Born Thomas Whitehead in Oldham on 9 May 1944, Tony Prince had been an apprentice toolmaker and a singer and guitarist with a Manchester group called…
Browsing: Pop Culture
Years before Extreme Sports hit the mainstream, there was Atari’s Toobin’, one of the oddest and most dangerous sports to hit the video arcade. The…
When the Great Depression hit the United States in the 1930s, large and expensive toys suddenly went out of fashion. Just the same, kids still…
The British card game Top Trumps was first launched in 1978. Published by a company named Dubreq, there were initially eleven different themed packs selling…
The Topper was published weekly by DC Thomson from 7 February 1953 until it merged with The Beezer in September 1990. Along the way, it absorbed Buzz in 1975 and Sparky in…
The thing about tic-tac-toe (or “noughts and crosses” as it is more logically known in the UK) is this: Eventually, you match two kids up…
Also known as Zim Zam, Tether Tennis or Swingball, this simplest of concepts was a huge seller in its day. Basically, just a tennis ball…
The toughest of Sears tough Western Jeans – lab tests prove it! Made of a fabric so rugged, we made a trampoline out of it.…
Once upon a time, small male children played with toy guns. These toys were often made of metal rather than plastic, and were sometimes quite…
Many of the truly classic games and toys of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s are still around today, albeit in a much-altered form. The ‘modernisation’…
Borrowing the famous theme from the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire (1981) for its mode music, Konami’s Track & Field – launched in 1983 – brought…
Before they were ‘tracksuits’ in the 1980s, they were ‘jogging suits’ in the 1970s. The first traditional jogging suit, the sweatsuit, was nothing more than a…
Toy company Hasbro was impressed with two toy-lines at the Tokyo Toy Show in 1983 – Takara’s Microman and Diaclone – and sought to pick…
When the transistor replaced the bulky and unreliable vacuum tube in amplification units, transistors did the job better and were much smaller, making it possible…
“Trebor Mints are a minty bit stronger” (Stick ’em up yer bum and they last a bit longer). Founded in 1907, Trebor was once one…
Introduced in the 1960s, Treets came in three varieties – peanut (yellow bag), toffee (pale blue bag) and chocolate (brown bag). They were near-spherical chocolate/nut/toffee…
“The Trik is in the Trak” Trik-Trak (from Transogram) was beautiful in its simplicity, and an endless variety of layouts were possible, limited only by…
The Stag was Triumph’s first luxury car and sold with the snappy slogan “Keeping up with the Triumph Stag is no problem if you’ve got…
The one with the cheeses . . . or wedges . . . or little pieces of pie. Call them what you will. Trivial Pursuit…
Helena and Martii Kuuskoski of Finland made the earliest commercial Trolls during the 1950s, which were called Fauni Trolls. But the Trolls we all know…