Growing up money was pretty tight. Like any other kid, I had a ton of toys but most of them were hand me downs from my older siblings. So while you might be delighting in some Dick Tracy action figure mayhem, I'd be having bouts with my one armed Clawful. When I did get new toys, they weren't exactly the stuff of nostalgia, as I'll now explain.


I was at the local Dollar store the other day picking up some frozen mac n' cheese, shampoo and depression when I decided to check out the toy section. It was fascinating because the toys haven't changed that much at all since the days of yours truly throwing a tantrum for generic GI Joes more than 20 years ago!



I remember as a kid, my brother and I would love perusing all this crap. You had everything a Toys R Us had but offered in a for 1/8th the price and made of 1/16th the plastic. You had generic GI Joes, novelty prank devices, cheapo dart guns...and all priced so your folks couldn't say no!



(A) Here we have the generic wrestling figures. I had about a dozen or so of these guys. They offered ZERO articulation and were highly expendable. Toss them into the stream, let your dog chew on them, light them on fire with matches...it just didn't matter. They were also great for when my cousins came over and I could offer them these and keep my prize figurines away.

(B) Ah, the Saturday night special. These were great fun. Usually they were made out of metal so they had some heft to them. I usually used all the caps within the first 5 minutes and almost killed my entire family when I popped it off in the car and jolted my dad. Sadly this toy is largely shunned upon in today's times.

(C) Echo mics! These little guys could turn up your obnoxious power in a jiffy. They broke pretty easily and I just spent most of the time mindlessly humming into mine or swinging them from the small cord to use as a weapon against my little brother. Whenever he cried (Very often) I'd grab the mic and put it to his mouth, it was funny and even got my mom to smile.

(D) Ugh, cheap diecast cars. The 1/64th scale cars downright sucked. Hotwheels were only a dollar but I guess my parents rationale was "Oh, he loses those cars after an hour, now he'll have a dozen for 3 dollars!" You'd get these mega packs and it all seemed good till you opened it. Turns out of the 12 cars, it's just 3 different designs in different colors. When pushed they would roll about as well as a brick. I'd mostly stomp on them or race them top speed under the fridge.



One of my absolute favorites as a kid (And maybe even now) were the Police sets. These were massive packages that had all sorts of nefarious goodies; I'm talking guns, knifes, rifle, bow, etc, etc. My mom was particularly opposed to the handcuffs. Looking back I can't blame her. Even though they had a quick release button they were still dangerous. A lot of them back then were metal too! The bow and arrows were a joke and often broke after a hard pull. I also really enjoyed the ninja themed sets. A pack like the one shown above would be something like 4 dollars! They say it's Nerf or Nuthin' but I beg to differ.



Aside from birthdays or Christmas, I really never got any name brand, or even kid recognizable toys. However, we used to go to thrift stores a lot. I'd scour the grab bags, which were just a bunch of toys crammed into plastic bags. It was pretty exciting sifting through the bags as a kid. I got pretty good at telling if a bag was a bust or not. Nothing was worse than getting one filled with Happy Meal toys or even a random spatula.



Ross was a large staple of my childhood. Where else can you get designer clothes for half the price? The fact that the Nike swoosh was upside down or one sleeve was longer than the other was besides the point. They also had a bangin' toy section. One of the toys I got was those old New Bright RC trucks. I use the term remote control loosely as these had a 4 foot wire running from the controller to the truck. I felt more like I was walking a small dog than playing with an RC toy. But at the time a Tyco Rebound was like 80 dollars and you still needed to get the batteries! This baby was $8.99 and took 4 AAs.



Of all the bargain toys, the baseball cards were probably the worst. You got like 8 paper thin cards and most of the players were Triple A players. I mostly used them to hone my Gambit card throwing skills. The packs were dirt cheap and I usually would ask for one just because.

Well I hoped you enjoyed this little facet of my childhood. Being broke forced me to use my imagination more than anything. Even though most of those toys were pretty bad, back when I was a boy it didn't matter. The world was big and terrifying but I was going to take it on with my Police Commando Riot set!