None of these toys where really aimed at kids of “using smart phones” age. Kids these days still play with a lot of similar toys - lego, board games. The stuff they don’t have that was in these ads, was generally crap or obsolete.
I think it's the opposite as far as play at home goes; today's children are able to talk and chat to each other; have real interactions on their play stations etc they have to negotiate and communicate situations with each other to win team games, whereas our generous spent hours often alone playing with plastic with these games
@@jazzman1626 I had chronic anxiety my entire childhood, never saw anyone about it though so I'm not in the statistic. Are kids actually more anxious now or are more people just seeking help for them?
I was born in 74, but still find this comment a bit weird. Game consoles were great, but social media is a very different aspect of technology in the years since. I suspect you're over 70 or demented anyway.
@@kristianTV1974 😂 Neither, just preferred the use of one’s imagination and creative play before any screen time! Showed my 11 year old son some of these toys, especially Big Track and Fantom 4 (both of which I had, along with others) his response was “what do they do ?” My response…. The possibilities were endless !! Drawn a blank stare before his attention went back to Zelda on his switch 🤷🏻♂️
Us Western kids from 70s-present should all be thankful our parents could get us toys for xmas every year. I'm sure the toys/consoles of each generation were great for that generation, no need to compete with each other.
A time when you were able interact with other children of similar age groups. You would go out and play with your mates and you wouldn't come home until your parents came looking for you.
I had an Action Man with eagle eyes and flexi-hands, I also had a Six Million Dollar Man .......I’m in my late 50’s and have regularly looked on eBay for the right vintage figures to buy, and YES, I would play with them even now! 🤣
As soon as I saw Big track I LMAO, I remember my mum shouting "I'm bloody sick of these adverts putting ideas into kids heads, they think we're bloody made of money" around October she would get stressed because the adverts would come on for Christmas toys and then I would be following her round the house with a KAYS catalogue trying to show her what I wanted, I didn't realise she didn't have much money she kept it well hidden, bless her.
Yeah.. My most shameful moment was at age 6, when my mum said she couldn't afford the toys I wanted. I told her to "just write a cheque" ... I had no concept of where money actually came from! 🤣
The days I spent ogling over dream toys in the Kay’s & Littlewoods catalogues… wishing I got pocket money so I could pay for it weekly for the next 4 years! I think that’s why I didn’t get pocket money 🤣
Big Trak. Wish I still had mine. . It came from an MB factory in Wales and had different decals on it. I miss programmed it and it went down the stairs and the wheels broke off.
This is bloody marvelous. Even down to the way the player looks exactly like the TV we would all huddle around watching these. I'm 10 years old again. Thank you so much!!!!
Wow.... that was quite the blast from the past... I had a lot of those toys and games, and wanted but never got around to others. What a happier, more innocent and better world is was back then.
@@RetroSteveUK yeah thinking it will help us relive those happy carefree days. Sadly the world has moved on to an almost unrecognizable state... not just technology, but people's attitudes and the way we live. Oh well... makes these kind of collections of ads all the more sweet. We can drift away and reminisce for a short time. 👍
A time when you used your imagination, didn't know sod all except what was in front of you, or what school & people around you taught you( not strangers on the Internet) matchbox-corgi cars,Lego, Hornby trains.......TAKE ME BACK!..🤣😊
I spent many hours throwing my Action Man out of my bedroom window trying to get the parachute working. Thanks for compiling these adverts. Takes me back to great, simpler times.
My dad made me a parachute from a bin bag with those sticky circles to protect punched paper to stop the string lines to stop ripping the bag. My action man sailed perfectly to the ground from an upstairs window for a fraction of the price.
That's Jon Pertwee doing the voice over in the Kerplunk and buckaroo almost sounding West Country in the buckaroo ad rather than western with the accent lol, love the Action man ads, when literally everyone I knew had an Action man of some sought
@@nickthomas181 I had the training tower, bike & sidecar, armoured car, helicopter, a few action men, all long gone but I still have Captain Zargon Space pirate hid somewhere
Agreed. I got an Action man for Xmas and my Mum would get me some different uniforms for my Birthday for them. We didn't have loads of money, but I loved all the accessories.
I remember having Evil Knieval , shooting it across the school playground in middle school ,sadly it disappeared into the hedge never to be seen again ,really good memories of good times,thank you 😃
Electronic Detective is actually what the UK police use to this day to detect crime. That's when they can be bothered, usually they're too busy policing hurtful words on twitter.
loved the 70s a time of learning..action man and barbie shit i learned the karma sutra from them lmao..action mans eyes were epic....if only barbies were the same lmfao
Bloody hell dude, im getting some serious flashbacks now lol that lego castle advert was great, sadly my family could not afford it so I made one out of cardboard, was terrible! Not seen in these adverts, but does anyone remember those action figures that had a parachute attached to them? I could get them from the local newsagents in the mid 70s/early 80s, and then there were those weird chained up prisoner things you could win at the fair, made from wobbly rubber, full colour too, unlike monochromatic parachute man!
