10 TOYS I ALWAYS WANTED AS A KID... AND THE PILE OF OLD SHIT I GOT INSTEAD - DIGITISER

10 TOYS I ALWAYS WANTED AS A KID... AND THE PILE OF OLD SHIT I GOT INSTEAD

15/6/2016

Like most of us, you probably spent countless hours of your youth browsing the toy section of your mother's catalogue.

And like most of us, you probably only ever got a fraction of the things you wanted - like, two-thirds or something like that - even though you wrote down the catalogue numbers on a piece of paper and everything. Plus half the time she got you completely the wrong thing, the ridiculous, selfish woman.

Here's everything I always wanted, but never got - and all the stupid old shit I got instead, for pity's sake.

10. WHAT I WANTED: BIGTRAK ROBOTIC VEHICLE

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

9. WHAT I WANTED: SCREWBALL SCRAMBLE GAME

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

8. WHAT I WANTED: SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN BIONIC TRANSPORT AND REPAIR STATION

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

7. WHAT I WANTED: WOOSH SUPER FAST GAME

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

6. WHAT I WANTED: CROSSFIRE RAPID ACTION GAME

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

5. WHAT I WANTED: MR FROSTY ICE CRUNCHIE MAKER

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

4. WHAT I WANTED: STRETCH X-RAY DOLL

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

3. WHAT I WANTED: TOMYTRONIC 3-D ELECTRONIC GAME

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

2. WHAT I WANTED: ARMATRON

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

1. WHAT I WANTED: ENERGIZED SPIDER-MAN FIGURE

PRESS REVEAL TO SEE WHAT I GOT INSTEAD:

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
CAN YOU SURVIVE AN ENCOUNTER WITH THAT MONKEY WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND?
THE HIDDEN LINKS BETWEEN VIDEO GAMES AND FOCKSES
HOW RACIST IS STREET FIGHTER?

Richard Wager

15/6/2016 09:57:08 am

Biffo I'm not sure you were looking at the toy pages in mummy's catalogue!

Reply

Natalie

28/7/2016 03:49:26 am

My only toy I ever got was a Mr Frosty Snowman Maker and it took 3 years to get that I guess I would have been about 8 years old. I feel for this little boy too. All I believed in was Santa Claus I used to write letters to him and sit on his leg at the shopping mall, A list down to five things.

Reply

Paul-Oh!

15/6/2016 10:00:17 am

Jesus Christ Biffo, some of those are horrendous and make me feel bad all over my body and brainmind.

The mind boggles at what your search history looks like...

Reply

Frank Chickens

15/6/2016 04:20:50 pm

^ This.

I know they're legal but extremely morally dubious, especially six and four.

If this is a glimpse into your mind then you're more than capable of coming up with shows that would make Chris Morris' output seem tame.

<shudders>

Reply

RichardM

15/6/2016 10:30:11 am

Ah, Screwball Scramble. My sister had it, but wouldn't let me play it. I got stuck with Perfection, the pop up shape matching thing.

Kickstart a Digitiser themed ball bearing maze game!

Reply

Kelvin Green link

15/6/2016 10:57:42 am

I remember skipping past the toy section to look at the gardening pages, that were always just after.

In hindsight, that's a bit weird.

Reply

paul jon million

15/6/2016 12:01:32 pm

To be fair, the monstrosity you received instead of the stretch x-ray guy is pretty cool.

Reply

Spot

15/6/2016 12:34:42 pm

Very very disturbing! seriously, that's some nightmare inducing shit right there.
I kinda understand now.
Crossfire was great though

Reply

Neth

15/6/2016 12:48:13 pm

Well, can't ever unsee #2's Reveal-O now, so no more sleep for me.

Reply

Alastair

15/6/2016 12:49:19 pm

I knew a Bigtrak was off the cards, but the pages of Star Wars toys in the Argos catalogue I poured over, marked, left lying open and got nothing I could sell 30 years later for pure profit...

Reply

Rob Ace

15/6/2016 01:46:22 pm

I wish I still had some of the original marketing material that said "Revenge of the Jedi".
That must be worth literally a pound or more now.

Reply

Bruce Flagpole

15/6/2016 03:03:01 pm

I got that same Screwball Scramble game, but i'd asked for a box of doll heads. It's funny how things work out, innit?

Reply

Damon link

15/6/2016 06:55:01 pm

My boss at work had a BigTrak, maybe under a different name.

I had Screwball Scramble but it was branded as 'Run Yourself Ragged' and the graphics may have been slightly different but the "maze" layout seems identical. Not sure if it was a time or geographical thing there.

Also I had crossfire and it was basically the same concept but the goals were little trays and it was more X-Treme... because I grew up in the 90's.

Reply

Col. Asdasd

15/6/2016 07:21:56 pm

Screwball Scramble was basically the Dark Souls of ball-run dexterity games, only without the bit where you slowly improve and take solace in your growing mastery of its mechanics.

It's main purpose is to present to a child its first horrifying glimpse of the impossible demands the world is prepared to place upon it.

Reply

Damon link

15/6/2016 08:47:48 pm

I didn't find it that difficult.

Reply

Chomboss Wankuss

15/6/2016 08:13:01 pm

Really made me do this on the tube after a tough day at the work: laugh.

Reply

Charlie link

15/6/2016 10:19:08 pm

Mr. Frosty actually sucks MORE than what you got, if that eases the pain?

Cheers
Charlie

Reply

Penyrolewen

15/6/2016 10:42:59 pm

Yeah, I wanted most of them too. Had a Steve Austin bionic man (he's still at my mum's) but never saw that multi-purpose transport/repair station. Hot damn, that 'real 2 power microscope' must have been the tits! Just imagine, seeing stuff that you could already see but a bit (just a bit) bigger. My life was incomplete and I never knew.

Reply

Si

17/6/2016 07:42:31 pm

I wanted to comment that the moustache on number 5 made me mis-read the signature on the controller as 'Daley Thompson', but then I found out that my US English phone autocorrects 'moustache' to 'moist ache' and now I am utterly broken.

Reply

Cc

20/7/2016 12:36:25 pm

Whimsy and horror, thanks Mr B. Shave a Baby looks pretty decent actually, wearing its hipster-ish body beard.
And by pretty decent, I do mean mindtwistingly horrific. I'm sure if you translated the box's lettering it would lead to a furry demon manifesting under your bed.

Reply

Leave a Reply.