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Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:46 am

I'm sure others around my age can relate but I have started to think of the things I could get as a little kid and then could not obtain at all. I am speaking of items like shooting missiles and "Slime". When I was under the age 5 or 6 everything had shooting something or another. I especially remember my Jumbos and those flying fists. Slime came in garbage pails and often had bugs or worms in it. Thanks to lawyers both went off the market for quite a while. It was devastating to obtain the newest toy only to push the release button and have the projectile fall limply to the floor like so many geriatrics before Viagra. The urban legends I heard were that some kid had stuck his Cylon Raider in his mouth and fired the missile into his throat and subsequently choked to death, leading to lawsuits and a lack of springs. Some other brilliant lad apparently ate like 3 mini garbage pails of slime and met his maker with green ooze still wetting his lips. If you are related to either of these fine individuals, my apologies but thanks to these geniuses and a bunch of suits I had to grow up sans these wonderful toy innovations. I remember Nickelodeon brought back Slime but the firing missiles didn't make a return till after my parents insisted I was to old for toys.
Last edited by Daimyo on Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:57 am

My buddy Brian had a post-litigation Cylon ship. The missiles didn't actually leave the craft - you could push the missile in, cocking it as it were, but when you pressed the button you heard a click but the red rocket just sort of poited forward a bit, like a nipple in the wind.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:02 pm

Lalo wrote:Image

I had this as well as the Sewer playset. I received a TMNT camera for my birthday one year, and it would leave a little ninja-turtle face stamped in the corner of your photos. I would set the toys up with the van & the playset like dioramas & action scenes, then take a photo of it with the camera. I wish I still had the camera, or the photos, but at least I still take pics of my toys :)

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:11 pm

I had the one that shot pizzas out of the front. Shit ruled!

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Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:36 pm

I had the Battle Cruiser. Or rather, my brother and I had the Battle Cruiser. We got if for Christmas one year and for a toy this size, we had to share.

Looking at that Micronauts catalog, I can say there were a whole lot of things I wanted in there, but what I wanted most but never got were Baron Karza, Force Commander and their horses. They were so heavy and the magnetic interchangeable parts just blew my mind.

Deadbone wrote:This was my grail. I used to dream of this thing. Never got one :(

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Advert HERE
http://youtu.be/ITMYl_oygRU

Also would spend hours staring at the pages of the catalog. The Interplanetary headquarters used to fascinate me. :)

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Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:40 am

EVOM wrote:I had the one that shot pizzas out of the front. Shit ruled!

Damn, I'm not familiar with the Van w/pizzashooter - I had the regular van pictured a couple posts above, and I also had a weird pizza-shooting tank. They were solid plastic pucks with a pizza-topping sticker on top - way better than the light aerodynamic discs other toys/guns shot. You don't even know how many animals / people I shot with pizzas as a kid :lol:

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:16 am

Daimyo wrote:Image

Not much story here. I begged, they laughed. I was able to get most toys I wanted with a combination of good behavior (that they knew about) and doing chores for small amounts of money. This was pretty much unobtainable.


I wanted this thing SOOOO bad! A friend of mine got this for xmas one year and I remember he used it as a bed for weeks afterwards because he just couldn't be away from it for that long.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:03 pm

ASPrintingPress wrote:
Daimyo wrote:
Not much story here. I begged, they laughed. I was able to get most toys I wanted with a combination of good behavior (that they knew about) and doing chores for small amounts of money. This was pretty much unobtainable.


I wanted this thing SOOOO bad! A friend of mine got this for xmas one year and I remember he used it as a bed for weeks afterwards because he just couldn't be away from it for that long.


I bought just the landing deck from a garage sale a few blocks away from me as a kid... might not have been complete but it was pretty awesome in the back yard.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:19 pm

toothaction wrote:you heard a click but the red rocket just sort of poited forward a bit, like a nipple in the wind.


Ha! Poetry!

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:36 pm

Crab Rangoon wrote:
EVOM wrote:I had the one that shot pizzas out of the front. Shit ruled!

Damn, I'm not familiar with the Van w/pizzashooter - I had the regular van pictured a couple posts above, and I also had a weird pizza-shooting tank. They were solid plastic pucks with a pizza-topping sticker on top - way better than the light aerodynamic discs other toys/guns shot. You don't even know how many animals / people I shot with pizzas as a kid :lol:


HAHA I had that too.... and it shot those pizzas so hard, definitely not safe.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:23 am

Wow, you guys must have been blown away when you unwrapped that present.
Never realized the Baron ect had magnetic parts. Wouldn't mind trying to locate one.

il_muffino wrote:I had the Battle Cruiser. Or rather, my brother and I had the Battle Cruiser. We got if for Christmas one year and for a toy this size, we had to share.

Looking at that Micronauts catalog, I can say there were a whole lot of things I wanted in there, but what I wanted most but never got were Baron Karza, Force Commander and their horses. They were so heavy and the magnetic interchangeable parts just blew my mind.

Image

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 20, 2011 2:12 pm

il_muffino wrote:but what I wanted most but never got were Baron Karza, Force Commander and their horses. They were so heavy and the magnetic interchangeable parts just blew my mind.


