Five Lamest Toys I Grew Up With

In the 80’s I loved action figures. Especially, like most kids in that time, the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe lines. Of course there were others too from Super Powers (DC heroes) to Secret Wars (Marvel) to Transformers, G.I.Joe, Thundercats and plenty more. But while these toys were awesome, they weren’t all great. For instance I guess we did have Air Raiders, but I hardly remember them. When I look at the pictures and videos I see why, the vehicles are awesome but the action figures are just pathetic. Unless it’s something really special, like the die-cast Star Wars X-Wing or the unique M.A.S.K. toys, than it’s not gonna work if your action figures are boring because they’re smaller than G.I.Joe’s and have no character at all.

 

I did a whole article awhile back about the lamer Master of the Universe toys that were out there. But there were plenty of others. Here are five toys which were stupid, at least in my opinion. And of course I am going off toys I had as a kid there have been more lines and variations since but I am not a collector and am not familiar with them.





Wonder Woman (Super Powers line)

It’s really hard to sell a female character in a line that is geared more for boys. Now of course you had to have Wonder Woman, she was one of the premiere heroes DC made and was even in Superfriends. But man this figure sucked. Not only was it kinda small, and even fragile, but it didn’t offer much in the way of action. If you pushed Superman’s legs together his fist would punch for instance. What did Wonder Woman do? Oh her arms raised to sow off her deflecting bracelets. Huzzah. The figure was redesigned years later with a lot more articulation. What we had in the 80’s was just bad.





Wolverine (Secret Wars line)

I’ve talked before about how my first to exposure to Marvel, aside from Spider-Man, was the toy lines. I had no idea who Dr.Doom, Kang, or Magneto were but the toys were cool. None of these figures were great with almost no articulation, and the accessories were awful, but still. One of the lamer one’s had to be Wolverine. Not only did the figure do nothing, par for the course with these toys, but the claws were attachments you had to put on. Which doesn’t make sense since, of course, Wolverine’s claws are part of his skeletal structure. And what happens if you lose them? The costume used on the toy was ugly too. Purple? While I loved Dr.Doom and Iron Man, it took me awhile to figure out how badass Wolverine really was.

When I look at pics of pictures of the toys today’s kids have, I feel kind screwed. Ah well, I loved them at the time I guess that’s all that matters.





Carbon Freeze Han Solo (Star Wars)

Yeah so remember when I talked about Star Wars toys how I said they made toys from every conceivable character, vehicle or place that appeared in the films no matter how minor? Well the lamest had to be this figure of Han Solo in Carbon Freeze. It came with the Bobba Fett Slave I vehicle, which makes sense in context of the movie, but at the same time what were you supposed to do with the thing? I looked it up and yes this is still being made today. I still don’t get why.The ship is kinda cool and all but that Carbon Freeze Solo was, lame. How many times could you imagine the same thing over and over?






Pretenders Transformers

Lord help me I am trying to make sure I remember that I had these idiotic things. Actually I think had the Master of the Universe rip off. Yeah MOTU were so desperate they ripped off this stupid idea. So I may not have owned this but it swear it’s so familiar.  The idea? Robots hiding behind humanoid forms. Ok, honestly not that bad. I am guessing RoboCop or Terminator had just come out or something. The problem? The human form was totally useless. I think you could raise the arms, and that was about it. It was a like a canister you put candy in more than a toy you’re supposed to play with. I guess they have improved but in my day, they were just silly.





Course action figures aren’t the only toys that can be lame. What about vehicles and playsets? Here’s one :


Super Mobile

Ok my friends it’s time for another trip down memory lane. Once again back to the Super Powers line, this little toy was a vehicle for Superman. Yes, you read that right. A vehicle, for Superman. Who could fly. Sigh. Well let’s say Lex Luthor is using kryptonite on our hero. What can he do? He can out think him and save himself, or one of his friends could step in. Nah, the best solution is to remotely summon a vehicle that he can climb into which will save the day. Oh don’t worry it’s made of Supermanium so it’s strong and invulnerable. Ugh. Yes I had this toy, and I remember taking it apart to see how it worked. It never worked right after, not that I cared. It had a battering ram thing and was just silly. And if you’re curious, it did make an appearance in the comics, barely, and appeared on Supefriends. It was stupid there too. It’s things like that make people think Superman is a little to powerful.



Not to be fair there were two toys, the small diecast one from Corgi was kinda cool actually I remember I liked playing with it. Silly as it was I wish I still had it. The idiotic Kenner version was just lame.







And finally since I mentioned playsets and it would be unfair to leave MOTU off entirely anyone remember this ?


Ok ok this wasn’t the worst thing to come out of MOTU as far as playsets but overall it was pretty boring. Yeah this was the snake mountain playset. Not only did it look nothing the cartoon, but there was nothing inside. And I mean nothing. It was so boring they had to add a microphone feature that served no purpose other making your voice sound cool. Where you could actually play inside Castle Greyskull, Snake Mountain just kinda looked cool. Though you gotta admit, that playset looks kinda badass.





FYI I had the Kenner Hall of Justice playset and it was AWESOME.







So what toys left a bad impression on you guys as a kid? Comment and let me know.