CONFESS!!!! What childhood fad did you really want but your parents wouldn't give you

[LynneSin]

I have two that stand out in mind (one inspired by a Matcom post)

#1 Easybake Oven - I begged my mother for years to allow me to have one and she would not budge

#2 MTV - Our family had the basic 13 channels for cable and nothing else. When MTV first came out in 1981 I wanted my mother to get the better cable so I could watch the channel but she refused. I would stay up every Friday night to watch 'Friday Night Videos' just so at least I could sound like I watch MTV and know what all the hip videos were.

BTW, I have MTV now and hardly watch it

[XemaSab]

1. LiteBrite

:cry:

[liberaldemocrat7]

31. Thinkatron

Haha I grew up in the 60's and this toy called the Thinkatron looked interesting to me. I never did get one.

It looked like a robot and you placed some type of paper card into it and you would answer the question on the card by poking a wand to the hole with the answer you choose and it would tell you if you got the answer right.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I never got one. LOL

[Strawman]

2. A Green Machine

But I already had a Big Wheel so I was denied.

My Big Wheel was actually rippied off right in front of my house. Came outside one day to see some people driving off with it in the back of a truck.

Did I get a Green Machine to replace it then? Nooo, I got another Big Wheel.

[blockhead]

131. I wanted one but didn't get one,

yet you got two? That's not fair!

[Hugin]

3. I watch VH1 Classics quite a bit...

Last weekend they had a special about Robert Plant and I wondered if you were watching
LynneSin.

:D

[LynneSin]

8. They messed up VH1 classics

It use to be just all videos but now they have those dumbass programs that VH1 carries.

And I'm not a Robert Palmer fan so no, I probably didn't catch it. If it was Robert Plant - well that's a different story

[Hugin]

9. Damnit...

Yeah, it was Robert Plant... I don't know WHERE my mind is today.

Sorry.

It was pretty good.

WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE JUST PLAY VIDEOS!?!?!

Drives me knuts.

[LynneSin]

11. Oh and they have regular commericials now too

They so screwed up a good thing

:cry:

[Hugin]

16. Relating to the OP topic...

I'll admit I can't remember wanting anything, I'm odd in that way.

There were a few things I would have liked to have, but, my parents weren't
the obstical... More often it was some institutional regulation or law blocking my access.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. I Love VH1 Shows

I like all that Classic Album and Classic Concert stuff they do. The top x Rap/Metal/80's video shows, i could do without though, because there's too much commentary. If they just showed the videos, i could live with the list shows.
The Professor

[NewWaveChick1981]

4. A Pet Rock.

Mom thought it was the dumbest thing she'd ever seen, so I didn't get one. :cry: But guess what? She was right... :rofl: She DID let me buy a mood ring, which I still have!

[Kali]

35. I have a mood pencil!

got it last year from the Arizona Dept of Environmental Quality. Blue when cold, white where you touch it. Must be some kind of toxic paint, considering where it came from.:wtf: :rofl:

[taterguy]

5. Jumping off bridges

All my friends were doing it but my parents never let me

[johnnie]

6. .

:spray:

[Kerrytravelers]

7. A Spuds McKenzie shirt.

I was in early elementary and my mother said no. At the time, I thought she was so unhip and mean. Now I realize beer shirts on kids aren't cute, they're disturbing. I'm glad she said no. As a teacher, when I see kids in beer shirts, I look at the parents and think "yuck."


P.S. I love beer. I'm not anti-beer. I'm anti-putting-adult-marketing-on-kids-and-thinking-it's-cute-or-anti~establishment-even-though-it-comes-directly-from-a-marketing-company-run-by-the-establishment.

[LynneSin]

10. I wanted a "Grab a Heinie" tee-shirt that everyone had

It was a Heinekin promotion but mother wouldn't let me own one. She also wouldn't let me get a Purple Moose Saloon t-shirt (it use to be a kickass bar in OCMD but it started to suck when they moved it two blocks down) but I got one my first time in OCMD after I had turned 18. I still have that shirt

[Kerrytravelers]

27. I never did get a Spuds shirt.

I also think my mom found the buxom women a bit much for a seven year old! :rofl: This is the only time I've ever admitted to her that she was right and I was wrong (although there's been plenty of times!) :rofl:

[youthere]

12. A VCR...

My dad finally broke down and bought a betamax, just as it was being phased out.
I remember also wanting a pair of these blue plastic clogs that all the girls in my school had (similar to crocs but made of hard plastic) and the answer was a resounding NO! SO as a result I was hopelessly out of fashion for about two months (just enough time for all those girls to discover how miserable and painful hard plastic clogs were to wear).

