List of most favorite and popular toys in 80’s
My Little Pony
I was a child of the late eighties, and boy did we have some awesome toys to play with back then. These of course are super valuable right now, being auctioned off on sites like EBay, Etsy, etc… Let’s take a trip down memory lane & remember the good old days of being a child, of that time.
I personally used to have a huge my little pony collection. I had one in every colour of the rainbow; they were just so darn cute. What with their huge puppy dog eyes, long coloured manes & tails that you could actually brush.
They also had the most adorable dainty, artwork tattoos that where painted on their hips. Each of these symbols corresponded, to the name of the pony. They had charming names to such as Cotton Candy, Snuzzle, & Minty to name a few. If you were a little girl then, you probably wished you could own a real pony. Well this in a way brought your dream to life, if you had a good imagination. You could own as many ponies as you liked, & the great part was you didn’t have to feed them or muck them out. Yes you’ve guessed it they had a carton series; this was about a place called Dream valley where the My Little Ponies had great adventures.
Rainbow Brite and her trusty friend Starlite
I was also a huge fan of Rainbow Brite, or wisp as she was called when I was growing up. The story goes she was a little girl, with no family she was rescued by an orb of light. She ended up in a land with no colour; she was then given the job to find the seven kidnapped colour children .They made up the colours of the rainbow, & also a colour belt that was a weapon she would use to defeat the evil doer. He was known as the dark one, who had been draining all the colour of this world. When wisp finds the lost children of the rainbow, & defeats the evil one stealing the lands colour, she is compensated for her good deeds. The light orb bestows a new name on Wisp, & re-names her Rainbow Brite protector of Rainbow land. She is then told she can live in this land, with the colour children forever. Rainbow Brite is also given a white horse called Starlite. It has a gold star on its forehead, & a mane & tail made up of rainbow coloured hair. Looking after the kingdom of Rainbow land, is a huge task so she has friends that help out called the sprites. These super cute fuzzy looking little creatures, have feelers that have stars on the ends.I owned the doll, her horse, & all the stories about her, & her gang of rainbow friends.
Her adventures where a great delight to me, when I was kid & if I still had the books now .I would probably read them again, & love them just as much now as I did back then. Rainbow Brite started with an animated series, but the kids of the 80’s obviously couldn’t get enough of her, & the rainbow gang. The estimated worth of all Rainbow Brite merchandising, was estimated to be over a billon $. I wish I’d been her author that’s for sure!!.
The Super Duper He-Man
He–man or Prince Adam as his alto ego (who he was commonly known as). This was a really popular action figure. Basically a doll for boys, whichever way you look at it. He was the handsome & heroic prince, of the planet Eternia his image was most women’s fantasies brought to life he had blonde bobbed hair. O.K. the hair looked a bit ridiculous, but if you could get past that. You would see that he was a vision, made by the gods themselves he had a rippling six pack, & huge bulging biceps, not to mention big thighs that where 100 % muscle. They looked like they could, grind any woman into oblivion. He had the kind of body you get, from spending most of your time at the gym. Then add to that he was basically wearing, only a metal chest plate & tight loin cloth.
I’m sure if he was a real man, he would have most women swooning after him. He even had his own cartoon series. Where he would ride around on a giant, green tiger with yellow stripes, called Battle Cat. He looked every inch the warrior, that he was supposed to be, holding his sword or swinging a huge metal axe. His well known catch phrase, was “I have the power” which was pretty fabulous. He-man would spend most his time fighting, with his friends the masters of the universe. This included She-Ra the super cool babe, who happened to be He-man’s twin sister. She went around fighting baddie, with him in very provocative clothing. They would battle against Skeletor, their evil arch-nemesis. All in the name of castle Grey Skull.
The Mischievous little creatures called Popples.
Popples these were creatures that were, made of soft fuzzy material. They were available in every colour, of the rainbow. They looked like super fluffy teddy bears, with long tails with a ball of soft fur, on the end .They had a secret they could hide, in their pouch which was on their backs. You just rolled them into a ball, & into their pouch & they were hidden, well expect for their heads that would stick out. These where super cute & I remember owning, a couple of these. These where so popular, they even had a cartoon about them. The story was there were a brother & sister, named Billie & Bonnie. They looked after these creatures, & kept them as a secret so that grown-ups, didn’t know they existed. This was quite a hard job as the popples, where very mischievous little rascals.
Cabbage Patch Kid dolls
Cabbage patch kid dolls, whether you loved them or hated them. They were here to stay in the 80’s. It was like world domination, when the little guys & girls hit the market shelves. These would have been one of those toys, that parents would go to war over, in toy stores to get for their child for Christmas. I imagine it would have been like a scene, out of Jingle All the way starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Where Arnolds character promises, to get his son a Turbo Action man doll, for a Christmas present & has to fight tooth, & nail for the damn thing .Some of these dolls looked alright, maybe some of them could even be called quite sweet looking. But there was also a lot of these, that where just plain creepy. That would be classed as a doll, from your worst nightmares. They each came with a birth certificate, & there was loads of other merchandising to. Like trading cards, cartoons, even board games were made.
80s Transformers Toys
Transformers where another super popular, boys toy from this time. As you have probably guessed, by now the clue is in the name. These alien toys that looked like human robots, & came in different colours .These could transform into cars & trucks etc. These aliens came from a planet called Cybertron, they came to earth because an evil-doer named Megatron. He destroyed their planet .The leader of the good transformers; the auto bots was called Optimus Prime. These started off as comics & then a cartoon series, was made about their adventures on planet earth, while battling their foe Megatron. He was the leader of the bad decepticons . The boys must of gone transformer mad, as a whole new market of transformer based products, hit the shelves duvet covers, posters, computer games, etc These guys are still around today so they must, have made quite an impact on children. There are movies that have been made, in the 2oth century about the transformers. Transformers: 2007, Transformers Revenge of the fallen: 2009, Transformer Dark of the moon: 2011, Transformers age of Extinction 2014, and Transformers: The Last Knight 2017 coming out this year.
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