I never had this game, in fact I had not heard of it (nor remembered it) until I saw the commercial for it on youtube and thought to myself, this is so potentially dangerous, it is great !
Box For Big Thumb Game
Contents of game
It's kind of like "Whack a mole" without the mole. One player wears the big plastic Thumb, while your opponents have plastic hammers. Plastic Poker chips are put on the board and the player with the "Big Thumb" attempts to move the poker chips to her/his side of the board while your opponents try to whack the Thumb.
I'm sure after a while, the game just becomes trying to whack the thumb and no poker chips. Also I'm sure there were a few casualties from playing the game such as smashed hand or wrists ! I'm not quite sure if a game like this would be developed today
Alternate Box for Big Thumb Game
Here is a TV commercial for both "Wizzzer's" and Big Thumb. Big Thumb starts at about the 30 second mark.
Pull The Rug Out was a game where the object was to pile a bunch of plastic "junk" on top of a plastic rug and then "pull the rug out" without having any of the pieces fall over.
Box and contents of the game
Various playing pieces, spinner and rolled up rug.
This was a game for 2 or more players, although, it still could be played by one person. You spin the spinner and if it lands on an item that has not been used, you would put that item (say a ladder) on the plastic slippery rug. Spin after spin goes on, and the junk is piled on top of one another. Then at some point, someone will spin a "pull the rug out" turn. They then need to pull the rug out without having the playing pieces fall over.
Low Res image of the playing pieces stacked on top of one another.
Here is a video review of the game, showing how the game was played
This is one of the greatest toys that I never had.
On second thought It was very expensive (over $50 in the early 70's), and probably a bit lame, and something you would get board with quickly. But it was cool to look at and think about owning at the time. I still remember the commercial and the lines "Squeeze off shot after shot with this electric riffle" "Press the switch... It's a rapid fire sub machine gun" "Reloads itself too ! "
Wrestle Around was a simple marble game for 2 to 4 players. You and your opponents would grab one of the 4 "handles" of the playing arena, and using your wrists and your strength move the arena around. The idea of the game was for each player to release a marble into the playing arena, and try to have your opponents marbles drop down the hole in the center while preventing yours from doing so. Each player had 4 marbles. If your marble went down the hole then you had to release another marble. If you ran out of marbles, you lost and had to release the playing arena and sit out the rest of the game.
It took strength and firm wrists to play this game. I remember my wrists aching after a half hour or so of continuous play.
Here is a commercial showing how the game worked !
Today's toy is a racing car series made by Kenner Toys in the 1970 under the name of SSP which stood for "Super Sonic Power"
The key component of the SSP racer was the large gyroscopic wheel that powered the racer. You would feed a "zip cord" into the teeth of the gyroscope wheel and then quickly pull out the cord. The sound of the gryroscope would make a "WIZZZ" sound. The put the car on the ground and it would travel fast and far. Often times you would race against your friends.
SSP Racer, showing the Zip Cord
Here is a commercial for the SSP from the early 70's
Here are a few more photos showing the various type of racers you could buy, and also an advertisement that might appear in a comic book, or Boys Life magazine.
Add showing 24 Variations of the SSP
Add from "Boys Life" magazine
Smash Up Derby
Kenner too the SSP into a different direction in the mid 70's with the introduction of the Smash Up Derby line of SSP. This came as a box set, consisting of two cars and ramps. Kids like to smash things up, anyway, so why not have a toy that allows you to do it as part of the "game".
The concept was that many parts of the car would "break away" when hit. They could also then be snapped back onto the car for the next use. In early advertisement of the SSP toy one of the catch lines was "smash'em". This set took that concept to the next logical level. The biggest problem with these cars was it was very easy to lose a part of the car when it broke apart (or was even stored).
There were several variations of these sets including a Bicentennial red, white and blue version.
In 1963 one of Kenner's toy inventor was inspired when he saw street vendors keeping food warm with heat lamps. From this observation, came the concept for the Easy Bake Oven.
Original Easy Bake Oven in Turquoise
The product was elegant in it's simplicity. Miniature cake mixes were combined with water and placed in a small tray. The tray was slid into the oven's heating chamber. There a 100 Watt Electric Light bulb which produced enough heat to "cook" the mixture into a cake or other desert like food. The original price for the set was $15.95 which would be around $120 today.
The toy proved very popular selling over one half a million sets in the first year alone. The popularity inspired Kenner to try and cash in on other "baking" toys such as a pop corn maker, bubble gum maker, etc. However the Easy Bake Oven was still King (Queen) of the hill as far as popularity.
In 1968 Kenner was acquired by General Mills (owner of Betty Crocker Brand). The oven was given a slightly different look and included miniature versions of Betty Crocker cake and other products.
In 1968 Kenner kicked off a new advertising campaign for the Easy Bake Oven which featured one of Jim Henson's puppets (pre-muppets). Here is a picture of Henson on the set for the shoot of the commercial
Here is the actual commercial from 1968 featuring Jim Henson's Kenner Gooney Bird Mascot.
The look of the Oven was redesigned again in 1969 and 1970 with the introduction of the Avocado Green color and then the very 1970's color of Harvest Gold.
In 1973 The oven was again changed and was now officially the Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven.