[Midlodemocrat]

13. Not me, but my brothers desperately wanted bb guns.

It was a no brainer that they weren't going to get one.

[youthere]

14. They'd shoot their eyes out!!

[Patiod]

21. My cousin actually DID get his eye shot out

and worse yet, it was his "good" eye (he had problems with the other). Worse yet, his parents are Park Avenue types, who I thought knew better, but he wanted to shoot things at their country house, so they actually bought him a BB gun. In the 1990's. In Connecticut. :shrug: They saved the eye, but he no longer has a good eye - now they're both screwed up.

I can't hear that line from "A Christmas Story" without cringing!

[youthere]

32. How awful!

[ProfessorGAC]

17. That Was Mine

Absolutely, positively, unequivocally NO WAY!
The Professor

[Chan790]

69. I wanted a BB gun

I finally got one when I was living in Philly...of course, I had to buy it myself and it wasn't nearly as good for scaring burglars as the 7-inch cleaver that came in my set of Henckels.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

98. Oh come on, BB guns are safe.

Only one kid in my family was ever shot in the head with one and that's when they were under the supervision of the one sober adult.

I miss summer.

[Little Wing]

18. A scooter

My parents figured that if I could ride a skateboard, why would I need something with a handle. And they also argued that scooters where just fads that came around every 10 years. They were right. :shrug:

[Sanity Claws]

19. White go-go boots

I guess we were too poor.

[Sequoia]

79. I got black ones. But no Barbie doll.

My mom got me a Tess doll instead.

[QMPMom]

107. No Barbie here, either. I wanted one desperately but my Mom

got me Midge, "Barbie's Best Friend", instead. I was embarrassed. I wanted a Barbie with long hair.

[mzteris]

85. I was gonna post that -

but then I remembered that my mom finally let me get them - AFTER they were no longer really 'in' - AND we got them at the discount show store so they were the wrong kind (no tassle!). :(

I wore them though at first 'cause I thought they were cool, then after the other kids made fun of me, I wore them 'cause I *had too*. I remember wearing them to the local highschool football game and my feet were FREEZING by the time I got home.

[redwitch]

123. Me Too!

I posted before reading the whole thread. Our family had 5 kids and was always short on cash.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. Slot cars -- they were called "Autorama" in Brazil

They'd always say I'd play for a few days and then tire of it.

[zanne]

22. Penny loafers

This was pre-school. My sister and her friends all had them and I used to dream about them. I especially liked the idea of having two dimes on my feet at all times.

[GenDem]

135. I wanted them so bad.

I would say this goes back to 2nd and 3rd grade. All my friends had them. My mother always bought me dorky shoes that tied. I felt like such a freak.

[Patiod]

23. Jeans and pierced ears

I had to wear cheap JC Penney jeans (and even these bobo jeans had to be smuggled to school)

I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 16 because "only gypsies and Italians let children get their ears pierced". Yes, my mother did say that. In her defense, she was born in 1924. But still.

[ohiosmith]

24. This is why you should always listen to your mother:

(02-06) 07:40 PST , (AP) --


About 985,000 Easy-Bake Ovens sold since last May have been recalled because children can get their hands or fingers caught in the oven's opening, which poses an entrapment or burn hazard.


The company has received 29 reports of children getting their fingers or hands caught in the product, including five reports of burns.


The recalled plastic ovens are purple and pink. They resemble a kitchen stove with four burners on top and a front-loading oven.


"Easy Bake" is printed on the front of the electric toy, while "Hasbro" and model number 65805 are stamped into the plastic on the back.


The recall does not include Easy-Bake Ovens sold before May 2006. Toys "R" Us, Wal-Mart, Target, KB Toys and other retailers nationwide sold the toy from May 2006 through February 2007.


The ovens were manufactured by Easy-Bake, a division of Hasbro Inc.