@@RetroSteveUK hehe yeah, tossing them from the upstairs window, only for the wind to take them onto the roof for eternity! A few years back now, my parents were having work done to their roof, the workers found a snow trooper from Empire Strikes Back on the roof, he still had string tied round his waist, no chute though lol and after seeing the Grange Hill ZX video, I had to subscribe, as a musician myself, I totally adore what you did with that and had to subscribe there and then, thank you for making me smile x
I always wanted a Big Trak as a kid but back then £39.99 was the equivalent of £184 today, and interest rates had just peaked at 20% so parents were worried about their mortgage bills.
Nice seeing the Big Trak advert again. got one for Christmas when I was a kid, absolutely loved it. Found 2 recently at the flea market both are the crap reproduction models.
I had to sell my original BigTrak as a kid, to put the money towards a computer. 5 or 6 years ago, my Mum found an original on E-Bay and got me it for a surprise Xmas present (*before* the repo version came out thankfully !)
Still got Chutes Away in my loft….I was such a happy lad when I got this on Christmas morning. As an aside, not a lot of diversity going on in adverts in those days 😂
Now i feel old being 50 this year. Proper good times with fuck all in our pockets only a homemade caterpult and some marbles. I'd love to go back instead of living in this shit show we live in now. Thanks for the memories 👍👍
Couldn't have put it better..😁👍..57 now and looking back on these better times is sad.but still nice to see...soooooo grateful that I lived through the 60s and 70s as a child..🙏
Does anyone remember “Johnny Astro” from the 1970’s were you had to direct a space capsule hanging under a balloon from 1 moon base to another by using a joystick controlled 2 axis fan?
I was on an microprocessor electronics course in the early days of computing, and our lecturer managed to source the motor units for those Big Trak toys. Our final project was to design, build and program the circuitry to control one around an eventual obstacle course. I'm sure our 'breadboard' efforts were far more expensive in terms of materials and manpower than the Chinese versions, but they were a great learning experience.
My sister and I (I know, I bring her into every story) once found an Action Man in Highbury Park, Moseley, Birmingham (that's where we grew up). We were with our great aunt Lois. My sister said "can't we take him home?" and I said "no." Honestly, Milly, he's missing an arm. And anyway, he's naked. I'll put something around him. I've got a bit of tissue. By this time my great aunt had finally finished talking to the local dogs, and we went home. My sister was still very cross.
I’d go to work with my Dad at the Docks, late 70s. We’d often find a pile of them on the dockside. All swept back hair and no grippy fingers. Toys of the 60s going for a naked swim!
Big Trak! Completely forgotten about that and I really wanted one. Game of Life was expensive wasn't it in comparison to the cost of some electronic games. This is such a brilliant compilation and thanks for creating it and uploading.
such a lovely compilation, I was a 70s child and its amazing how children's tech has changed, unfortunately most kids now prefer to play on a computer or phone screen with actually using less of there brains not like Meccano, Lego ect, I feel a lot of postings in the threads see what I saying.. the kids IQs must have dropped to a level where they can only take selfies and photos of there food and jump around on tiktok.. But saying that I did become a programmer thanks to likes of bigtrak and the zx81 & spectrums and the home computer era before big tech taken it over.. now the internet emulates it all .. but thank the lord that they are re-vamping old tech unofort all that old tech was multiple chips now lol its just one chip and it does it all.. engineers will understand what i saying
Speaking from my own experience, having a ZX Spectrum from the age of ten really did give me a headstart in undertanding technology later in my life. The joy of creating stuff on my computer naturally drew me in to learning how to code, and that's something that's often missing from modern devices, which are set up to encourage ease of use rather than challenging users to learn something technical.
The 80s I started at the age of eight. Two years after seeing star wars, Battlesstar galatica at the cinema. Wanted a big trak, thanks for uploading these adverts. 39.99 fir a big trak, seemed like thousands of pounds back then.
After watching, I phoned my mom to say sorry,as I wanted so badly a Ex-Wing fighter,and Speak and spell,and so many amazing toys, but my mom had 5 kids ,and two jobs and a useless husband who's money went on booze,sorry mom.
