Vintage Toys Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Flatsy Dolls: They Were Flat and That Was That!

Here’s one that really could only have come out of the late 1960s — Flatsy, the doll whose big selling point was that she was…flat!

But there was actually more thought put into these than I remembered. The dolls were made of soft vinyl with wire inside so you could bend and pose them, and some came mounted in decorative frames that could actually be hung on the wall. You could even wear some of the dolls on your clothes.

I found something interesting in a 1968 issue of Broadcasting magazine: Ideal was already planning network and major-market advertising for its new Flatsys beginning February 1, 1969. The line lasted until 1973 and grew well beyond the dolls in this commercial, with Fashion Flatsys, mini versions, Flatsyville, Candy Mountain and different playsets.

Even the company behind them has a great story. Ideal traced its beginnings to Morris and Rose Michtom, the couple associated with creating the original American Teddy bear after Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 1902 hunting incident.

And somehow that little jingle did its job — “Flatsys, Flatsys, they’re flat and that’s that” is still being remembered more than 50 years later.

Did you actually have a Flatsy, or is it the commercial and jingle you remember most?

Tiger Joe

As kids, we used to play army, and this commercial is a pretty good demonstration of what that looked like in the early 1960s. We sometimes make fun of kids today for fighting battles on video-game screens, but there’s an interesting full-circle connection — real warfare now makes extensive use of drones and other remotely controlled systems

The toy is the Tiger Joe Tank, introduced by Deluxe Reading in 1961. This was no little tabletop tank — it was about 26 inches long, moved by wired remote control and actually fired plastic shells. Deluxe even suggested putting a little flour or talcum powder in the barrel to create a puff of “smoke” when it fired

What really caught my attention is the line at the end: “Sold at food markets only.” Deluxe Reading deliberately sold many of its big toys through supermarkets. Those oversized colorful boxes could occupy the hard-to-use upper shelves, putting toys right in front of kids tagging along on the weekly shopping trip

Tiger Joe almost feels more like the kind of present Dad would have picked out, but the marketing actually put it directly in the path of whoever was doing the grocery shopping. I found a 1963 supermarket ad selling Tiger Joe for $12.88 — roughly $140 today — and you could leave a $2 deposit and have one held until Christmas

The company was founded by Henry Orenstein, who years later helped bring the idea that became Transformers to Hasbro

Did anyone get a Tiger Joe for Christmas — or spend the whole grocery trip staring up at one on the top shelf?

Don’t Blow Your Top

Don’t Blow Your Top came out in 1972, and this is one of those wonderfully simple toy ideas that probably didn’t need much explaining to a kid. You spun the spinner, added the required number of marbles to the character’s hat, and watched the pressure build on a real balloon hidden underneath. Eventually — POP! — somebody literally blew his top

The game came from Marvin Glass & Associates, the legendary Chicago toy-design company connected with Mouse Trap, Operation, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, Lite-Brite and eventually Simon. They created and developed toy ideas, then licensed them to companies like Schaper to manufacture and sell

Schaper itself had quite a history. The company was founded by Minneapolis mailman Herb Schaper, whose homemade Cootie game became such a huge success that Schaper eventually promoted itself as “The Cootie Company,” just as we hear at the end of this commercial. The company also gave us familiar games like Ants in the Pants and Don’t Break the Ice

And I have to give them credit for the name. “Don’t blow your top” was already a familiar expression for losing your temper, so turning that into a game where the poor fellow actually blows his top was pretty clever

The game apparently had some staying power too, with advertising for it continuing several years after its 1972 introduction

Did anyone have Don’t Blow Your Top — and was waiting for that balloon to pop more fun than actually winning?

It Was More Fun the Colorforms Way

As requested by a number of viewers, here is the Raggedy Ann Colorforms commercial I remember from childhood. I have since discovered just how many different Colorforms kits were made, and I will share more of them over time.

Colorforms used colorful pieces of reusable vinyl that clung to smooth surfaces without glue. Children could dress the characters, rearrange the scenes, peel everything off and begin again. The Raggedy Ann kit shown in this 1967 commercial allowed kids to change her dresses and accessories as often as their imaginations allowed.

Colorforms began in 1951 after Harry and Patricia Kislevitz experimented with colorful vinyl originally used to make handbags. They discovered that the pieces clung to the glossy walls of their bathroom and began cutting them into different shapes. What started as a creative experiment soon became a successful toy.

FAO Schwarz placed an early order for 1,000 sets, helping turn the small project into a real company. The first kits featured basic geometric shapes, but licensed characters soon followed. Popeye became the first in 1957, opening the door for hundreds of television, comic book and movie characters.

Even the familiar Colorforms logo has an interesting history. Legendary graphic designer Paul Rand, who also designed logos for IBM, ABC and UPS, created it in 1959.

I also remember watching the local weather forecast as a child. The station used happy, smiling suns, large red H’s for high pressure and other colorful symbols that looked like oversized Colorforms.

Before computer-generated weather graphics, forecasters physically moved reusable symbols around a large map. Depending on the station, those symbols could be made from magnetic rubber, felt or another cling-on material. Whatever they were made from, they looked remarkably similar to the Colorforms we played with at home.