For a free retrofit kit, call the company at 800-601-8418. For more information, visit

[Kali]

25. a waterbed

they said no way, I persisted until they thought they could get away with "you earn the money and pay for it"

I eventually got my twin size (yes) unfinished warped pine 2 x 10s on-the-floor waterbed. No heater, just a foam mattress cover for "insulation". $50 from the hippie store on Mill Avenue, downtown Tempe. YEAH!

[Arugula Latte]

29. Oh my gawd...An unheated waterbed?!?!

Nothing is more bone chilling ... I understand you're in Arizona, but -- yowza! :wow:

[Kali]

33. what do ya expect for $50?

:rofl:

the foam pad really did work but I hated it - tried sleeping without it one night. Pretty sick the next day.

Bone chilling is right.

[Zavulon]

26. Atari for the TV

Dad was convinced that the game would ruin the television.

[deepthought42]

37. I had an Atari, but I wanted a Nintendo...never got one...

Now my little sister has a PS2 that she hardly ever uses....*sigh*

[1gobluedem]

28. Oh so many

In first grade I wanted pointy toe tennis shoes because everyone else had them, instead of the babyish round toed shoes I had. No dice. Ditto on the slingback loafers I wanted in fourth grade. And I didn't get my ears pieced until I was 24 because my mother said only cheap girls had pierced ears.

But what I wanted more than anything was this perfectly ghastly plastic vanity with a bench that was tufted to look like satin. The mirror lifted up and lit up. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world and asked for it every Christmas from age 5 to 9. But I never got it.

I did have an Easy Bake Oven, though.

[Arugula Latte]

30. A banana-seat bike with the raised handlebars.

I actually did get one, but then, when it seemed I was having trouble controlling it, my parents whisked it away and I got a different bike. :(

[LynneSin]

46. I wanted sneakers with the airholes in the side of them

I went to camp and people laughed at me because my sneakers did have those two airholes on them. Then the airholes went away and everyone wanted Nikes - I finally got a pair but they were these ugly light blue with a dark blue swoosh

[AwakeAtLast]

34. My God, Lynne, you and I had the same parents!!!

You must be my long lost sibling!

So, how has therapy been going for you? I had to quit, my therapist couldn't take it anymore! ;)

:hi:

[merh]

36. Clackers

The folks considered them "too dangerous" - I got stuck with having to use one of these as a sorry substitute.

<<<< eskimo yoyo

:(

[Hugin]

38. I had a set of lime green clackers...

One fine day, my Dad happened upon my brother swinging them around like numchucks.

They were very heavy and hard clackers, so, he fixed the problem by cutting the string.

*sigh*

[merh]

40. I think that was what my parents were afraid of

that we would use them as weapons.

Also, I think rumor was they exploded and the flying pieces could put your eye out.

Using that parent's standard language:

Don't run with that stick, you'll put your eye out.
You can have a beebee gun, you'll put your eye out.
You can't have clackers, they explode and the pieces will put your eye out.

Shhhisssh, parents. :shrug:

[Hugin]

41. Now that you mention it...

I recall the 'Exploding Clackers' legend.

Hmm... They would've been so much more fun if they did! ;)

Sometimes, I'm amazed I made it through childhood.

[merh]

42. you and me both

Did you have that machine that made cars and such. It was some type of heating device that you put the sheets of plastic in the frame and you put the mold of a car of something in the machine and the frame with the plastic over it and then you pressed the lever and the heat melted the plastic and you had a car?

Did you have one of those?? I can't remember what it was called, it was my brother's and it was great and I could only operate the lever if I paid him to play with it.

Man, what memories :)

[Hugin]

44. Sounds cool!

I remember the ads for those, I never had one.

But, I did have a Mattel "Thingmaker"... Only the #1 most dangerous toy ever made.

(Excluding Lawn Darts)

It's too bad I didn't know you way back then merh... I would've let you use my car
plant for nuthin'!

[merh]

50. Aww, that is the sweetest thing, thank you

my brother charged me to play with all of his toys.

It would have been cool to play with you, sounds like you had the same toys we had (okay, I was often the target for lawn darts, not who could hit me, but how close could they get without hitting me. :silly:)

I had one of these, but we called it The Creepy Crawler, I loved to make the icky eyes and teeth and stuff.



