Tell me your favourite childhood toys which were actually shit

[ClapForCats]

I loved the Magic Robot.

Also a newspaper board game called "SCOOP!"

Oh my god, I’ve just remembered pogo sticks!! I bloody loved mine and was really good at it I might have to see if i can get one for my dc, they should experience the joy of pogoing!

@FreakishKoala my friend had a dream phone, I was so jealous and used to think of excuses for going round to see her just so she would invite me to play this with her

No Mr Frosty here either. My mum was very wary of false advertising and plastic tat. Wise woman.

However, she did buy me a flower press. What a crashing disappointment. Pick flower, unscrew fiddly wingnuts, squash flower in between sheets of cardboard and blotting paper, try (& fail) to rescrew fiddly wingnuts without everything falling out, wait a week....hey presto!!! Dead mouldy flower. Rubbish.

@evilharpy Dream Dancer!!! That's it! I had one of those as well and as desperately trying to remember the name of it last night

@evilharpy here she is

Has nobody mentioned the chocolate coin maker yet? We used my dd's set once and then threw out all the chocolate bits when they got well past their bb date.

Rolf Harris's stylophone was pretty rubbish. I loved playing with my girls worlds though. And surfs were fab.
Sadly I never got a Mr frosty and I didn't get my kids one either. My mum was right on that one.

Smurfs

Think we got them free from the petrol station after they given up giving the free glasses.

evilharpy I had that too! Did she have two buttons at the side. Poses, something else, or ballet? Or was mine different.

I got a toy post office every year. Well, it would hardly have been a real post office.

It was my favourite toy ever. Years later I got them for my own DC and they were bewildered.

You really LIKED this, mum? they all said. Duh.

Those toys filled with water and you pressed a button which would squirt water/air into it and you had to float little Plastic rings onto pegs or little plastic beads into baskets.

A popple , I loved it but what was the point?
Fuzzy felt pictures, I had loads picked up from bootsales.
Fashion wheel, where the wheel could be turned and you pick different heads/hats, upper half, lower half/skirts/ trousers and then shoes. You’d put paper over the top and do a rubbing with a crayon. I did love that but it’s kinda shite!

@Qgardens we bought that bastard coin maker for the dds. Oh my god. John Adams is laughing all the way to the bank. There was a hilarious review Of it on Amazon which was just so spot on, I’m going to see if I can find it.

@theluckiest I also had that flower press! Mine also pressed no flowers but was great four poster bed for my flower fairies!

@ArthurDentsSpaceTowel my sister and I made that Blue Peter chest of drawers for our Sindys! We got all the bits required from the village general store which seemed to cram in absolutely any non-food item you could wish for, and I think also functioned as a post office. Mrs B* who ran it was wise enough to acquire an apparently endless stock of sticky-backed plastic.

If we had any change we stopped at the sweet shop next door and bought sherbet fizzers portioned out from huge glass jars with special little shovels. Ah, the heady days of 1977

@TheFaerieQueene I also had that stamp set, it came with tweezers because the little rubber letters were so awkward to place into the holder!

I should add that we really loved our Sindys. They were proper 1970s Sindys with non-squishy heads and strong but bendy limbs. They spent their time on wholesome pursuits such as ballet, skating and horse riding until my cousin came round with his Action Man and showed them a few things they hadn’t bargained for.

I got a lolo ball one Xmas, used it for about 10 minutes and bounced onto a random staple and popped it. I was devastated my dad had to go out a few days later and buy a plastic football to fix it - was never the same tho!

Does anyone remember poppers? They were these half spherical things that you could stick to things and after a while they would pop off. My brother and I used to stick them to each other and try and get them to leave a mark.

I had a brilliamt chemistry set in the 80s - loads of chemicals in test tubes, a meth burner -little glass bottle with string wick - I used to like burning magnesium. Have been trying to get one for DS and now they either cost hundreds of pounds or basically just have salt, bicarb of soda, vinegar and some dye. Where's the copper sulphate and the hydrochloric acid?!

I also had an "aerobics kit" - pink sweatbands, very light plastic dumbells, weights to put around your ankles and a tape with an American lady exhorting you to "remember to breathe!"

SpicedCamomile at the chemistry set - my brothers had one, I didn't. Thanks to Health & Safety they aren't the same any more.

LarkDescending at your village shop. We were lucky to get coloured biros in the local Preedy.

@theluckiest I had one too, and I agree it was crap! I thought I was doing it wrong lol

Ooh and lights alive, I had one of them. Novelty wore off fast. I had a game called ghost castle which had a skull that rolled out of something which I found quite scary.

@BlackCatSleeping
Does anyone remember poppers? They were these half spherical things that you could stick to things and after a while they would pop off. My brother and I used to stick them to each other and try and get them to leave a mark.*

Are they the ones you turned inside out and if you put them on a flat surface they would jump up into the air? If so yes I remember them and we used to play tag with them by throwing them at each other’s arms and legs to try and cause pain

Ahhh this is all so nostalgic. I had the ghost castle skull game too :):)