Maybe that is why those old weather maps remain so memorable. The smiling suns, rain clouds and giant H’s and L’s made the forecast feel like a giant Colorforms set coming to life on television.

Do you remember your local weather forecaster moving those colorful symbols around the map?

Carry-All Action Playsets

With four other brothers to keep busy, Mom and Dad scored big with all of us when they brought home the Carry-All Action Playsets by Marx. These kept us entertained, and probably more importantly, quiet for hours.

You had to be careful with the pivot joints and mounting points, but other than that, these playsets could take a lot of abuse. I had Fort Apache, and one of my younger brothers had the Fighting Knights set.

Surprisingly, my Marine sergeant dad did not get us the Army Men set, but it did not matter much. No matter which one you had, these Carry-All playsets brought hours and hours of fun.

Small Shots: Mattel’s Hot Wheels Dolls

Small Shots was one of those 1971 toy ideas that sounds strange now, but made sense once you see it. Mattel basically took the Hot Wheels idea and put little dolls on skates, wagons, carts, and other rolling stands that could run on Hot Wheels-style track.

The commercial is pure early ’70s toy advertising. Everything moves fast, the kids act amazed, and the announcer makes it sound like this was the next big thing. It was not just a doll, and it was not just a car. It was Mattel trying to mix both worlds together.

That was probably the real idea. Hot Wheels was huge with boys, while dolls were usually marketed to girls. Small Shots tried to pull both sides together — little fashion-style figures that could race, roll, and crash down a track. It was a clever idea, even if it also feels a little odd today.

Another interesting note: one of the early Small Shots commercials is listed among Jodie Foster’s early TV commercial work. She was still a child actor at the time, years before most people knew her name.

Small Shots did not last very long, but it is a great example of how toy companies in the 1970s were willing to try almost anything. Dolls on Hot Wheels track? Why not. In that era, if it rolled, launched, flipped, or crashed, somebody was going to put it in a commercial.

Big Jim’s Rescue Rig: Backyard Adventure in a Box

This is the Big Jim a lot of kids remember: not just the action figure, but Big Jim’s Rescue Rig from Mattel. The 1973 commercial had everything a kid needed for instant backyard drama — a rock slide, danger, a crane, a ladder, and Big Jim rushing in to save the day.

The Rescue Rig was basically a rolling rescue headquarters, with enough parts and gadgets to turn a pile of dirt or rocks into a full emergency scene. It was the kind of 1970s toy that did not need batteries, screens, or sound effects. You supplied all of that yourself.

For kids who had it, this was more than a truck. It was the whole adventure.

“Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop”

I remember my mom calling it the “Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop,” and for years I wondered where that came from. Now I know she wasn’t just making up a funny name — that was actually part of Wham-O’s marketing.

The original Hula Hoop craze took off in 1958, but like most fads, it cooled down. Wham-O later tried to bring it back by adding a new twist: sound. They put small ball bearings inside the hollow plastic hoop so that when you spun it around your waist, it made a swishing, “shoop shoop” kind of noise. TIME described the 1967 version as the New Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop, with bright colors and ball bearings inside to give it that “whirry” sound.

That explains why the name stuck with so many parents. It wasn’t just a hula hoop anymore — it was the one that made noise. Toy collectors and nostalgia sites still point to the Shoop Shoop version as Wham-O’s attempt to freshen up the craze, and later versions from the 1970s kept the name alive.

It’s funny how those advertising names became part of everyday family language. A kid might have just called it a hula hoop, but Mom remembered the commercial name: Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop. And once you hear that, you can almost hear the sound of it spinning again.

Slinky

The Slinky was just a coil of metal, but once you put it at the top of the stairs, it became magic. It could walk, stretch, flop, twist, and occasionally tangle itself into something no child on earth could ever fully fix.

Invented by accident in the 1940s, the Slinky became one of those toys almost every kid knew. You did not need batteries, a screen, or instructions. You just needed stairs, patience, and maybe a little luck.

And who can forget the jingle? “It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky…” Once that got in your head, it stayed there.

Did you have a Slinky? And did yours actually make it all the way down the stairs?

Johnny Seven O.M.A. — The One-Man Army Toy

The Johnny Seven O.M.A. was one of the ultimate “how did kids ever get this?” toys of the 1960s. Made by Topper Toys/Deluxe Reading, it came out in 1964 and was marketed as the One-Man Army — a giant toy weapon with several play features built into one.

This thing was not subtle. It could act like a machine gun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher, rifle, and detachable pistol all in one. For kids watching the TV commercial, it must have looked like the jackpot. One toy did everything. You didn’t just get a cap gun — you got the whole backyard battle kit.

But here is probably why so many of us never got one: the Johnny Seven sold for about $10.88 in 1964, which sounds cheap until you adjust it for today. That would be roughly $115 now, so this was not just some little toy tossed into the cart. This was a serious Christmas-present-level toy, the kind you hoped was under the tree but maybe understood years later why it wasn’t.

Looking back now, it feels almost impossible that this was once a mainstream toy. But in the mid-’60s, with war shows, spy shows, James Bond-style gadgets, and G.I. Joe all part of the culture, the Johnny Seven fit right in.

Did you have a Johnny Seven O.M.A., or was this one of those toys you wanted but never got?