I'm not a kid anymore, but sometimes I sit and wish I was a kid again...

because if I was, I would own GI Joe aircraft carrier.



When I was like 8 years old, this thing was as big as me. I wanted it so bad, but at that point in my life, my parents were really fucking poor... that thing was like a week's pay for them. Dirt was about the only toy that was affordable.

But goddamn, the USS Flagg was the motherfucking tits.

So, what was the one toy that you wanted most as a kid and never got?

5/30/2007 10:47:05 AM

I always wanted one of those huge backyard trampolines, but my parents thought they were too dangerous (although they let my sister and I jump on them at other people's houses). We had to beg for several years to get a regular Nintendo, only because my parents thought we would spend too much time playing or something. Other than that, I don't think I ever asked for anything extravagent-just barbies and crap like that, so I usually got the toys I wanted....

5/30/2007 11:09:30 AM

This is so embarassing....but when I was a kid I loved Nick At Nite. My favorite show was Mr. Ed so I'd stay up til 4AM in the summertime to watch it. And during commercials they would advertise Mr. Ed's feedbag. And I wanted one SO bad, and never got it. Many many years later my mom made me one to look like the original which was about the most thoughtful and sweetest gift I ever got, though now I have no clue why I wanted it and would never take it anywhere.

5/30/2007 11:18:18 AM

a nintendo

i got an atari instead. apparently my parents thought all video game systems were the same.

5/30/2007 11:24:28 AM

You crazy tripod users never learn.

A go-cart...."too dangerous"

5/30/2007 11:25:52 AM

I always wanted a paintball gun. Don't know why, I had about every thing else I could have ever wanted. Go-cart, tons of GI Joes, TMNTs, Transformers. Got a Nintendo for Christmas the year they came out. My dad bought me a 4 wheeler for Christmas one year too when I was about 11.

5/30/2007 11:30:29 AM

I played with tobacco sticks when I was growing up. They made great swords and rifles... I had this one stick that was bent a little at the end so it kinda had the shape of a rifle/musket with stock and barrel.

I also loved to put my green army men in the field after it had been disced up so there were millions of dirt rocks (the ones that crumble in your hand and explode when you throw them at something)

and you can build pretty elaborate trenches and bunkers in a field.

bttt, I wanted a .22 caliber lever action rifle with the long magazine under the barrel

My dad got me a .22 bolt action single shot instead because he wanted me to learn to shoot...

[Edited on May 30, 2007 at 11:39 AM. Reason : .]

5/30/2007 11:36:59 AM

I always wanted a power wheels. I never got one but eventually my neighbor did, so I rode it around a little bit.

[Edited on May 30, 2007 at 1:22 PM. Reason : .]

5/30/2007 1:22:04 PM

Quote :

"And during commercials they would advertise Mr. Ed's feedbag. And I wanted one SO bad, and never got it."

I hear ya... I wanted a Howdy Doody neckerchief... jk

I guess I'm from BobbyDigital's generation. The USS Flagg was the at the pinnacle of all toys. I actually knew a kid that had one. I think the key to owning one was having divorced parents and being savvy enough to use it as leverage to get what you wanted. At least I think that's how that kid ended up with one.

[Edited on May 30, 2007 at 1:38 PM. Reason : at]

5/30/2007 1:38:06 PM

I remember wanting the newest badest bat and glove for baseball--but i wasn't that good at it . I never got those.


I loved my powerwheels, but the fucker broke. When my youngest brother wanted one (like a decade later), I heard him walking away mumbling about not ever buying one of those peices of shit again.

5/30/2007 2:51:38 PM

*copies and pastes Bobby's post*

5/30/2007 8:44:49 PM

how about being poor, without a tv, and isolated (living in the boonies) during childhood ... parents couldn't afford toys and i didn't know what toys were available via tv or other friends.

ignorance is bliss, i guess

i do remember wanting a gizmo doll once i saw gremlins and my parents got it for me--that was badass.

5/30/2007 11:59:18 PM

quality thread.

we were immigrant poor, which is a slightly different genre of poor. we noticed moreso the things we did have and were thankful for them. we were very resourceful, and rarely went without. i never had GI Joe's or transformers -- instead i had the generic action figures and changing robots that came 3 in a pack and cost half as much as one name brand unit.

the only exception is when the kids on the bus made fun of me for wearing shoes from kmart. it bugged me at the time. i didn't get a pair of Nikes until the 7th grade. by then it didn't matter -- by then it only mattered if the that cute girl in history social studies class liked me or not.

there were other things my parents did like not buy me a video game system - they told me to read instead, but i just watched more cartoons. they also didn't buy me the Hi-C and Capri Sun that other kids brought to lunch, and insisted i drink real juice, especially tomato juice which i hated at the time.