I kid you not when I say there is a box at my Mom's house where there are maybe 2 sets of these unopened. My Mom likes to shop and buys things on sale with the idea of giving them out as Xmas gifts in the future...which she ends up not doing. So there are lots of old unopened toys over at her place. I came across several boxes of Laser Tag guns not too long ago...lol.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:29 pm

^^^ That's so awesome that your mom absently hoards toys! It's a refreshing counterpoint to the much more standard story of remembering the day your parents tossed out your comics and matchbox cars.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:58 pm

That rocks hard!! Send me your address and I'll be over in a jiffy! :D When I was younger my mom also did a very similar thing, so we had a 'gift box' that had random stuff she could give as thank you gifts or for us to have for birthday presents for our friends. You have to admire that kind of foresight. Alas, there are no grails hidden anymore, the only toys left over from these days (and it is pretty telling that I know exactly) are two carded DnD figures, which have taken a thrashing in the 7 or so moves since they were acquired. I distinctly recall pulling these out time and time again whenever 'the box' came out so I could to admire them. It's like having a toy store with something just out of your reach. Still, it is somehow comforting to know that they are still hanging around there somewhere.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:18 am

My 40 yr old brother has a giant Battlestar Galactica launcher that fires five inch vipers at foam Cylon Raiders MIB that he never lets see the light off day and he has a Space 1999 EAGLE for the 12" dolls that the box alone is bigger than my 4 year old and although I've never seen it out of its box I bet that thing is HOOOOGE!
Bastard. Never let me play with his cool stuff when we were young either.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:36 am

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I wanted the mountain set so bad, I mean it was a normal gas station, who's sign ended up popping out gun turrets, and there was a boulder that rolled off the mountain where a seat with a cannon had been hidden underneath... I ended up getting it and everything in this photo at a series of garage sales, for like 15 bucks, when the previous owner got sick of having fun... (I was still a little kid, so years of play was had)

It makes me wonder what Japan would have been like as a child, if they had garage sales...

Are garage sales typically an American thing?

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:39 am

MattyBoomBatty wrote:My 40 yr old brother has a giant Battlestar Galactica launcher that fires five inch vipers at foam Cylon Raiders MIB that he never lets see the light off day and he has a Space 1999 EAGLE for the 12" dolls that the box alone is bigger than my 4 year old and although I've never seen it out of its box I bet that thing is HOOOOGE!
Bastard. Never let me play with his cool stuff when we were young either.

Wow Matty, try to get some pics next time you visit. Space 1999 eagle that fits 12" dolls sounds awesome. :shock:

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:47 am

JORDAN23 wrote:
il_muffino wrote:but what I wanted most but never got were Baron Karza, Force Commander and their horses. They were so heavy and the magnetic interchangeable parts just blew my mind.

I kid you not when I say there is a box at my Mom's house where there are maybe 2 sets of these unopened. My Mom likes to shop and buys things on sale with the idea of giving them out as Xmas gifts in the future...which she ends up not doing. So there are lots of old unopened toys over at her place. I came across several boxes of Laser Tag guns not too long ago...lol.

Damn Jordan. You have one cool mum. Sounds like she's got a good eye for the grail goodness.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:13 am

I dropped by my Mom's and these were two items that were on top. A few years ago I was looking for something in the garage and came across some of the toy boxes. I pulled these two out before putting everything back. When I have more time I will have to go dig deeper.

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An original 1983 issued model (not one of the subsequent re-issues) still shrink wrapped.....lol.

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Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:24 am

Whoa. :shock: That's Awesome! I wanted that Force Commander so much as a kid. I had the Baron Karza and Andromeda, but could never find the Force Commander for some reason.

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:26 am

$1.99? Sold! :lol:

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Fri Sep 23, 2011 7:29 am

This must be one of my favourite threads I've seen pop up lately so here are my two cents.
I had many grails back then, split between toys that were released in the UK and Italy.
The main I remember besides anything Micronauts were Stretch Monster (from the Stretch Armstrong series):

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Stretch Monster by Rudebeast, on Flickr

I had one of these, loved it and would like to find one at a decent price nowadays.
Here another guy I unfortunately missed on (but really wanted):

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Kenner Bionic Bigfoot by Rudebeast, on Flickr

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Fri Sep 23, 2011 12:55 pm

RudeBeast wrote:Kenner Bionic Bigfoot by Rudebeast, on Flickr


Um, totally going to have to put this in "Grail as a Adult" now. :shock:

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:56 pm

I Am The Fourth wrote:
RudeBeast wrote:Kenner Bionic Bigfoot by Rudebeast, on Flickr


Um, totally going to have to put this in "Grail as a Adult" now. :shock:



I sold one last year on here, with regret.

Funfact the orig bionic bigfoot was played by Andre the Giant

Re: What was your 'grail' as a kid?

Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:10 pm

My God, what great stuff, guys! Talk about "grail as adult". I'd give anything to have the Micronauts Battle Cruiser, Baron Karza & Andromeda, & Hornetroid today. I played with that stuff for so many hours.

I never did get the GI Joe USS Flagg but the Skystriker F-14 was my grail. Don't know how many weeks and stores my parents to me to looking for it. Finally got it for Xmas that year (1985-6?). It's hanging in my son's bedroom now along with the original Cobra Rattler.
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