Fun Toys From The 60’s You Won’t See Today

[Krogen]

Anybody remember water rockets? A small plastic rocket you filled half full of water then put onto a hand pump. You pumped air into them, pulled back the locking mechanism, and they launched into the air (or at your friends). One bunch would be the Russians, the other the Americans. We'd take turns launching "nuclear missiles" at each other.

Not that, but my buddy and I launched 2 liter pop jugs that way. He configured a lanyard-operated release on a piece of plywood. We'd fill the pop bottle half full, put it on the release and pump it up with an air compressor. Got some impressive heights!

Full disclosure: we weren't kids anymore. At least chronologically.

 

[deadin]

I had an Uncle that made an acetylene/propane cannon.
It shot bowling balls.

 

[bearman49709]

I must have a very poor memory or I had a very sheltered life growing up.
I don't recall of even hearing about 95% of the items mentioned.

I grew up near you in Goodrich.
Back in the 60's we had 2 maybe 3 channels and the TV was turned on at 6:00 pm to watch the new's then other adult shows not worth watching then off at 9:00 PM
With eight kids even if we saw something on TV there was no way we could get it.

 

[TXBryan]

Ouch!

I won a Sonic Blaster at my Grandfather's company picnic for a race of some kind when I was about eight or 10. My Brother and I quickly figured out to shoot the doggone thing underhand because if you shoulder mounted it the noise was unbearable.

Seems the noise making portion was in the rear and, if shoulder mounted like any good bazooka should be, the sonic blast was approximately four millimeters from your ear. Great toy.

Bryan

 

[S&W Fan]

The Sonic Blaster was one of the gun oriented toys my folks didn’t let me get. My dad would say I could supply all the neighborhood kids with my toys. My two favorite were a cap Tommy gun and my Man From U.N.C.LE. pistol. My sons had lots of Nerf guns when they were young.

This is me around 1959/1960 lol

 

[charlie sherrill]

We used to do that with a slingshot.

A sling shot and a cherry bomb could pester a neighbor a block away and they would have no idea where it came from.

 

[charlie sherrill]

I had the revolver. Made by Mattel, I think (?),like the belt buckle derringer, which I also had. Anything like that wouldn't even make it to market these days, being deemed "too dangerous". At the very least it would come with protective glasses, mandatory safety stickers and manual. And of course a Proposition 65 warning. And cap guns? Yeah!

And the Etch-a-Sketch. Too much fun! And apparently still being manufactured. The stuff inside is aluminum powder.

How on earth did any of us get to our present age intact?

Anyone have a Meccano set? All those green girders and little nuts and bolts...

"Fanner Fifty"?

 

[67tempest]

A sling shot and a cherry bomb could pester a neighbor a block away and they would have no idea where it came from.

I grew up as a kid on the far western edge of Chicago in the 60's and 70's, about as far west as you could go and still be within the city limit's. Some of the block's in my neighborhood were in Chicago and some were in Norwood Park, the Chicago Police Commissioner lived down the block from us. It was rare to see a Chicago squad in the area, Norwood Park had no police presence, we cruised the street's with our mini bike gang without a worry.

My neighbor and I were shooting M80's down the street with my trusty Wrist Rocket, he lit the fuse and I shot one down the block. Just as the M80 bounced into the intersection a Chicago squad rolled up and stopped, the M80 exploded right in front of his squad, we thought we were screwed. The officer just looked at us, shook his head and drove away, dodged a bullet!

The innocence of youth was shattered when it was found that John Wayne Gacy, who lived a couple of block's from me, was murdering and burying young men in his crawl space. The area became a media circus, streets were blocked off, police were there 24hrs a day. I got married in the early 80's and moved away. I still occasionally drive through the old neighborhood and remember growing up there with fondness. and sadness.

 

[whelenshooter]

I had several of the toy's listed as a kid, there were Creepy Crawlers all over our house. One of my favorite things as a kid was my Wrist Rocket slingshot, still have it somewhere. My father used to supply my ammo,he would bring me home pounds of 1/4" ball bearings from where he worked, nothing was safe in my neighborhood.

Wrist Rockets were a tremendous advance over standard slingshots. With the wrist support you could use much more powerful rubber bands, with surgical rubber tubing being the best. My wrist rocket went to college with me because I knew it would come in handy (I was only 17 when I started college). One of the guys in my dorm was a bit older and had worked at an iron ore plant in Minnesota before he decided to attend college. The plant processed iron ore into taconite pellets. Taconite pellets are all the same size (about 1/2 an inch, if I remember right) and harder than hell. He came to school with several 3-pound coffee cans full of taconite pellets. They make wonderful slingshot ammunition. They were great of you wanted to hunt critters or break stuff.

