I Find This Crap So You Don't Have To: 1970s Toy commercials

Verbal Remedy AKA Denise

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MAY 16, 2009 6:55PM

Rate: 31 Flag

I suggest a very strong bleach solution to remove the earworms after clicking into these classic toy commercials.

And yes. I owned (or had friends who owned) all of 'em. Most of which didn't work nearly as well as they were supposed to.

Hungry Hungry Hippos: Giving elementary teachers everywhere massive noise-related headaches during recess.

Pretttttty sneaky, sis!

The entire family had a dodging-behind-furniture finger-pops battle one Christmas. It was a hoot. The adults liked it more than the kids.

I loved my Lite Brite. Sigh.

The Spirograph, on the other hand, never behaved as well as promised.

And THIS P.O.S.? Perhaps the very first Snowcone Fail.

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Comments

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Ah, Lite Brite. Damn, I loved that thing.

Jeanette DeMain

May 16, 2009 07:02 PM

Sno cone makers are still pos's. Look at those kids with their gentle, slow pencil strokes through those plastic rings! I'm starting to think maybe my problem with my spirograph is I was twirling that sucker around too hard and fast. Sigh, story of my life.

annette2009

May 16, 2009 07:07 PM

Bwah, Annette!

Verbal Remedy AKA Denise

May 16, 2009 07:12 PM

Oh. My. God. I'm going to get you for this, Verbal, and your little dog, too. (In my defense, I'll mention the "Pretty sneaky, sis" line, which caused a shiver of I-don't-know-what to run through me.)

Rob St. Amant

May 16, 2009 07:12 PM

I loved my lite brite, too. And my Chrissy doll...the one that you turned that big knob on her back, and her hair grew. *sigh*

Charity Cash

May 16, 2009 07:13 PM

Oh man, I remember Hungry, Hungry, Hippos. That game was fun for about 23 seconds.

Well, you warned me, but now I have that damn hippo song in my head.

MJwycha

May 16, 2009 07:15 PM

If you find any from the early 1960's--yes there was TV back then---let me know. I remember Preston toys---"Off we go, into the wild blue yonder""---selling some kind of toy flight simulator. We had a kid in our class, Preston Lewis---I used to think it was his parent's toy company. I was gullible. Or maybe just stupid.

m. a.h

May 16, 2009 07:16 PM

P.S. Love the title.

m. a.h

May 16, 2009 07:16 PM

I don't remember the finger pops, I want some now, please. I loved my spirograph. Some of these my younger sister had, but I'd play with them when no one was looking. I still love sno-cones, too. Some kids never grow up.

Michael Rodgers

May 16, 2009 07:31 PM

Rob, I look forward to your revenge with great anticipation. :->

I'd forgotten about the Chrissy doll, but I DO remember Tiffany Taylor--who had both blonde and brown hair on her twistable scalp.

Verbal Remedy AKA Denise

May 16, 2009 07:35 PM

I STILL give lite brite to adult children, and am rarely thanked for it.
I also enjoy paint by numbers (yes really), although sometimes I don't put the corresponding paint into the corresponding numbered space! Yes indeed I am a radical.
Thanks for the memories.

aim

May 16, 2009 07:37 PM

Finger pops..............!!!

Gary Justis

May 16, 2009 07:40 PM

Lite Brite and Spirograph were my faves. I had lots of fun with those. In high school, both were a blast to revisit while in a chemically altered state.

bikepsychobabble

May 16, 2009 08:03 PM

My spirograph worked pretty well. But I may have had a later 80s edition.

Saturn Smith

May 16, 2009 08:03 PM

Those were awesome. I remember most of the jingles. I love the straightforwardness of them - "You can make lots of pretty pictures with Lite Brite, by Hasbro!"

The Spirograph "Spiromania" commercial was very grooooovy.

Sandra Stephens

May 16, 2009 08:11 PM

My brother got Spirograph for Christmas one year... I was so envious. It's the only thing here I imagine was any actual fun to use...

Shiral

May 16, 2009 08:37 PM

Played with all of them, but loved the Lite Brite. Had forgotten about the Finger Pops, though!

Owl_Says_Who

May 16, 2009 08:45 PM

omg - Your brothers had every one of these, and I remember these commercials well. " Hungry, Hungry Hippo" had to be the loudest game ever invented...drove me crazy! The most frustrating game? "Operation" gets my vote.
--rated--

Mothership

May 16, 2009 09:48 PM

Ahhh, entertainment before the computer age. But where's Operation? "Butterfingers!"

ocularnervosa

May 16, 2009 10:08 PM

Well.

