The launchpad for the wind-up marvels called Wrist Racers (from Knickerbocker) was worn around the wrist like a watch, which meant you had to lie…
Browsing: Toys & Games
Action figures had many faces in the early 80s – the blonde brawn of He-Man, the buzz-cut ruggedness of G.I. Joe – but few were as…
X-Ray Spex came about in 1964 when Harold von Braunhut (the mastermind behind Sea Monkeys) repackaged an optical effect made popular by a device called…
It wasn’t like pinball machines hadn’t been sexy before – many a lad had pumped his pocket money into Slick Chick just to spend more time with those…
Inspired by the Alien films and countless other sci-fi suspense flicks, this game sent a group of unlucky scientists and soldiers into a series of…
A classic vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up Namco arcade game (distributed by Atari), Xevious sent your ‘Solvalou’ craft into solo battle against the invading Xevious armies. Unfortunately, the…
The first version of Yahtzee was invented by a moneyed Canadian couple in 1956 aboard their yacht, of all places. Among the couple’s boating coterie,…
Any kid who had to make long car trips knew very well the pleasures of a good Yes & Know book. After spending so much time in…
A playground favourite for millions of schoolchildren the world over, the Yo-Yo is actually, according to some historians, one of the oldest toys around. Museums…
1982 gamers had never seen anything like Sega/Gremlin’s Zaxxon. Players had flown spaceships into strafing raids and interstellar dogfights before, but Zaxxon did it in…
“Moving across the landscape, overrunning all obstacles as inexorably as the future itself, these amazing, efficient and powerful automatons have but one purpose – to…
Zig Zag Zoom – for age groups 7 to 14 – was produced by Ideal from 1970. The game came with an adjustable plastic ramp…
By themselves, the words ‘bubble blower’ didn’t inspire much awe. Ten-cent sets of rings and bubble fluid could blow bubbles. Heck, even dish soap could…
Let’s face it. Model toys took a long time to build. And for all the hours we sat hunched over the kitchen table, dizzy from…
“Blow ’em up and hear ’em go!” Released in 1972, these toy cars from Matchbox had a diecast base and a moulded plastic body and…