My roommate and I mostly used our Wrist Rockets with Licorice Dots from the vending machines and grapes from the cafeteria. There was another dorm that sat side by side with my dorm and was only about 30 feet away. Some of the guys in that dorm would get really drunk (even in the middle of the week) and in the middle of the night, open their windows and scream obscenities at us. They would also blow a very loud plastic horn, which was impossible to sleep through even with our windows closed. In the early fall and early spring our windows were always open because our dorm had no air conditioning (this was the early and mid-1970s). When those guys got rowdy, we would shoot grapes through their open windows. Did you know that a grape hitting a glancing blow at high speed from a wrist rocket on a light colored interior wall will leave a purple streak about six feet long that is very hard to clean off? They also HURT when they hit you! Once, after being pelted by grapes, a very drunk guy shot a skyrocket at my window in retaliation, which broke it. Fortunately the skyrocket fell outside the room rather than inside before it exploded (it was a BIG skyrocket, but it didn't attain much velocity before hitting my window having traveled only 30 feet). The guy then leaned out his window and yelled, "Wha-da-ya think of that?" He displayed a perfect target, so I switched ammunition to a Licorice Dot, pulled back to my anchor point with my wrist rocket, and plugged the guy right in the center of his chest. After he finished screaming he and his friends decided to quit yelling and blowing their horn... at least until the next time they got drunk.

Whelenshooter

 

[TX-Dennis]

I remember beaning a kid - the DA's son who lived across the street from us then - with a pebble fired from a slingshot. Thank God it wasn't a wrist rocket or I might have killed him.

Let's say I had trouble sitting down for awhile after that.

 

[soFlaNative]

Us kids found the sound of a Super Ball bouncing amongst the rafters of a pole barn hilarious.

 

[wuluf]

I've heard telephone booths were no match for a Wrist Rocket.

You've "heard!" [emoji38]

Sent from my SM-S921U using Tapatalk

 

[BillyMagg]

Oh yeah!

Clackers! (Two hard plastic balls on the ends of a string)

Clackers and Super Balls,, we had a brick hallway at school that made a wonderful place to sling your super ball, and it would bounce around.. the bricks were a little rough on the smooth surface of the superball though!

I had a battery operated, crank axled Aircraft Carrier named "Mighty Matilda", and the neatest toy of all was a double A battery powered submarine, with two balast tanks, that did indeed achieve neutral bouyancy.. great in the bath tub,, but I lost her in the pond spilway..

But oh! the Cox Stuka, Spitfire, PT-20, Little Green Pitts Special, Piper Cub,, I do have a few Spitfires and pieces in the top of my closet,, I saw one on ebay, Mint, in the box, for about 650 bucks,, I should have bought... LOL,,, but I wanted to live! (my wife would have absolutely killed me for that) now the Cox Mustang was always a snoozer, the Corsair flew pretty good, the P-40 was very kool..

But that Stuka was drop dead gorgeous, in a way no real life Stuka ever was, glossy black, with gorgeous gull wings, little propellors, two pilots, rear facing machine gun, and glass canopies... When the SP's rolled up the street on base, they ran me out of the street,, I waited until they left, then fired that very fast chick back up, they pulled right into my flying circle, and I damn near took the lights off the top of their truck,, oh they were so pissed, but they were extremely happy to have seen that gorgeous little Stuka splashed all over the street in front of our house.. oh my gosh, straight in, you couldn't throttle most of those flying models,, just had to run them out of gas, I had no choice but to put her on the ground..

I have no idea what my Mom was doing, she didn't care if I was flying my airplane on the street... then I had to move to the pick nick table in the back yard for some "carrier take offs!"

 

[Bald1]

My favorite 1960s toy was made in 1968. However I did not acquire it till 1986. I played with it 13 seconds at a time.

 

[greenwellg]

Spud guns.
Aurora race cars.
Put Put boats. Remember Sterno, otherwise known as canned heat,rock band of the same name.
Never liked Pecans so we hack sawed them in half, used toothpicks and wax to make masts. Set them in the tub and use eye droppers to bomb them until they sank.
Board battle games.
Stratego.
I flew a paper airplane off the Empire State building.

 

[ACORN]

A cool toy I received as a kid was an Eldon Bowl-A- Matic. A miniature bowling alley. There was a little bowler you could move from side to side, adjust the speed of his throw, an an automatic pin setter.
I had to fight with my Dad and Uncle’s to get to play with it.
They bring a nice price on EBay

 

[soFlaNative]

The original hard green SuperBall, maybe a hair smaller than a tennis ball.
Slammed into the rafters of a pole barn was a noisy good time, a group effort was needed to contain or find the rebound.
Lost after the 2nd bounce from atop the Citrus Tower in Clermont when I was 10. Wished I could have seen that from the ground.

 

[greenwellg]

Pop comes home one day, sees a cop with his two oldest sons. Seems like they figured out how to bolt a lawn mower engine to a little red wagon, chicken wired the lawnmower axle to the wagon axle. Lean on way you have a clutch the other way to coast. No brakes, tiller steering from the wagon, One bro on the throttle the other steering. Tended to turn front wheels sideways and flip over at speed. Cop was acting serious but could barely control his laughter, Pop handled it just fine so we avoided "jail".

 

[Rustyt1953]

We were underprivileged.

 

[usm1rifle]

Lawn Darts until my little brother got stuck with one...