Isn’t it fun to remember some of those great toys from when you were very little? Things like wind up toys, slinky, Matchbox cars, Mr. Potato Head, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, View Master, Hoppity Hop, and Teddy Ruxpin.

Well some of these toys are still available….maybe all of them, I’m not sure, but they are not front and center in the toy stores anymore are they? No, you will see things like Nintendo Wii, Rock Band, and computer and video games when you walk into the toy stores.

Now, I should mention that even though I am always harping on kids playing too many computer games, I myself love the computer. I don’t know what I would do without mine. I don’t necessarily play a lot of games on it but I probably would have if they were around when I was a kid. So I totally understand. I just don’t think it’s healthy for kids to be inside all the time using their electronic devices, not for mind or body. Heck, it’s not healthy for me either but I am an adult and I get to make these bad decisions for myself. And I do go outside quite a bit so there.

So back to the nostalgic toys. I was just researching the spelling of Teddy Ruxpin and I see it is being brought back. Or has already been brought back. Anyway it’s around again in case you didn’t know it. I always thought that was a pretty neat toy for kids. Supposedly it has been “updated” which is usually not a good thing. Any time you see “new and improved” or updated, you can pretty much be sure that means less quality.

You know, I don’t think I ever actually owned a Mr. Potato Head but my cousins had them and I used to play with them over at their house. They weren’t that interesting to me, I was far more interested in plastic animals. Oh but my cousin had a Hoppity Hop and I used to hop all over the place on that thing. Boy did I love that. And you can still get them but you have to search around for them. I found some for adults a couple years ago someplace online, and I bought two of them. It’s still fun! My neighbors probably think I am crazy, but I also go out and jump on my son’s trampoline too. Good thing I live on 5 acres and my neighbors are not that close.

Now, as for wind up toys, I don’t think I had a bunch of them, but I remember “back in the day” there used to be actually really nice (relatively speaking) toys that came in the cereal boxes, and one such toy was a little wind-up animal. Actually there were many of them, They were really cute. I think there was a dog and maybe a monkey or something plus some other little plastic animals. You could wind them up and they would walk across the table. I really liked those little toys. They don’t make cereal box toys like they used to. Same with the prizes in Cracker Jacks.

Oh I just thought of another cool plastic animal toy that used to be in the cereal boxes. They also walked across the table but they were attached to a string that had a heavy thing on one end, and you had to drop the heavy end off the edge of the table and it was weighted just right so the toy walked slowly across the table. Loved those!

Well I have run away from the subject as usual, which was planned to be wind up toys but which as per normal has strayed off course. Anyway, if anyone has any idea what I am talking about that is great! Feel free to leave a comment.