This is a great article on "bad toys"
http://www.radarmagazine.com/features/2006/12/toys.php

Number 2 will make you really wonder what adults were on when it was made into a toy. :eek:

[Connonym]

56. I LOVED this toy!

and clackers, and jarts. it's a wonder I lived to adulthood.

[XemaSab]

93. ROFL!!!!! U-238!

Fun for all ages! :D

[merh]

101. You have to wonder how many of the kids that got that toy

are still alive today. :crazy:

:hi:

[XemaSab]

102. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a more inappropriate toy

even in the wildest realms of satire. :P

[merh]

110. It does look like a prop Saturday Night Live or Madd TV

would write a script about, doesn't it.

They'd refer to the toy that makes your kids "glow" :+

[QMPMom]

108. We had this toy! We started out with the Creepy Crawler molds

and then added the other sets. My sister and I set up a little "lab" in the basement and we'd go down there to our lab and make things for hours! It was so much fun!

[merh]

111. it was great fun

my sister was given all of the bug molds and I had all the body part molds.

I feel sorry for kids today, do they know how to have the fun we had together?

[merh]

116. This is the other machine that I was talking about

My brother got this for Christmas or something - we only got to play with it when he was gone (behind his back)




It was so cool - I want one now!!

[conscious evolution]

76. They didn't explode

Just had big slivers of glass that would chip off.After a month or so everyones clackers had dents and dings on them.
The wierd thing is I never heard of anyone getting hurt by the flying shards.You could cut yourself on the edges where the glass chipped off of the balls but I never knew one single person to get cut by the flying pieces.

[borlis]

55. Somehow these weren't as dangerous as Jarts and we got them.

But they did turn out to be very dangerous after all. My mom could have won the Gold medal if this were an Olympic event. She was showing off at a party with the neighbors and one flew off and hit a man full speed right in the chest.

[lizziegrace]

120. Heh

My aunt, who is much younger than my father, decided to bring me and my two sisters each our own Clackers. I think my father wanted to strangle her. She, of course, loved it. ;)

[canadianbeaver]

39. Sergio Valenti Jeans........parents made me wear cords......eom

[Pool Hall Ace]

43. a minibike

I would look at it in the Sears catalog with such lust . . . sigh.

[driver8]

90. Oh man -- I wanted a minibike so bad!!

I was a Navy brat and lived on Guam as a kid. The dads who were in squadrons would fly to Japan and buy Yamaha and Honda minibikes cheap and bring them back for their kids.

One of my friends had two brothers and all three of them had Yamaha 60's!! At the time, I thought those were the coolest motorcycles in the world!

[Phentex]

104. This is my answer too....

I almost had my mom convinced until my older brother (long gone from home) broke his collarbone in a motorcycle accident.

So I just rode the neighbor's instead. Worse we ever did was hit a mailbox and roll off.

[City Lights]

45. A baseball glove.

Not a fad, but in my family, not something for a girl either. x( My father finally saw the light and gave me a baseball glove when I was in my 20's. Best birthday ever. :D

[grace0418]

47. Pretty much all of them. I asked for Legos, got Lincoln Logs. I asked for Lite Brite.

Instead I got this stupid toy that had a bunch of plastic tiles and what amounted to a small pegboard, for making "mosaics" I guess (the toy would be an excellent way to explain pixels to someone now that I think of it). I didn't even dare to dream for an Easy Bake Oven.

That's what happens when you're the youngest of eleven. You either get everyone's leftovers or you suffer because "your brother had that toy and left it all over the house to get broken so there's no way I'm buying that again."

Friday night videos! LOL! I LOVED Friday Night Videos! And Night Flight!

[LynneSin]

48. I remember watching Night Flight

They played Eurthymic's "Sweet Dreams", Idol's "White Wedding" and something by Duran-Duran (I think it was "Save the Last Dance") all the time

[AwakeAtLast]

92. That would probably be "Save a Prayer"

Loooved that song!

Yes, I'm a former Duranie! :hi:

[grace0418]

94. That's exactly it. I remember that video being on all the time and I

thought it looked like the most beautiful place on earth. Also a former Duranie!

[Mad_Dem_X]

124. Great song - awesome video

Another (reformed) Duranie here. They made some spectacular videos.

[HuffleClaw]

62. youngest of eleven???!!!

meep

yer lucky to have gotten lincoln logs, usually when yer the youngest of a gaggle you'll be lucky to get A lincoln LOG.

