The Monsters Of Nostalgia
Friends and regular readers of The Aspidistra (I really think those categories are completely overlapping) will know I have a strong nostalgic streak and I love monsters. Can I possibly describe the pangs of sweet nostalgia this website elicits? Scores of wonderful monster toys from the '60s through the '90s. My brother and I owned more than a few from the '70s and '80s.
I'll try to compile a list of those I either had or played with when I was little and put it in the comments. Readers are invited to do the same.
[via boingboing]
5 comments:
OH SNAP! I recognize a bunch of these toys. I'll compile my list and we can compare. Then maybe we can make a new list to figure out which ones I eventually destroyed (sorry).
Here’s what I remember:
1970s TOYS
I don’t think I ever had any of these, although I clearly recall playing with them. It must have been at friends’ houses.
Six Million Dollar Man Bionic Bigfoot (link to a different toy site)
Alien
Gre-Gory
1980s TOYS
I’ll be using the first-person plural sometimes here, not because I am so regal, but because I can’t remember which of these were mine and which belong to my brother. At the time, such distinctions felt life-and-death, and there was much sibling fighting over toys, but now it is all a big blur of monsterness.
Gremlin (no link)
Remco Mini Monsters: I think we had all of these. Plus the Monsterizer, which is something I totally forgot about until I saw it here.
I think we may have had all of the Bugmen of Insecta. (That’s a link to a different page, but browsing that page reminded me of the related toy series Dragonriders of the Styx, many of which we also possessed, including vehicles. Those off-brand toys were actually quite cool, looking back.)
Some of these Nightmare Warriors look familiar, but I can’t be sure we had any.
All of the Inhumanoids look familiar, although maybe I just lustily cradled some of these packages at Toys R Us.
I think there is still a Boglin in my parents’ house right now. It is Drool, I believe, but some of those things look pretty similar to one another. I have vague memories that we had more, but I can’t be sure.
1990s TOYS
I’ve glanced at some of the 1990s toys, and I think as a late-teen, I was out of my monster toy phase. Some of those McFarlane toys would have blown my mind as a kid, though.
True dat on your list, here’s some additional ones I recollect:
1960s TOYS
Aurora Classic Monster Models: I got a re-issue of the Wolfman, probably in 1991. It was completely glow-in-the-dark.
Marx Monster Figurines: Some of these seem familiar, particularly the Hunchback and Wolfman. Maybe we got some of the re-issues? I think they were assorted colors though.
1970s TOYS
AHI Rubber Monsters: I remember having tons of rubber and bend-em toys, and the Frankenstein looks familiar. But there were probably a lot of different models by different companies.
Kenner Stretch Monster: I don’t know about this guy, but I think we had another figure in this line—Stretch X-Ray. I think we had a stretch Batman too.
1980s TOYS
Remco Mini-Monsters: Yeah, I think we had all of them, plus both glow and non-glow versions of a couple. We had the Monsterizer, plus the carrying case, which was cheap cardboard.
Remco Monsters at Home: We definitely had the Creature, maybe Dracula too.
Nightmare Warriors: Yeah, these looked familiar to me too. I vaguely remember skeleton warrior toys, but it may have been another generic line of action figures.
Inhumanoids: I don’t think we had any of these, but I know we had another figure in this line, Magnakor.
Boglins: You linked to the correct picture, but the Boglin in question is named Dwork.
I think we had all the Bugmen of Insecta, and many of the Dragonriders too, plus many other toy lines I noticed at the 3 ¾-inch archives: Battlestar Galactica, Black Hole, Clash of the Titans, Crystar, Greatest American Hero, Lone Ranger, Tron and Zorro. Maybe others too?
1990s TOYS
Yeah, by then I was buying less toys too—until college, when the McFarlane toys came out and I got the Werewolf and Frankenstein sets. PAYOW!
Oh yeah! Those Crystar figures were pretty sweet. I could waste days bein' all nostalgic for bygone times.
Very interesting. Thanks for your blog. I would like to say that am seriously a very big fan of Godzilla and its movies. I love all the characters of the series. I started collecting a huge collection of Godzilla Toys after that.
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