Happy Birthday, Little People! Today is the 50th birthday of Fisher-Price’s Little People and we’re giving away five free wee people to five lucky commenters. Read on to learn how you and your loved ones can enjoy free Little People. We’ll run the contest until Monday at noon.
Drop a comment below describing your fondest childhood toy memory. Was it a paper box? A toy gatling gun? A giant panda your dad poached from China? I specifically recall getting my Laser Tag gear – actually I think it was a Phazer set, a knock-off. Sadly, I only had one set so I could only play with myself. Interestingly enough that’s basically my life story right there.
I’ll pick 5 commenters at random when I stop crying.
UPDATE – Congrats to:
Jt Chiodi
Karin
DotComGuy
Michaela Conley
Matt
Thanks, winners!
The new ColorForm boxes – that first opening and the glance of the bright shiny board inside …and then…you SMELL the vinyl ColorForm pieces! Whiff – aaaaaahhhhh. I can still smell ‘em from here, even now. Favorite was the Liddle Kiddles.
I have actually bought this set on ebay as an adult, to replace the one I had as a child. You know what? It still smells the same!
My first bikes – I would have to wait forever (and consequently, *think about them forever) in order to have them and was required to earn 1/2 the money to cover the cost…
Somehow the purple Schwinn with the purple-and-silver-flecked banana seat and sissy bar AND the yellow Huffy 10-speed would appear prematurely – yet hidden away until the designated time.
But…I could smell them -the rubber tires, a little bit of greasy oil – and I’d play over and over in my mind; hearing the gears making that click-click noise, the feel of shifting, the brakes…the utter freedom of riding to the top of the hill and to school. Cruising… with no hands…FAST…on big hills….right into a sidewalk curb, face first ;)
When I was 7, my family and I lived in an apartment building next to an empty lot in Garden Grove, Ca. My younger brother (age 5) and I were playing outside during one those rare torrential rains in Southern California. We had explicit instructions from my mother NOT to get muddy. I decided to chuck a bunch of Little People out into the very muddy empty lot. I turned to my brother and yelled “You must save the little people!” All memory of mother’s admonishments were forgotten. My brother clad in rubber rain boots marched bravely out into the mud to rescue the Little People, only to end up himself mired in the mud. He cried and screamed he was stuck. There he was knee deep in mud balling his eyes out, clutching the little person tightly in his hand, unable to move an inch. He managed to wiggle out of his boots, but couldn’t keep his footing and fell forward into the mud. He half crawled back through the slop to the sidewalk, covered in mud. He went wailing into our apartment, only to find himself in deeper trouble with our mother. To save himself, he chanted the those fatal words “He made me do it!”. I was the one in deep mud then! I can’t look at a Little Person now with out thinking of my brother out there in mud. LOL It was worth all the trouble that followed.
Ahhh, shooting my friend in the eye with the original BSG viper that could shoot the little missiles out the front before lawyers stepped in and ruined all the fun.
The toy that I got most excited about as a kid was a huge purple Scooter. I got it when I was four and it was wicked fun! The big tires allowed me to hit some big jumps! So fun.
I had a Jolly Green Giant, I think my mother must have sent away for him… Maybe with 100 labels from cans of Green Giant green beans and $4.95 plus 2.99 for shipping. He must have been about 48 inches tall and had elastic bands on the bottom of his feet and the back of his arms & hands. I could slip my arms, hands and feet into the bands and make it appear as though he was walking around the house. He was so awesome! By the way, thanks for asking the question, I haven’t thought of the Jolly Green Giant in years.
:-) Michaela
My fondest toy growing up were Waterguns.
I remember playing with my Barbie and Skipper dolls quite a bit— it was especially fun on snow days when my sister and I got out of school early and played with a neighbor and she brought her dolls over and we got to listen to a pop radio station out of the big city….
Legos were my favorite, I think I only built using the instructions once, after that it was whatever strange concoction my mind came up with that day.
A really close second would be my big wheel. My buddy and I would have jousting matches on big wheels using those giant whammo bats as jousting sticks.
Mine is the gift that wasn’t, all I wanted was an GI Joe aircraft carrier for Christmas, but in instead I got the jet that went with the carrier. I was told our house was to small for a 7 foot toy. I played with that jet till it fell apart. I have a big house now so maybe I will have to pick up that toy on ebay..
One word: LEGO’s
Had everyone built the day I got them suckers!