Another "high tech" redesign happened in 1978 when the oven became a "microwave"
Easy Bake Ovens are still being sold today, with more than 23 million sold in it's 50 year history
The latest entry in the toy hit parade is a gyroscopic top toy from Mattel called Wizzzers, with 3 Z's !
1970's Wizzzer in it's original blister pack.
I had several of these as a kid and they were a load of fun. To make the top spin, you would hold the top and arch your arm so the tip of the top stays on the ground to trace a path
Once going the Wizzzer top could keep spinning for up to a minute at a time. Because it was based upon a gyroscope the momentum favored keeping the top upright instead of falling. In the most basic moves you could balance the top on it's stand, or in your hand. You could have Wizzzer battles or fights.
Wizzzer Catalog Ad showing various ways to balance and play with the Wizzzers
There were various trick books and accessories that you could purchase, such as a tray that was flat on one side and a maze on the other side.
Wizzzer Tray pictorial instructions
Wizzzer Tray accessory
There were other variations as well such as Mini-Wizzzers, can Wizzzers (The top would look like a can of soup or soda, etc.) and cars that the top would fit into and power the car with the spinning of the gyroscope.
Canned Wizzzer
Wizzzer Car
Here is a classic Wizzzer commercial from the 1970's
Super Toe / Super Jock : Schaper Toys - 1974 - 1985
Today's entry is the "Super Jock" line from Schaper Toys. In 1974 the original "Super Toe" toy was introduced. Super Toe is a field goal kicking football player.
Original Super Toe Box and football player. This was before the rest of the "Super Jock" lineup was introduced.
The object of Super Toe was simple, launch projectiles indoors in the dead of winter, and hope it doesn't break anything. LOL. Actually it was more like, you unroll the plastic field, assemble the plastic field goal post. Set your kicker up, put the ball down, and then SMASH down on the kickers head (just like in real life, LOL) !! and he would kick the ball. What could be more fun ! You could go for 150 yard field goals and still make them. We could play this for hours. Your only limitation was the fact that after a while your palms would get sore, from smashing down on the head of the kicker. You didn't even need to set up the goal post as it was fun to just launch the football as a projectile.
A lot of fun times with this toy. How 70's !
complete game unassembled in the box.
That's not how it's done. You SMASH the head down as hard as you can to make the kicker kick !
1980's version of the toy with a red football kicker.
With the success of the Super Toe toy, Schaper launched an entire "Super Jock" lineup featuring sports such as baseball, hockey, basketball and soccer. The basketball version of Super Jock was probably the most popular after the original Super Toe.
Super Jock Ad featuring football, basketball, hockey and soccer
Some of the Super Jock lineup
Super Jock Baseball
Super Jock Hockey
Commercial #1 from the late 70's showing 3 different toys (Football, Baseball, Basketball) of the "Super Jock" lineup
Commercial #2 from the early 80's, showing the 1980's version (in Red) of the Super Toe toy.
Crossfire / Gunfight at O.K. Corral - Ideal - Early 1970's
These two toys were very similar in game play and equipment, and were part of IDEAL toys "golden era" of ball bearing toys.
The Golden Era of Ball Bearing Toys
I have a theory. In the early 1970's IDEAL toys must have purchased or inherited a ball bearing factory with a million or so ball bearings. Not knowing what to do with them, some pitch man came up with the idea, "Let's incorporate them in as many toys as possible !". "What about SAFETY" someone asked. "You're fired" proclaimed his or her manager ..... or so my version of history goes.
In that era there were at least 4 toys with major components being ball bearings, They were:
Imagine the lawsuits today, the choking hazards. What did we know back then. Our biggest problem was picking up after ourselves and trying to avoid having some of the ball bearings being vacuumed up by the vacuum cleaner. ..... and now back to our story, already in progress .....
Crossfire
Crossfire was the first of the two toys to come out, probably around 1970 or 1971. This game was HUGE and it was HEAVY. The board was about 4 feet long. The bottom of the playing surface was like the same material as "pegboard" it made of, and that made this game heavy.
This was a "hockey like" game. You had a puck (also made from a ball bearing) which was placed in the center of the playing surface. Each of the 2 players had guns attached at the center end of the boards behind the "goals". The object was to shoot your ball bearings at the puck and try to knock it across the other goal.
While you were shooting your opponent was also shooting. You could also run out of ammo at a critical time as you had to manually load the chamber of the gun with the ball bearings, though it had a capacity of at least a half a dozen "bullets". Occasionally, a ball bearing or two would fly off the table onto the floor or carpet, awaiting to get vacuumed up, thus as time went on the amount of ammunition that the game had would start to dwindle.
Here is the game in "action".
Gunfight at O.K. Corral
This was also a ball bearing shooting game. Instead of shooting at a puck however, you would shoot at your opponent. Attached to the front of the "gun" was a plastic figurine of a gun fighter from the old west. The object was to hit your opponents figurine and make him "pop off" the gun, thus "killing" him.
Unlike crossfire, where the guns were fixed in one location and could only rotate, here the guns could also slide the entire length of the side of the board. Thus you could "hide" behind plastic cactus or rocks. You would need to "expose" yourself in order to fire a shot at your opponent.
The board was also made totally of plastic (not pegboard) and was a lot small than the Crossfire game.