[grace0418]

96. Yeah, definitely got the bottom of the barrel stuff most of the time.

Why anyone would have eleven children is beyond my comprehension.

[AwakeAtLast]

91. We still have that plastic tile thing!

But we also had a Lite Brite (sorry).

FNV and Night Flight - God does that take me back! :D

[grace0418]

95. Really? I didn't think anyone else on earth had that toy. It was so bargain

basement, I don't even know where my parents got it. I'm glad someone else remembered it.

I actually remember trying to make a fake lite brite out of it using a flashlight. It was horribly disappointing. LOL!

[AwakeAtLast]

130. That is a hoot!

Hey, at least it made you be creative! :rofl:

BTW, my 5 y/o plays w/ it a lot now! :D

[rbnyc]

49. I can't think of anything.

Besides new clothes. My clothes were all hand-me-downs. Kids made fun of me.

[Rising Phoenix]

51. Barbie Dream House

I got some lame heart family house instead....NOT the same!

I also wanted one of those plastic red cars with the yellow top....never got it...but my baby sister did...grrrrr

[edbermac]

52. Model rockets.

[borlis]

53. Lawn Jarts

Way way too dangerous. We had to play with the neighbors or our cousins. I guess it wasn't dangerous to play with other people's jarts. :shrug:

[Reverend_Smitty]

54. Reebok Pumps

My mom eventually got me a pair of the knock off LA Gear pumps about a year after the shoes weren't cool any more and they had pink on them (which WASN'T cool to a Tom Boy like me). That and one of those Hypercolor t-shirts

[jakefrep]

63. (self-delete)

posted to the wrong place

[Ramsey]

57. I got an Easy Bake Oven

In fact, I can't remember wanting anything that I wasn't allowed to have, so either I didn;'t want much, or my grandparents were push-overs!

My parents were very strict though and I didn't get to DO a lot of things I wanted to do. I couldn't pierce my ears or go on a date until I was 16. I couldn't drive after dark after I turned 16. My curfew was 11 pm, way earlier than all my friends! I used to spend the night out a lot so I could stay out later. I wasn't allowed to go to certain rock concerts, but I alwasy managed to go anyway.

[LynneSin]

58. I'm jealous

No wonder I'm screwed up - my mother would never let me have an Easybake Oven.

Maybe next time I visit we'll break it out and do some cooking! :eyes:

[crim son]

59. Wow. I suddenly realize I got lots of good stuff as a girl.

I had clackers, I had the easy-bake oven, I had the thingmaker. I had a Beautiful Chrissy doll with hair that you could make long or short. I had that ballerina doll that spun around and kicked. What I was not allowed to have was anything Barbie because of the bimbo factor. My mother hated them. However I got money for my eleventh birthday and I spent it on a Barbie who came with her own phone. The doll was boring as hell but I spent the next year or two sewing, knitting and/or crocheting clothes for her, and I built her a barbie palace with furniture, linens, etc. All handmade. I even wallpapered the insides of the large cardboard boxes I used to make the various rooms.

I had a good childhood, considering what a loner I was.

[mentalsolstice]

66. I had a Chrissy doll, and her friend

The one with the black hair. I loved these dolls because my mother wouldn't let me wear my hair past my earlobes until I was about 11. The one thing I really wanted was long hair, and to be able to wear it however I wanted to on any given day.

[emmadoggy]

68. I had Chrissy and the ballerina doll too!

My sister had Velvet and also had the ballerina doll (you are referring to the large ballerina that had the crown on her head with a knob that you pulled up to turn her on and then she spun around and you could pose her legs in different positions??). Actually, I still have both of them in a container in my basement. I also had Chatty Cathy and Malibu Barbie and QuickCurl Kelly (barbie) and Tiffany (you could turn her scalp to change her from blonde to brunette - she was gorgeous!). I remember being generally happy with the stuff I had. I remember my cousins getting some things that I thought were really cool and would have liked, but I wasn't dissatisfied with what I had.

I do remember wanting Zena jeans and having to settle for the imitation brand (can't remember the name now....R.D. Simpson?? or something like that.) and I remember how cool the original Nike swoosh shoes were, but I only had the cheaper knock-off of those too.