My favorite childhood toy memory is of a hand-me-down of the Fischer-Price Play Family Farm. I remember playing with it on the living room floor- setting up the fence for the horse, cow, and sheep, putting the rooster in the barn…
Good times.
Dad got us a big bucket of big plastic letters, he also got some big bearing balls. He’s a really good engineer, so he would play with us constructing absolutely awesome tracks where the bearing balls would travel and hit each other and keep on going.
I think it was the Tonka Hook & Ladder fire truck that had a small hydrant you hooked up to the hose and shot real water off the aerial bucket. Used to soak my little sister. Have yet to see one of these again, my guess is the rust took it’s toll on the all metal trucks.
My earliest childhood memory is of a small ride-on toy tank that my dad got for. He was really into tanks and I had this green camoflauged tank that I would scoot down the hall on, pretending to blow up the cat.
I miss that tank.
Definitely the space shuttle with working bay doors and three, yes three, different sound buttons. Sadly that space shuttle was one of the few toys that disappeared long ago. Besides that, my little people town which opened up and had little mail slots in all the businesses’ doors that the mailman could put actual little people mail in. OH! And a working stop light (well it didn’t actually light up, but you spun the top and the color wheel inside would change.) Good times.
I had many favorites growing up… GI Joe, Tonka, dirt and shovle, real life bazooka with none of the fancy ammunition, and many others.
Two of my favorites and most craved were the remote controlled Voltron robot I got one Christmas and the always loved Castle Grayskull. There was nothing like begging long enough to persuade your parents to get such goodies.
Now, it has all come back to haunt me through my children. But at least I get to play with their toys too. Little People have always been a favorite for our little ones.
big jim. thaaaat’s right.
also big jeff.
and, gulp, big josh.
how did i end up with a lovely wife and two actual children??
(http://blog.restlesssoul.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/bigjim.jpg)
I remember color-forms. What fun plastic in the oven. Also Transformers more than meets the eye and my Thundercat action figures!
SST – I got it for something like my 7th birthday, it was a car with two big back wheels a long body and two tiny front wheels (like a drag strip race car), and it had a rip cord you pulled out and the car would go flying.
I don’t know what happened to it, it would be cool to have now, I think my son would love it too.
On my ninth birthday my mom took me out of school early and took me to the local “hobby shop” (do they still have those) to pick out a toy. “You’re old enough to pick out your own presents. You don’t need them wrapped up. You’re a big boy now!” I thought that was cool at the time, but now I’m a parent and know that translates to “I completely forgot to get him something for his birthday but maybe this will work.”
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I wanted to get the new GI Joe fighter Jet but it was too expensive. Had I known any better I would have played the guilt card on her. Instead I picked out the Fisher Price fighter jet (adventure people anyone?) which cost considerably less. I sat in the very back of the station wagon (no seat belt or even a seat!) and started to put it together while we drove home.
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Suddenly I looked up and noticed we weren’t going home so I asked where we were going. It was election day (November birthday) so we were going to Gov Whatshisface’s Headquarters! I worked feverishly to finish putting my jet together and work on a plan to sneak my new toy into “Headquarters!” That was the most exciting 15 minutes of my life to that point.
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Of course it was soon followed by the realization that this was nothing like GI Joe or Cobra’s headquarters. For some reason hanging out in the break room (probably filled with smokers back then) with stale doughnuts at a campaign headquarters which was nothing more than a telephone (I think it’s like a cell phone) bank (isn’t that where you deposited money before the crash of 2009?) didn’t live up to my expectations. But those expectations were awesome and are still a fond memory of the day I settled for the Fisher Price jet instead of the GI Joe one.
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Perhaps some I can keep a Little People in my car so that when I forget one of my 3 daughter’s birthday I can do what a real dad would do. Throw the free toy in a discarded shopping bag and proudly say, “No I didn’t forget your birthday! I just wanted to be green and use something recycled for wrapping paper.” And as I hand my daughter her present I can watch the disappointment in her 16 year old eyes turn to sheer rage.
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Isn’t it fun to build memories!
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BTW – My Fisher Price jet held up much better than my friend’s GI Joe jet when I challenged him to a test flight off my parent’s garage. My fisher Price toy survived with only the removal of the cockpit (which meant my jet could now hold the slightly taller GI Joe figures). His GI Joe piece of %$@* broke into tons of pieces and never flew again. I guess it’s a good thing his pilot came with a parachute!