[Edited on May 31, 2007 at 5:04 PM. Reason : ss]

5/31/2007 5:03:05 PM

There were lots of GI Joe toys that I wanted pretty desperately. Remember that Transformer that transformed into a planet? That thing looked badass!

Pretty much anything over $10 seemed out of reach to me. My parents were pretty cheap in regards to toys and I didn't really get an allowance in the way that a lot of kids did.

More than anything I wanted a jet ski. I seriously must have asked my parents for one well over a thousand times between the ages of 7 and 11. I even tried negotiating for it on the grounds that I would go five Christmas' without any additional gifts if they got it for me one year. No luck.

They did break down when I was 13 and my brother was 15 and get us a pair of Sea Doos. It's like that Simpsons episode where Homer says "When I was young, I wanted an electric football machine more than anything else in the world, and my parents bought it for me, and it was the happiest day of my life."



[Edited on May 31, 2007 at 6:03 PM. Reason : s]

5/31/2007 5:59:04 PM

Quote :

"they also didn't buy me the Hi-C and Capri Sun that other kids brought to lunch, and insisted i drink real juice"

thank your parents for that.

giving your kids one of those nasty sugary drinks is child abuse.

as for toys, i love lego sets, and had several. including the biggest one available at the time, which was a car with a working toy engine, gearbox, and steering (working as in made of plastic and you could make it work with your hands, not as in electrical or battery operated).

5/31/2007 7:33:52 PM

Water gun backpack from Childcraft...that thing held a couple gallons but it took the weight off your arm...parents couldn't afford 3, and getting just 1 would be dangerous for the other siblinigs

*sigh*

5/31/2007 7:40:39 PM

My favorite toys by far were my construx... i still have them, but they are getting a little worn out. I'd love to get some new ones.

6/1/2007 9:39:11 AM

I always wanted a trampoline, but my brother HAD to be disaster prone and broke his arm after he was bounced off our neighbors when he was 7. I also wanted to go to the night skating at the skating rink, but he messed that up for me too! By the time I was old enough to go, he had tripped over some fallen kid and busted his head open on the side. Really, everything I wanted to do he had already injured himself doing it by the time I got around to it.

6/1/2007 11:04:59 AM

I ended up spending most of my childhood days outside in the woods behind the house or playing any and every sport with other kids in the neighborhood.

6/1/2007 11:17:08 AM

Better Blocks, oh how I longed for them. I asked for them for at least 3 years. I still bring it up now. My mother says it is her single greatest regret from my childhood that she never got them for me.

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2368/

6/1/2007 12:16:47 PM

i wish i still had my heman and transformers toys... my dad went and threw them all away.

6/1/2007 12:38:17 PM

oh yeah, of course there was:



until i found out they weren't real.

6/2/2007 9:25:41 PM

I got the USS Flagg for Christmas. And my birthday. And I had to promise to do all kinds of shit work in between the two.

And let me tell you guys. The G.I. Joe Aircraft carrier was GLORIOUS. It took my best friend and I nearly 3 hours to put it together the first time, because it had a HUGE girder deck system you had to assemble first, and then the 4 story tower.

God it was AMAZING. And you could even walk on it, it was so sturdy. Seriously it was sweet. I ended up selling it on ebay after I graduated from high school for close to $600 bucks. Kinda wish I still had it, but I do still have the little yellow thing in the picture (the rope grabber thingy).

6/2/2007 10:12:52 PM

I always wanted the Dino Rider T-Rex.

6/4/2007 9:43:14 PM

I bought the aircraft carrier at a walmart in Lexington, SC in like 1988 for 60 bucks. I think I still have it.

6/5/2007 9:24:20 AM

I still have the dinorider T Rex.

But only the dinosaur.

That shit was awesome.

6/5/2007 10:32:54 AM

i always wanted a go-kart. that was the one thing i wanted year after year (my motorsports addiction started young). we couldn't have afforded it (though I had no concept of that at the time), and while we lived way out in BFE, there wasn't that good of a place for me to ride it.

when i was probably 13-14, my dad got a much better job (insurance agent...he'd been cutting hair) and mom had gone back to work (since my brother and I were both in school by then). My brother and I pooled all of our money (that we'd be slavishly saving for years), and dad put a little more with it, and we got a four-wheeler.

it was a Honda 200 Fourtrax (small by today's standards...it was kind of a middleweight back then). I put about a million miles on it and raised holy hell all over about a 5 mile radius of my house until I was about 16-17. By that time, I could drive, and the formerly BFE area I grew up in was just starting to be invaded by Raleigh sprawl, so half of the places I used to ride got turned into subdivisions. shortly thereafter, though, dad got promoted and we moved to durham. there was nowhere to use it where we lived there, so we sold it and bought a pool table.