For years I always wanted a horse and never got one of those, lol. Had to settle for riding my cousins' horses - which was fine really. I'm sure there must have been some other things I wanted and never got, but I'm having a hard time remembering that far back, lol.

[Mad_Dem_X]

125. Chrissie! I had her, too!

Loved that doll. Oh, I had an Easy Bake oven, too.

[Aristus]

60. rrrrRRRRAWPower!

RawPower was a pretty silly toy from the '70's. It was a noisemaker you attached to the handlebar of your bicycle in the manner of a motorcycle twist-throttle. When you twisted it, it made a growling noise like a motorbike engine. It was supposed to make you the coolest kid on the block in the '70's bicycle pop-subculture.

My parents knew what a stupid waste of money it was and refused to get me one.

I got over it. B-)

[Burma Jones]

61. When I was six, I got Creepy Crawlers

which was basically a hot plate in which you put a mold and in the mold you poured in plastic, it would cook the plastic in the mold, and you would plunge the mold into a water bath, which would then sizzle and emit steam.....the result, plastic bugs.

At eight, I got a Chemistry Set, with an alcohol burner.....

My folks had no fear I suppose.

[LynneSin]

65. We had Creepy Crawlers too - which was named one of the most dangerous toys of all time

Along with Lawn Jarts and a few other

http://www.radarmagazine.com/features/2006/12/creepy_crawlers.php

[texanwitch]

103. Best toy ever.

I loved my Creepy Crawler Thingmaker.

Yes, I got a few burns but one did learn to be careful.

Children today will never have the fun we did.

[City Lights]

75. I had Fun Flowers.

But not at 6. I was 8 or 9.

[jakefrep]

64. Cable TV...

...I don't know if that really qualifies as a fad, and my parents eventually relented (when I was in college). But that was when I was a NASCAR fan, and the only way to watch races was on cable.

[mentalsolstice]

67. A blacklight

And blacklight posters. My dad thought they would make me grow up to be a liberal. I'm not kidding! Though it wasn't a fad, I also wasn't allowed to wear my hair long (I'm female). I'm still scarred from that one.

[QMPMom]

109. What is it with parents and their hatred of long hair back in the day?

I had hair to my butt and when I was 4 years old my Mom had it all cut off short. I am still traumatized by that. I haven't had really long hair since.

[hippywife]

128. LOL! I had a black light

and a huge marijuana leaf poster to shine it on. My parents were kinda clueless. Until they found my pipe in my purse. :eyes:

[Oeditpus Rex]

70. Electricity and plumbing (n/t)

[Mad_Dem_X]

127. Awww, that's a shame.

LOL

[noonwitch]

71. A mood ring-my mom wouldn't even let me buy one with my own money!

I still don't know why she was being such a bitch about it, either. It's not like we were poor or something. She let my sister get a pet rock, which was even more useless.

I wanted an Easybake oven, too, but my mom had common sense about that. She thought they were stupid, so about the time I wanted one (I was about 7 or 8), she taught me to cook with the stove and oven.

[u4ic]

72. A pony

:cry:

[Dervill Crow]

73. a real Barbie

My dad bought me a knock-off that was made in Japan. Although she was blond, she had Asian features. That was before Barbie actually came in different ethnicities, and it was before things that came from Japan were well-made. Her legs and arms were held on with elastic bands that came loose. Sad. :hurts: My brother was quite a bit older than I, and when he got his first job he bought me a REAL Barbie.

Ken, if you're out there, I love you!

[BuelahWitch]

74. Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots

I was told they weren't toys for a girl. :cry:

[Forkboy]

77. Sane parenting

I already had a Lite Brite (any product with two deliberately misspelled words has to be cool according to universal laws too deep for a simple humans to understand).

[ok_cpu]

78. This...

[tigereye]

82. sorry, but I think they did you a favor

(I had red Chinese Lantern boots sort of like that....) :scared: :)

[ok_cpu]

83. Oh, it looks bad now

Like the permed mullet they did let me get but in 83 the Michael Jackson jacket was hot.

[tigereye]

114. and it appears to be coming back.....

brrrrr..... ;)

[tigereye]

80. probably Barbie

I had a Penny Bright instead.