Now I know that The Man knows all the words to the Hungry Hungry Hippos song.

That's hot.

(thumbified for being prettttty sneaky)

Jodi Kasten

May 16, 2009 10:11 PM

When my kids (now in their 30s) were little, we had a "no TV toy" rule for Christmas wish lists. One year Lisa cried and begged and whined for Hungry Hungry Hippos. It broke in less than 1/2 hour. Neither of them ever asked for "TV toys" again. Lite Brite is a wonderful toy, but those little pegs play havoc with vacuum cleaners. As do Legos.

Julie Delio

May 16, 2009 10:48 PM

I love the title. It reminds me of Slate. I don't remember the sno-man sno-cone video, but I do remember the theme music. I suspect tunes are remembered long after images have been forgotten.

Steve Blevins

May 16, 2009 10:54 PM

Spirograph. Such a disappointment. It looked like so much fun. But honestly I think I had more fun in geometry class.

Verbal, if you ever find Malibu Barbie. I know that probably doesn't mean as much to a California girl. And generally I hated Barbies. But just knowing she existed made little Canadian girls feel warmer.

Juliet Waters

May 16, 2009 11:01 PM

Hungry, hungry hippos. Those kids all grew up to be greedy bulimics, I bet.

Man, those were mildly annoying. They just don't make jingles like that anymore...thank god.

And why do they seem 200 years old? Has that much time elapsed? That wasn't that long ago. Am I dead?

Beth Mann

May 16, 2009 11:02 PM

There's a band out of L.A. called Pretty Sneaky Sis. I thought it was hysterical, but no one around me knew what I was talking about.

I regularly have the Hungry Hungry Hippos song going through my head, despite having seen the spot in years.

My wife bought me a Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots for my birthday. Still can get their heads to pop off. Did those things ever work?

Fudo Myoö

May 16, 2009 11:03 PM

Some of my college friends had a 1980s Snoopy snow cone machine from a garage sale.

They used it to make frozen margaritas in the dorms.

Leeandra Nolting

May 16, 2009 11:05 PM

"Rock em, Sock em Robots?"

Gary Justis

May 16, 2009 11:24 PM

I loved Lite Brite. Twister was a neighborhood favorite too. And yeah Gary, Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots rocked. And here's a shocker--we all used to play...outside! Kids nowadays, consarnit!

Sactogator

May 17, 2009 01:14 AM

I was, but sadly enough we didn't get ads overseas. Whenever anyone'd get a tape from back home we'd all want to see the commercials, to hell with the actual program.
I did have a lite brite, though! I loved that thing, and Spirograph, and we played Connect Four in class.

hyblaean- Julie

May 17, 2009 04:01 AM

Nice! Had so many of these....remeber being totally mesmerized by these commericals....even completely taken into a fantasy of toydom by the Sears Catalouge....The Hungry Hippos are also a great life lesson the complexities of finite supply demand solutions of modern capitalism....or at least a good mdoel for what happens to my family at dessert time....

freedomisgreen

May 17, 2009 10:24 AM

I played with my Spirograph for hours every day. If I had to choose one toy for all time, it would be that one. I wish I still had it.

pretend_farmer

May 17, 2009 11:21 AM

God no...I remember Spirograph from commercials, but I grew up in the 50's-60's...think Betsy Wetsy dolls, Pickup Sticks, Tiddlywinks, Slinkies...Easy Bake Ovens...yawn...lol.

BuffyW

May 17, 2009 11:39 AM

Lite Brite and Connect Four played with that stuff for hours with my son....Does anyone remember the stuff that you could get for a buck and a couple of box tops from Kellog's in Battle Creek, Michigan? The frogmen I got worked, in my mother's aquarium....but the baking soda required to make the figurines submerge and return to the surface killed the tropical fish...Those were the days......

RonP01

May 17, 2009 12:09 PM

I had every single one of these! Now my brain is switching between Jodi's Rhinestone Cowboy and the Hungry-Hungry Hippos songs. Great. Just great.

Julie Tarp

May 17, 2009 12:19 PM

I was very deprived and only had Spirograph, but I always wanted Lite-Brite, so I got one for my kid :)

bluesurly

May 17, 2009 08:15 PM

I read somewhere that kids in our generation are harder for advertisers to reach because we grew up being scammed by those ads and we learned fast not to believe them.

(I actually liked Hungry Hungry Hippos though! We used to play it once a year, at my cousins' house at Thanksgiving.) I'm sure the grownups loved that-- it really was the LOUDEST GAME EVARR!)