50's 60's and 70's Toys

[Edie Antoinette]

What toys did you have to play with as you watched TV?

(Photo courtesy of Paul Reinoehl)

[Ronn Nichols]

This is a COOL idea...........Brought back a lot memories. Thanks DARLING!

[Edie Antoinette]

Thank you dear man...That pic of Chatty Cathy brings back memories of my sister. She used to do her dolls so wrong--she would pluck out their hair and lose their clothes..reducing them to nekkid, bald-headed, step lookin chillunz...LOL

Aunt Mathie bought her a Chatty Cathy, and threatened her within an inch of her life if she 'abused' the doll. It's the only doll I ever saw looking normal that she owned. LOL

Fast forward some 30 odd years when I bought my own daughter a Teddy Ruxpin. My son and nephew put a rap tape into the poor teddy bear and his eyes started rolling and he was misfiring in speech--then suffered a complete implosion! Poor poor Teddy Rapspin...LOLOLOL!

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

LOL...There goes another one of those stories...This is a grand idea....SMILE

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

We had a ball playing this back in the 1970's...


As you can see, we all into it....ROFLMBO. I wonder what was wrong with Skip?....BWAAAAHAHAHA

[Edie Antoinette]

Look at your big hair!!!! Ohhhh I love this!!!!!

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

Skip was actually playing another Football game we had in 1977...

Mattel Football was released in 1977. It was labelled either Football or Football I depending on the date the game was released. I guess Mattel continued to make (or at least ship remaining stock of) the original Football even after Football 2 came out, thus the change to the game's title. Both the game and the box reflect the addition of the roman numeral I (and the box for Football I is smaller than the original as the game is packed in a plastic bubble-wrap bag instead of the styrofoam blocks). The font style used on the pre-I version is also different. Also, early models of Football had an AC Adapter jack which was removed on later models (which would only run on batteries). (I recently found an interesting variation on this game: A Football that I recently received (that just says Football, older version), has little round blips instead of the tiny horizontal lines that usually make up the blips on these games. Never seen one like that before. I've been told by a Mattel employee that these diodes where never changed in production, so this must be a foreign market version to have the different diodes. It also has a slightly different sticker on the back: the 'Try Fresh batteries' text is written in a black bar on the sticker, not just normal text like most of the Football games.)

A little game history: This was released in June of 1977 as the second game released by Mattel (Auto Race was the first) and sold through Sears. After less than 100,000 were made, Sears (using a computer model based on initial sales figures) determined that the games would not be big sellers, and most of the production for Football and Auto Race was stopped. Within 6 months, it became obvious to Sears that their prediction was wrong, and production was started up again and reached previously unknown levels! (Reaching as many as 500,000 units a week by mid-February, 1978). Check out the Mattel trivia section for several more interesting stories about this and other Mattel games (like why the playing field only has 9 yards... :) Thanks to Howard Cohen (ex-Mattel employee) for these great stories!

This game wins my vote for most cloned/pirated of the handheld games. :) They even cloned it themselves! Mattel has done a re-release of this game recently (Dec, 2000), check out Classic Football! And now they've released a tiny Football Keychain version of it! (April, 2001).

[Edie Antoinette]

I cannot believe you got a pic of yall actually playing!!!! You are something else!!!!!

Excellent!!!

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

Yeah i had a lil fro going and a cheesing smile....LOLOLOL. I think we played that game all day...LOL. The other 2 boys are our friend Chris (next to me) and our cousin Binky (one of Blue's sons) he in that top pic on my page.

[Edie Antoinette]

Wow!!!! Binky looks just the same...Look at the maniacal look on Dena's face. I think she was sitting on her new doll..!!!!

ROFLMBOOOOOOOOOO

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

Poor Dena and whats wrong with the girl sitting to her right and the girl on the 2nd row to your right with the hoodie on....LOL

[Shelley "SoleMann" King]

We had this also...My poor thumbs stayed sore...ROFLMBO

The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F. However the Atari 2600 is credited with making the plug-in concept popular among the game-playing public.

Originally known as the Atari VCS — for Video Computer System — the machine's name was changed to "Atari 2600" (from the unit's Atari part number, CX2600) in 1982 following the release of the more advanced Atari 5200. The 2600 was typically bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a cartridge game—initially Combat[4] and subsequently Pac-Man.[5]

The Atari 2600 was wildly successful. During the 1980s, "Atari" was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and, by extension, for video games in general, similar to "Nintendo" and "PlayStation" in the later 1980s and '90s.

[Edie Antoinette]

The mean looking one is my cousin Janet..she is the identical twin of Janice right behind Dena. My "hoodie" cousin is the oldest of their family Kim (now deceased)..I can't for the life of me figure out the lost child in the storm scarf thing she has going on. *smh* LOL

The one with the cat-eye glasses is Mozie..she is the one who blackmailed me that same day while we played with our toys in the back room. She came up behind me and said..."Oooo Imm'a tell you said WEE WEE!!! I was so distraught because that word never came up in my head, let alone me saying it!!!! She kept trying to take every toy I had in my hand..first my doll, then the army men I was playing with.

Our parents were out in the kitchen (we had the door closed while they talked and laughed)..After hours of torturous extortion, I couldn't take it anymore and said..."TELL!!"!!! She went to the door and turned around one more time to enjoy the anguish on my face!!! Well, she went into the kitchen and said.."Cousin Ann, Edie said ..." but before she could even get it out..her Dad, my cousin Melvin popped her in the mouth and said..."Git'cho a-- back in that room gal!!!!"

She re-emerged all jacked up...(glasses was sittin sideways)...