We did get Green Ghost, though, after a lot of wheedling. ;)

[Left Is Write]

81. I wanted some shiny vinyl go-go boots when I was about 7.

Mom said I was too young.

[NC_Nurse]

84. Saddle oxfords.

When the 50's had a come-back in the 70's...all the girls had saddle oxfords....except me. :-(

And the clackers, I never got the clackers....oh well. :D

[Skittles]

86. ALL of them

no money, LOL

[RevolutionaryActs]

87. Easybake Oven.

Damn the Oven oppressors! :P

[gmoney]

88. Stretch Armstrong, and a 1952 Mickey Mantle...

Had a chance to buy the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card for $100 back when I was about 14. Paper route and birthday money added up and I was all set to send off for it, but my parents would not hear of me spending $100 for a baseball card. So, the money got pissed away on junk.

In 2001, a mint specimen of that card sold for $275,000.

:cry:

[stanwyck]

89. Pierced ears. The minute, and I mean the minute

I got to college I got my ears pierced by a girl on my dorm floor. She used an ink pen, a needle, a potato, and an ice cube. She drew a tiny dot in the middle of my lobe, numbed my lobe with the ice, then drove the needle through my lobe, into the potato, and pulled the needle through by grasping the potato. Worked like a charm. No infection. And she didn't even charge me for the service.

[Downtown Hound]

97. A computer

My dad worked in computer sales and hated computers, so that pretty much doomed our chances of ever owning one. When I was a kid I saved up for over a year to buy a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2. It couldn't even type in small case letters, but it did have some cool games on it. I didn't get a "real" computer until I was 21. Oh well, I lived.

[BreweryYardRat]

99. From what I've heard, MTV was better back then.

Now it's "Spoiled Lifestyles of Rich Teenagers"...oh, and some music.

[Broken_Hero]

100. The powerwheels toyz....

I always wanted the police motorcycle, so I could pretend to be Ponch, and bust people....:D

[Kutjara]

105. I wanted a G.I. Joe, but my parents...

...were almost pathologically clueless about anything to do with popular culture, so things didn't turn out well.

One Christmas morning, I eagerly tore the packaging off the telltale 12" box, only to discover to my horror that they had not bought me G.I. Joe with Viselike Grip. Oh no. They had bought me Alan. Yes, Barbie's boyfriend Ken's friend Alan. With no grip, viselike or otherwise.

I couldn't believe it. They hadn't even managed to buy the doll that, at least, was getting some from Barbie. No indeed. I got the one that was desperately suppressing his love for Ken, lest he be barred from the Funhouse forevermore.

It got worse because my mother, who was the most epically tightfisted human ever to walk the earth, with the possible exception of my father, refused to buy any clothes for Alan. Instead, she made them herself. Half the time, poor Alan looked like Norman Bates; the rest, he bore a disturbing resemblence to Norman's mother.

[Kali]

118. ...

:rofl:
In tears of laughter here - great writing, my sympathies - I didn't get a real Barbie until I was 30.

[Broken_Hero]

132. I still got the kung fu grip one,

*hands it over*....


What a tragic story...:cries:


:hide:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

106. Lots of things.

1) An allowance of ANY AMOUNT; I read the paper and said quotes like "Child psychologists say that children who have an allowance learn about the value of money." Said by an eight year old. Did no good.

2)New clothes from a real store, not a discount store, nor hand me downs from other people. Kids at school made fun of me. Just because it has a Neiman-Marcus label in it doesn't mean it's fashionable or even attractive. Just any clothes that fit in with the other kids. But I got $40 Italian shoes, because my feet were so narrow I had to get expensive shoes.

3)My own room and my own bed. Had 3 bedrooms, but one of them was full of junk. Two daughters, one room and one bed. Fortunately, we got along extremely well and were 7 years apart, but it would have been nice to have some privacy and room before she went off to college.

4)Adequate air conditioning. At least so I could sleep at night.

5)Couldn't get my ears pierced until I was 18 and went to a department store, because only sluts had pierced ears. Also, bikini panties meant you were slutty. Good girls wore those white nylon horrors.

6) Another bathroom would have been nice, and carpet would have been good too. We had hardwood floors with the varnish worn off.

7) A normal haircut or hair do. Mom insisted on giving me these gawdawful Shirley Temple perms when I was little, and then wondered why I came home crying.

