Do You Remember Longing for Some of These 80s Gifts?
Then you’ll relish in the nostalgia brought on by these iconic toys!
A few of us 80s babies in WLR put our heads together and came up with some of the most treasured toys from our childhoods and relived them through these vintage commercials.
Now we know what we want for Christmas this year!
1. Monchhichi
A line of Japanese stuffed animal monkeys first released in 1974, were all the rage in the 80s.
Four television series were later produced based on the characters and while we aren't sure what they did, we do realise they are so cute.
They have some staying power because children today still collect them!
2. Care Bears
The Care Bears are a fictional group of multi-coloured bear characters, originally painted in 1981 by artist Elena Kucharik to be used on greeting cards from American Greetings.
The characters were turned into plush teddy bears in 1983, and soon after appeared in the TV series and feature films.
As we all know, they can still be seen everywhere these days!
3. Cabbage Patch Kids
Ahh, one of the most prevalent toys of the 80s!
Cabbage Patch Kids are a line of soft sculptured dolls sold by Xavier Roberts and first registered as 'The Little People'. The brand was renamed 'Cabbage Patch Kids' when the dolls went into mass production in 1982.
The doll brand was one of the most popular toy fads of the 1980s and one of the longest-running doll franchises. (They can still be purchased in Smyths!)
The characters appeared in many other Cabbage Patch merchandising products ranging from animated cartoons to record albums to board games.
4. View-Master
To be honest, we'd love to find our old View-Master and give it a go once again!
View-Masters were first introduced in 1939, but it wasn't until 1980 when View-Master released the Show Beam Projector, a toy that combined the company’s stereoscopic images and flashlight technology to produce a portable hand-held projector.
The Show Beam used small film cartridges that were plugged into the side of the toy. Each cartridge contained 30 full-color images and made us feel like proper magicians!
5. Speak and Spell
Before we could enable dictation on almost every handheld device, this was the business!
The Speak & Spell line is a series of electronic hand-held child computers by Texas Instruments, making it one of the earliest handheld electronic devices with a visual display to use interchangeable game cartridges.
The original Speak & Spell was originally advertised as a tool for helping children ages 7 and up to learn to spell and pronounce over 200 commonly misspelled words.
6. My Little Pony
My Little Pony is a toy line and media franchise mainly targeting girls, developed by American toy company Hasbro. The first toys were produced in 1981.
The ponies feature colorful bodies, manes and a unique symbol on one or both sides of their flanks. My Little Pony has been revamped several times with new and more modern looks to continue its appeal to the market.
One hundred fifty million ponies were sold in the 1980s and turned into a TV series that still runs (in a different incarnation) today making it one of the most successful franchises ever.
7. Glo Worm
We fondly remember our Glo Worm, a cute worm that lit up when you squeezed it.
It was a brilliant help for those of us who were afraid to sleep in the dark and a pretty cute toy to cuddle with, if we do say so ourselves!
The toy line continued well into the 1990s, but after learning in 2005 that Glo Worm's head was softened with phthalates (something kids shouldn’t swallow), we haven't heard of them much since.
8. Star Wars Millennium Falcon
Star Wars is one of the most iconic brands ever created. Although the popularity began with the 1977 classic and the ensuing sequels that make up the original trilogy, Star Wars has become so much more than that.
We remember one toy specifically as being the Holy Grail of Christmas gifts: the Millennium Falcon playset. With a number of removable components, including weapons, a cockpit canopy windshield, a game table, landing gear, a secret compartment, and a lightsaber training set like the one Luke uses in the film, you covered every possible thing any budding Jedi could want!
If you happen to have one of these (sealed and in mint condition) from your childhood, it is currently worth anywhere from €2,500 - €2,900!
We must wrap this up before we sit here all day and relive our childhoods! Let us know which of your favourites we've missed?
