How Many of These Toys from the 80’s Did Minnesotans Play With?
Children of the 1980’s saw some interesting phases of life develop during their formative years.
Music began to branch off in several different directions. Fashion saw some hits and misses.
Another area that really evolved a lot in the 80’s was with toys. The basic staples added more bells and whistles, but we also saw toys with advanced technology that helped our pretend world be more realistic.
I’m a member of a Facebook group called “Bring Back 80’s Memories” and I saw a recent post asking what the best toys for kids were from the 1980’s. And the answers brought back a flood of memories, how many of these did you have or remember?
Etch A Sketch- A toy like this really helped kids develop but also see how skilled they were at drawing.
GI Joe- There were many characters that kids were drawn to, but it was the basic good versus evil that drew so many kids to this.
Strawberry Shortcake- The character was created for greeting cards in the early 70’s and grew in popularity and expanded into dolls, and other related toys. And of course, Strawberry Shortcake needed friends which were created as well.
Light Bright- This was developed in the late 60’s and grew in popularity because the 80’s were all about color and design.
Transformers- Two toys in one, who wouldn’t love at least some of these.
Speak n Spell- The device would give 10 words, and the player would need to try and spell those words correctly. This was a sneaky way to get kids to learn.
Teddy Ruxpin- A talking toy bear whose eyes and mouth would move when he would tell stories.
Weeble Wobbles- These toys were on the tail-end of their popularity, which ended in the early part of the decade. But the toys had maybe the coolest slogan, “They Weeble and they wobble, but they don’t fall down".
View-Master View Finder- Place a think cardboard disc into a camera and then pull the handle down to move from slide to slide. It was a great way to have stories brought to life as well as see things from around the world that before we were only seeing in books.
Simon- The game would display a sequence of sights and sounds that the player would need to repeat the sequence to continue and try to be the winner.
Lawn Darts- This was a precursor to “bags” or “corn hole” with the exception that the objects being thrown had sharp darts on the end. Maybe putting this toy into the hands of competitive children with short tempers was not the best idea of the decade.
My Little Pony- These bright colorful characters brought a sense of kindness to the world.
Polly Pocket- The character was created in 1983 by a toy designer for his daughter and then it exploded on the scene in the late 80’s and hung around until the early to mid 90’s.
Tonka Toys- Not just built for little boys, and quite honestly were occasionally used as quite dangerous weapons. But these toys allowed kids to move dirt, rocks, barbie dolls, etc., from place to place. I’d say there are grown kids using the real-life versions of these toys for a career today because they played with them in the past.
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