8)Birthday parties. Told me our house wasn't nice enough, but she stacked it full of junk and it was never sealed anyway and had dirt and dust blowing thru it.

9)Inviting friends over for sleepovers. She was a jailer and wouldn't even let me join the Girl Scouts. That was the only place I went where the kids didn't pick on me, because there was adult supervision.

10)As far as material things, I didn't start driving till I was 20, because I knew I'd get killed on the freeways if I started driving as a teenager.

11)I am sure there were toys and things I wanted, but I don't remember what they were. I had a Barbie with interchangeable wigs, and a car to put her in.

12) I wanted respect and to have a date with a decent guy in high school, but it didn't happen.
Mom embarrassed me by trying to set me up on date by calling up boys' mothers, of boys I was interested in. And other embarrassing things, like making me wear lipstick to school, and I got picked on for that and didn't have dates anyway.

It sounds like it was all bad. They spent money on other things that meant more to me like symphony tickets and music lessons and sheet music.

[annonymous]

112. Easy Bake Oven and Candies backless slings

My Mom said if I really wanted to learn to cook, she would teach me how to use a real stove. She kept her promise and I started learning to cook when I was 9 years old. The other thing I wanted but my parents said no to were Candies backless slings. These were popular in the early 80's when I was in high school. My Mother said they were a safety hazard.

[Scarlett17]

113. Parachute Pants

Red ones.

[dropkickpa]

115. Easy Bake Oven and Snoopy Sno-Cone machine

Also, playdoh. My mom forbade us from getting any of those 3 toys because she didn't want to deal with the mess. I hated her for it. Of course, with 6 of us (I have 5 brothers), she may have been right about the mess. But i still really wanted them. When Dropkid gets a little older, I am getting her the easy bake and sno cone machines. I am such a cool mom. I'll even let her play with them now and then.

[InvisibleTouch]

117. I don't remember wanting any faddish toys...

...quite the opposite, in fact - if everyone thought it was "sooo cooool!", I was more likely to think it was stupid. My one concession to fad was the desire for Calvin Klein jeans around junior high school, which I did get after a good bit of wheedling. The first time I wore them to school, I overheard a kid on the bus comment, almost in amazement, "______ has Calvin Kleins!" Made me feel good; silly, I know, but it did. I've since come to the conclusion that paying more for a brand label, for its own accord, doesn't make a lot of sense.

What I really wanted, was pets - lots and lots of pets, of all conceivable species. Though I did work in a few, it never was as many or of all the particular species that I was absolutely dying for. Of course I made up for all that deprivation as soon as I got out on my own. :)

[Mad_Dem_X]

119. MTV for me, too

We didn't get that until '85 (I think). That was back in the day, when MTV actually played videos all day.

[MonkeyFunk]

121. looking back...

we had every dangerous toy ever made. Jarts, clackers, vacuuforms, creepy crawlers, wood-burning sets, chemistry sets, minibikes....

i think my parents were trying to kill us.

[redwitch]

122. white go-go boots. God how I wanted those boots.

I still live with the disappointment. Sob.

MTV was GREAT when it began. Now it's pretty much awful. Or maybe I am just old???? I still like all kinds of music. :shrug:

[Marie26]

126. Cabbage Patch Doll.

I got a cheap knock-off instead, that looked nothing like them. Oh, the shame.

[bif]

129. Six Finger!

I remember the jingle: "Six finger, six finger, man alive! How did I ever get along with five?" tt was this stupid plastic finger that you attached to your hand and I think it shot darts. It was part of the Man From Uncle spy craze back in the 60s.

[colinmom71]

133. A few things classified as "boy's toys"...

I wanted a Stretch Armstrong, but my brother got that. I got the so-called girl's equivalent, the pink stretchy octopus. After a while, I decided to figure out what made them stretchy and cut off a tentacle.

Wanted a Big Wheel, but it too was "for boys". I did want an Easy Bake Oven, but I think my mom was somehow convinced I could burn the house down with it... So I didn't get one. I also desperately wanted gymnastics lessons but I was denied! I retaliated by becoming a lazy bookworm! :D

[6000eliot]

134. I wanted the game Operation.

I had only ever seen it on TV, and they made it look really fun in the ads. Of course, once I actually saw it, I was glad that they didn't spend the money.