6/5/2007 10:37:35 AM

i got some reebok pumps

those things were the shit for a few weeks

6/5/2007 11:10:44 AM

^^ So where was BFE for you?

6/5/2007 12:20:09 PM

Wake Crossroads

6/5/2007 6:05:05 PM

i've started collecting battle beasts...

cause i didn't have any when i was a kid.

6/8/2007 9:46:18 AM

Quote :

"i got some reebok pumps those things were the shit for a few weeks"

haha, i got a pair of british knights when i was in, like, 2nd grade--black and white with leopard spots on the sides.

they were HOT.

6/8/2007 12:33:02 PM

i remember there being LA Gear sneaks with lights in the sole

6/8/2007 1:51:06 PM

Those things are still around, I saw some kids running around with them last week.

doubt they were LA gear though, but that's the first thing that came to mind.

6/8/2007 1:58:18 PM

lol, apparently now they have kicks with a wheel in them, so its like a hybrid roller skate

6/8/2007 2:23:04 PM

^ I fucking hate those things. Every time I go to Target I end up dodging kids in those.

I don't know if I should smack them or their parents.

7/2/2007 3:33:01 PM

i dont move for kids in those skate/shoe hybrid

it is hilarious when they smack into shit

7/2/2007 3:44:30 PM

go-kart.

no place to ride or store the thing. damn living in the city.

even though we were poor (no concept), i still managed to get things that i wanted. parents are resourceful.

7/2/2007 11:22:42 PM

I always wanted an arcade machine. I finally got (built) one recently.

7/3/2007 1:30:54 PM

I always wanted a tree house. Not just a plain floor with railing type either but an actual treehouse with a roof and windows and a door and a fireman's pole.


never got any sort of one.

7/3/2007 11:27:52 PM

I always wanted a GO-Cart too. Then one day we got one, FREE. It was a road cart too, with a Corvette body and a Raisenette's paint/decal job on it (Im sure it was some promotional thing my dad snaked from somewhere)

I was the ONLY person who ever drove it that didn't get hurt. And that was only sheer luck. Pops and I spent a weekend stripping the stupid decals and painted it Cherry Red and put on some sweet corvette stickers.

-Then my sister ran into a telephone pole.
-One of my friends ran it under a fence and bruised a couple of ribs (remember this is a road cart, so no roll cage, and it was LOW to the ground)
-Another friend got his legs clipped when someone hit him not paying attention
-my best friend slammed it head on into the street curb and ejected himself into a yard
-the last friend that drove it hit a pothole, flipped it upside down and skidded about 50 feet on his head (luckily his parents made him wear a helmet)

So we were forced to give it away. That thing was BRUTAL. Clocked it at 28mph on the street, but it had such a tight turning radius you'd instantly flip it and barrel roll at anything over like 10-15. I had many close calls up on two wheels staring at the ground.

7/4/2007 1:12:48 PM

7/5/2007 12:40:48 PM

7/9/2007 2:18:24 PM

no one had that game ANYWHERE

[Edited on July 30, 2007 at 1:57 PM. Reason : img]

7/30/2007 1:57:10 PM

ever since i was little, i always wanted a pool table, a dirtbike, and a BB gun

my parents were always like "nope", "no way", and "hell no"

7/30/2007 4:30:11 PM

7/30/2007 5:34:14 PM

"Alright Black Bart ... you'll get yours"

7/31/2007 12:46:06 AM

....not a chance....in hell....ever.... (but I kept at negotiations for years)

this thread is why my nephews get cool presents ... I remember, and can now afford, so they win (probably won't get a hovercraft or 4wheeler past their parents though)

7/31/2007 10:52:18 AM

I wanted Megatron like nothing else. We had a pretty decent collection of Transformers, but no Megatron. My mom wouldn't get it because it transformed into a gun. I also never got GI Joe figures - promoted violence.

So I showed them! went to the Naval Academy and was an ordnance/anti-terrorism officer in the Navy for 5 years. Became expert shot with pistol, M-16, and spend most of my last two years either firing guns or carrying them. Take tham mom!

7/31/2007 1:15:51 PM

you shot your mom???

8/1/2007 12:22:30 AM