A Popular Toy You Had

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Aunt Bea said:
At Christmas, it wasn’t unusual for my mother and grandmother to start an assembly line to produce a bunch of sock monkeys from hunting socks.

They were all about the same but each one did seem to have its own personality.

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My daughter had one of those. It had already been put together when we got it. She carried it everywhere until age five or so.

She was probably two or so when we gave it to her. She named it Woose, and we never knew why. BTW, the name rhymes with moose, but I really doubt we'd said the word moose around her by that time.
 
Myself about 10, and my brother about 7, shared this toy. This was something fairly common at the time... compressed-water powered plastic rocket.
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The red top part was removable. For some reason, we got into putting a sow bug (a "Porcellio", also called a pill bug) into the top portion, then launching the rocket. "First sow bug in space!" was how we kind of imagined things.

This is what a launch was like, though the one shown in this vid seems like a slightly updated version of the toy we had. Same method of launching, though.
 
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jujube said:
I had a spirograph, but back when it was all metal and had a crank to turn the wheels. You could make very detailed designs without the paper (round pieces that you had to order) or pens slipping.

They're made so cheaply now, like most of the toys.
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I don't even remember or recall metal ones with a crank being advertised. I can see how that could be easier to use.
 
DailyArtsyCrafter said:
I don't even remember or recall metal ones with a crank being advertised. I can see how that could 'sbe easier to use.
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I finally found a picture of one but can't get it to post. It was called the Hoot-Nanny Magic Designer and was invented in the 1930's, then was sold to another toy maker and was popular in the 1950's, when I had one. You can look it up under that name. I thought it was sold under the name Spirograph, but I guess I was mistaken. It probably "inspired" the Spirograph.

When I ran out of the paper circles that came with it, my mom wouldn't send off for any others, so I had to cut the circles and notch them in the right places. That got old REAL quick.
 
jujube said:
I finally found a picture of one but can't get it to post. It was called the Hoot-Nanny Magic Designer and was invented in the 1930's, then was sold to another toy maker and was popular in the 1950's, when I had one. You can look it up under that name. I thought it was sold under the name Spirograph, but I guess I was mistaken. It probably "inspired" the Spirograph.

When I ran out of the paper circles that came with it, my mom wouldn't send off for any others, so I had to cut the circles and notch them in the right places. That got old REAL quick.
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This is one version but the packaging changed over the years.

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Remember the "Sea-Monkeys" you could order from the back of the comic books? You thought you were getting cute little alien-looking things but they were just brine shrimp eggs that may or may not hatch.....interesting for about three minutes. I wonder how many kids got rooked on that one? <Raising my hand, sheepishly>
 

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