It the 1970s the best hope a kid had for learning about upcoming toys was to get their mitts on the Sears Wish Book, which conveniently came out in the late fall. This thick cornucopia of avarice was our book of dreams. I can still remember getting this book and quickly flipping past all the boring clothes to the end, where all the cool stuff was. With marker in hand, to circle all the stuff we wanted “Santa” to bring us, I would get to work. Over the ensuing weeks I would go through this catalogue repeatedly and each time I did so I would get the same thrill I experienced when I looked at it for the very first time. The Sears Wish Book was the ultimate toy tease for a kid. By circling ever Star Wars thing I could find I all but guaranteed that I would get a few of the many things I wanted.
14 comments:
Way to rise to my challenge, my friend. These are great! I'm going to add more comments as I get to peruse them closer, but that Buck Rogers playset looks like a piece of crap.
SW page: one thing I always liked about the Wish Book is that they'd put the SW figs inas dramatic poses as they could manage, ie. a hand or two raised in the air, preferably holding a gun. Weird to see the red and blue Snaggletooths displayed on the same page.
On that page with the military mountain thing, there's a dinosaur playset in the upper left corner that I had (although I had an earlier version with dinos molded in different, better colors), and I had the Godzilla that was made by the Shogun Warrior people.
I used to have that Micronaught playset that I played with for hours! In fact, seeing this picture makes me want it all over again. I'm going to look on Ebay for it. Looking at it now it looks pretty stupid. I mean, who would design a vehicle like that?
Trek page: That command center set is funny, and I think the Enterprise and Klingon ships must be the model kits. And what's with that Thought Police playset on the right?
I like how they put in a picture of that stupid stretch-arm-strong-superman wrapping his arms around the Godzilla toy. I can just see the ad people saying, "If we put them together, kids will want them both!"
There's a Star Trek toy in there that I don't think was ever released. It's a chair/display for the MEGO Kirk doll. Man, the MEGO stuff was such crap.
Wait, which Micronaut thing are you talking about? Is it the Mobile Exploration Lab? That's the one I totally wanted and never got. I did, however, have the Hornetroid and all the guys surrounding it in the picture (lower left pic under "rocket tubes").
Yes, that's exactly the thing I had. I loved that damn thing because you could make so many other robots out of it. I seriously want to get one.
Man you're right, that Buck Rogers stuff is such crap! I saw a Tiki at Toy Vault 1 yesterday for $3.
Oh, man...there was a Micronaut catalog in which there was a pic of a big spread of the vehicles you could make by mixing and matching parts. They had the Mobil Lab base plane without the big white tower or the front section of the plane. That way the front was like the Millenium Falcon front...anyway, I drooled over that permutation of that toy, and I don't think I've ever even had my mits on it. I don't think I ever played with yours...it might have been busted before you and I hung out. Those toys were crappy.
Come to think of it, it was pretty cheaply made! The weird thing is that I didn't really own any Micronaughts. I think some relative gave it to me for X-Mas - you know the thought she probably had, "I'll get Jeff this Space Wars toy, he'll love it."
That's Twiki! I still have my Twiki, but my Buck figure fell apart a long time ago. It was one of those that had a rubber band holding it together...for a while, anyway.
I can't believe you had the Mobile Exploration Lab and I never played with it. Dang.
I feel like I've seen that set somewhere since growing up. Maybe at Toy Tokyo. The strange thing about Micronauts is that some of the TONS of product out there has been reissued at least twice over the years, thanks to Japan. Once as The Interchangables and later to specialty stores. That's how I got a new Pharoid with Time Chamber (I only wanted the Time Chamber).
You know when a commercial is in such heavy rotation you actually see it twice consecutively? The commercial for the Micronauts Rocket Tubes playset did that.
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