I never had a decent Scalextric as a kid. I had a second-hand set that never worked properly. When my wife heard this, she bought me a set for my birthday a few years back. It's the Crash'n'Bash set with a bump lane and a jump ramp. Frickin' awesome! 😄 I'm 48, by the way. 🤣
I remember around Christmas, we’d be waiting for Corrie to finish so we could see the toy adverts 😂. Then grabbing the Argos catalogue and spending the next 15 minutes looking at that. Never got that tin-can-alley.
Used to love the Rayleigh Grifter but I had to make do with a Commando! The Matchbox Race & Chase reminded me of my TCR set where you could overtake the 'jam' cars.
I had the Evil Kneivel Chopper and Dragster. Ahh the memories. I had action man Helicopter, Armoured Car and Canoe. And I can remember riding a Tonka dumper truck down a hill and it never failed or broke. And a Raleigh Burner bike.
I remember getting the Action Man Gyro Copter one Christmas, the one with the button that mechanically made the rotors spin. That was great. Like you, I also had an indestructible Tonka dump truck for years. Used to play in the garden, like it was on a building site.
Thank you so much for reminding me of these memories. It also reminds me of the many things I asked for but didn't get because my parents couldn't afford them at the time but did there best to find me a similar more affordable alternative. It was great to see the "Look-In" magazine again. We looked forward every week to this wonderful & totally absorbing comic. I hope there is still something like it still being published for kids to today.
@@RetroSteveUK cool video. There is a variation of the Evil Kinevil stunt cycle were the bike is a Motocross bike and the rider figure is a motocross style rider and it's a single piece of plastic moulded in the seating position and it has zero articulation.
That is a strange thing. I've also noticed that. Board games, if anything, are cheaper now. It has to be something to do with modern, low-cost manufacturing.
I hd a Big Track and loved it, I wanted the trailer but never got it. I'm not sure what happened to it, it vanished when we moved house, I suspect a ploy by my parents to have a clear out !
I agree. Just a few lights and that's about it. We were easily pleased back then, though. Anything electronic at that point was immediately new and interesting. Now it just looks dull and basic.
@@RetroSteveUK - Thanks for the reply. I still have my Palitoy ‘Blip’, which proudly boasts on the box ‘No TV set needed’. (Because it’s a single LED stuck on the end of a clockwork pantograph). I recall being the toast of the playground until the teachers confiscated it.
@@RetroSteveUK These kind of toys usually got relegated to the bottom of the toy box after the massive D cell batteries ran out, or where plundered for another toy.
Of course, every boy playing ‘Chutes Away’ imagined that they were actually bombs, and they were raining destruction down on the hapless victims below!
I don't think I knew anyone who didn't want a Big Trak, but nobody I knew ever had one. They were so expensive. I used to daydream about what I'd do with a Big Trak if I had one.
Loved my Action man with gripping hands and the eagle eyes. Also had the Steve Austin bionic man. Wish I could go back to those times,...and never leave:). Thanks for showing, loving your work. 100% subscribed to your channel.👍
Thanks! I had a couple of Action Men, along with some of the accessories. Never had the Eagle Eye Bionic Man, but one of my Action Men had the lever that moved his eyes.
@@RetroSteveUK yeah that's the action man I had, a little thing on the back of his head that moved his eyes left or right. Had the one with gripping hands too:). The Bionic man I had was the one with the square thing in his arm and the bionic eye. Used to look through it lol. Action man was the dogs bollocks though.
The only item here that is a hobby that lasts for life and the items that resell for near double or more today with inflation is the Hornby kits . Locos costing upto £200 a piece minus sound decoders today . Nothing else does in this video
God. Can anybody remember them bloody soldiers wrapped in a parachute, that you threw It in the air and sometimes, just sometimes it would float down after you threw it in the air,and then you spent forever trying sometimes in vain untangling the bloody thing.
First 2 Action Man ads voiced by Patrick Allen. Commander Ed Straker (Ed Bishop) voiced a couple of these too - can you spot them? I remember the great Look-In magazine (but this is not a toy). Great Raleigh ad - they used to be made here in Nottingham years ago. The Bernard Cribbins Horby ad is unforgettable. Snooker commentator 'Whispering' Ted Lowe voicing the Othello ad. Buckeroo / Mouse Trap ads voiced by Jon Pertwee. Jimmy voiced by well-known ITV football commentator from the 70s. Richard O' Sullivan in the 2nd Look-In ad. Matchbox ad voiced by Kid Jensen. Space Ranger ad voiced by Michael Jayston.
I know Look-in is not a toy, but "Toys, Games & Magazines" would have made the video title too long. To my mind it's still in the category of kids' stuff I loved as a kid. Thanks for sharing all the trivia on these vids. Interesting stuff.
