original 16” or “Sweet 16.”

And they were fast. That was the magic. Mattel built them with low-friction wheels and axles, wider hard-plastic tires, and a suspension design that helped them fly down those orange plastic tracks smoother than other little cars of the time. The Strong National Museum of Play notes that Mattel engineers wanted them to “zoom,” using thick plastic mag wheels, minimal-friction axles, and torsion-bar suspension.

Then came the tracks. If you got a new setup, like the one with the Super Charger, it worked with the track you already had. That was the genius of it. You didn’t have to start over. You just added on. A curve here, a loop there, a launcher, a jump, and suddenly your living room floor became Daytona, Indy, and a demolition derby all at once.

Looking back, Hot Wheels were a great value because every piece made the whole thing better. One car could change the race. One track set could change the whole afternoon. And for a kid, that little orange track and one fast car were enough to make the whole room feel like a speedway.

Who had a Farrah Doll?

The Farrah doll was part of full-blown Farrah Fawcett mania in the late 1970s, when her feathered hair, red swimsuit poster, and Charlie’s Angels fame were everywhere.

Mego released a Farrah Fawcett doll in 1977, right when she was one of the biggest TV and poster stars in America. The doll was about 12 inches tall, fully poseable, and came with Farrah’s famous long blonde hair. Some versions had outfits like a red top, denim shorts, white boots, and even accessories like a skateboard. The Smithsonian has a Farrah Fawcett doll with skateboards in its collection, describing it as a blonde doll dressed in a red shirt, blue denim shorts, and knee-high white boots.

There was also a Farrah’s Glamour Center toy made in 1977, showing how much her look was being sold as part of the fantasy. It wasn’t just “here’s a celebrity doll.” It was “here’s the hair, the style, the smile, and the whole Farrah look.”

What’s funny now is that the doll didn’t always capture Farrah perfectly. Like a lot of celebrity dolls from that era, it was close enough for kids and collectors to know who it was supposed to be, but not exactly museum-quality likeness. Still, that almost makes it more charming. Back then, if you had the Farrah doll, the poster, and maybe the haircut, you were officially living in 1977.

Farrah’s actual red swimsuit and related items were later donated to the Smithsonian, along with a 1977 Farrah Fawcett doll, which tells you how much that image and merchandising became part of pop culture history

When Tippee-Toes Tiptoed Into Trouble

Leave it to the early 1980s to give us a controversy over a baby doll’s bare bottom.

Mattel’s Tippee-Toes was one of those dolls that was supposed to look cute, innocent, and lifelike. She could crawl, and like a lot of toy commercials from back then, the ad was aimed right at kids sitting in front of the TV, probably during cartoons or family programming. But then came the part that got people talking: the commercial showed the doll’s little bare backside.

That may sound pretty tame today, but back then one viewer found it offensive enough to complain to David Horowitz, the consumer advocate best known for Fight Back! with David Horowitz. Horowitz was the guy people turned to when they felt a product, commercial, or company needed to be called out. He built a career on standing up for consumers, testing products, and bringing viewer complaints into the spotlight.

The issue even made its way to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1982. Horowitz appeared on Carson and discussed the Tippee-Toes commercial, reportedly showing both the original ad and the changed version after complaints were made. It was one of those perfect Johnny Carson moments where something small, silly, and strangely serious all came together on national television.

Looking back, it feels almost impossible to believe this was a controversy. We grew up with talking dolls, creepy ventriloquist dummies selling chocolate milk, clowns selling cereal, and commercials that would probably send today’s internet into a panic. But a baby doll’s bare bottom? That was enough to get a consumer advocate involved and Mattel’s attention.

It’s a funny little reminder of how much TV, advertising, and what people considered “offensive” has changed over the years. Tippee-Toes was just trying to crawl across the screen, but somehow she crawled right into consumer TV history.

Mouse Trap Game

I remember wanting Mouse Trap so bad because it looked so cool in the commercial. What kid wouldn’t want their very own Rube Goldberg machine right there on the kitchen table?

Mouse Trap came out in 1963, and the whole attraction wasn’t just the board game itself. It was that crazy contraption you built while playing. The crank, the gears, the marble, the bathtub, the diving man, the cage, and all those little plastic pieces that had to line up just right. On TV, it looked like the greatest thing ever invented.

The neighbor kid had one, we played it, and I was excited to try it for real. It was fun, but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t quite as exciting as I had built it up to be in my head. Maybe it needed that wacky music from the commercial playing in the background! Without the TV magic, it was still a neat game, but the commercial may have sold it better than the actual game.

Still, you have to give Mouse Trap credit. Every kid who saw that commercial wanted to see that trap go off. Whether it worked perfectly or needed a little help, it was one of those games that made you say, “I want that!”

Buddy L Trucks

Nothing gave me more fun and joy as a child than playing in the backyard with my Buddy L trucks.

The early Buddy L trucks were made from heavy pressed steel, which made them feel like real construction equipment shrunk down for a kid. The brand started with the Moline Pressed Steel Company in East Moline, Illinois, founded by Fred Lundahl, whose company originally made automobile and truck parts before moving into toys in the early 1920s.

The name Buddy L came from Lundahl’s son, Arthur, whose nickname was “Buddy.” The story goes that Lundahl made a sturdy toy truck for his son using the same kind of steel his company worked with, and it turned into something much bigger. By 1921, Buddy L trucks were being produced as toys, and they quickly became known for being big, tough, and realistic. Over the decades, the brand changed hands several times. By the 1990s and early 2000s, Buddy L had been sold through different companies, and the original manufacturing era was over.

That is what made them so special. A Buddy L dump truck, fire truck, wrecker, steam shovel, or delivery truck did not just sit on a shelf. You took it outside. You loaded it with dirt, rocks, sticks, sand, and whatever else you could find. You built roads, dug holes, made construction sites, and probably scratched the heck out of the paint without caring one bit.

For a lot of us, Buddy L trucks were not just toys. They were backyard equipment. They had weight, they had metal, they had working parts, and they made you feel like you were running the whole job site. Long before video games gave kids virtual worlds to build, a Buddy L truck, a patch of dirt, and a little imagination were all we needed.

Looking back, that is probably why they are so collectible today. They remind people of a time when toys were built like the real thing, and when a kid could spend an entire afternoon outside with one truck and never be bored.