Box's Top 10 Nostalgic Boy's Toys

I'm a toy collector, as you know. Toys were an important part of all our childhoods; for some of us, they're still important. And so today, I'm going to count down my Top 10 Nostalgic Boy's Toys. Now, when I say boy's toys, I just mean toys that were mostly marketed towards boys. I'm not saying girls can't/shouldn't play with them; hell, if I met a girl who shared my apprection for army men I'd probably marry her. Anyway, let's dive into the toy chest and take a look.
10. TY Beanie Babies
This one might be cheating a bit; afterall, Beanie Babies aren't very manly, are they? Well, I'm putting them here anyway. Beanie Babies were awesome. They were cute, cuddly, soft and me and my friends had hours of fun playing with them. Hell, I still have a lot of mine. In a box in the cupboard, but the point remains. Just to drive the point home, I actually had the small version of the spider for a while, and it didn't scare me.
9. Hot Wheels
Every boy had Hot Wheels. EVERYONE. If not Hot Wheels, they had Matchbox or Corgi or some cheap dollar store brand. Actually, I shouldn't limit this to just Hot Wheels. Dinkies (this might be a dialect thing; diecast toy cars) were common toys; we all had them, so we could all play together. I can remember us brining our dinkies to school and slamming them into the wall under the blackboard at recess. Good times for us, if not the cars.
8. McDonald's Happy Meals
McDonald's food is tasty, there's no point denying it. It tastes good. It's f*cking gross, and it's probably made from the scraps of a hot dog factory, but that's beside the point. Kids love going to McDonald's. and back in out day it was no different. And the best part about going to McDonald's was the toys. They had some cool stuff- the Monsters, Inc. figures they made were astonishingly good quality for what they were, with high detail, quality plastic, decent poseability all things considered and they came with DOORS for accessories. The had other great stuff- the original Tohunga sets for Bionicle, which I hope to acquire someday, and Teenie Beanie Babies, and lots more. The food wasn't good for us, but every so often, the toys were. Whatever that means.
7. Action Man
Action Man was the guy Ken wanted to be. The Ultimate Soldiers wanted to have a drink with him, but he was too busy being awesome. Max Steel tryed to fight him over a date with Barbie and he's STILL not out of the hospital. Action Man eats the Ultra Corps foe breakfast. G.I. Joe... actually, I think Action man and G.I. Joe are friends. Action Man was cool. He let kids act out good vs. evil without shilling the army like G.I. Joe did. Now, two things; I have no problem with the army, I have a lot of respect for them, but it's not for everyone. Sometimes it's more fun to play as a freelance hero or a maverick. Seccond, I know Action Man has been in the army, but when I got mine, he was more like a crime fighting extreme sports star. He had a tv show too, but I never watched it. Although, the theme song was awesome. AMP IT UP

6. Pokemon Cards

As you may have guessed from Derek Fro's recent articles, we here at the Box Lounge are pretty big Pokemon fans, and we have out Pokemon cards to show it. Of course, most of these decks and collections got their starts years ago, when Pokemon was relatively new to North America. Thus, our binders are full of the bounty of trading back in the day- old standbys like Charmander, Pikachu, Diglett, and Goldeen. I don't know why we collected them as kids- I at least wasn't really the collecting type, and we never played the game until this year when we got back into it. I guess it was just youthful materialism and an admiration for the art. We've made up for our lost time, however- we once played for over three hours. Never again.

5. Dinosaurs

This one's simple enough. Kids love dinosaurs, especially boys. I love dinosaurs. Toy dinosaurs are interesting in that relatively decent ones can often be found in dollar stores, sold bagged or individually. It's cheap to get a bunch of them and set up your own Jurassic Park in the sandbox or back yard. If "decent" isn't enough, there's more expensive toys from lines like Jurassic Park and Dino-Riders, or high quality replicas from the Carnegie collection, or from makers like Schleich, Papo, and Safari Ltd (which, as I recall, makes the Carnegie Collection). Basically, dinosaurs are fun, more dinosaurs are more fun, and it's easy to get more.

4. Toy Story merchandise

Toy Story is probably one of the best animated movies ever made; the same goes for the sequels (or at least the Toy Story 3. Second one wasn't quite there, but still excellent). Toy Story toys are amazingly fun to play with- how many toys encourage you to pretend that they're just toys? So many possibilities. And of course, due to Pixar's masterful storytelling, you get attached to these characters. These dolls and action figures seemed real, so what happened when you got your own Woody, Jessie, Buzz, whatever? You got MORE attached. You caught yourself worrying about their feelings, or felt bad about putting them in storage. That, or you had a great time breaking them. Who am I to judge?

3. Star Wars action figures

Ah, Star Wars. Where would geek culture be without you? And where would our childhoods have been without your stuff. Star Wars figures were great. I was just reaching the age for action figures when the prequels came out. I had a blast playing with my Phantom Menace figures, and nothing you can say will ruin my nostaliga-blinded love for that movie. Of course, as I got older I collected more figures, and started mixing them with other lines, like G.I. Joe, Marvel Universe, DC Infinite Heroes, and others. I guess I could've just called this 3 3/4 action figures, but for me, Star Wars figures were the first and most nostalgic.

2. Lego Adventurers

Here's another case where I'm being more specific than is strictly necessary. I could have just said Lego, but in a way, a lot of Lego isn't nostalgic- I'm STILL buying it every now and then. But Lego Adventurers was not only one of the coolest Lego themes ever, and my personal favorite, it's discontinued and thus, more nostalgic. Lego Adventurers was set sometime between the 20s and 40s. It followed the adventures of Austrailian treasure-hunter Johnny Thunder and his friends, reporter Gail Storm (later Pippin Reed) and archaeologist Dr. Lightning (later Dr. Kilroy) as they searched the world for treasures and battled the neferious totally-not-a-Nazi Baron von Baron (later Lord Sam Sinister) and whatever help he had scrounged up this time. It ran for four subthemes from 1998 to 2003, and a few years later we got the Indiana Jones sets- Adventurers was replaced by the very films that inspired it. Still, the Indy sets were pretty cool and we recently got a spiritual successor to Adventurers, Pharoah's Quest, which even continues Adventurers' weather-themed naming system. Still, the original Adventurers will always reign supreme in Legoland's Interbellum.

1. Army Men

Christ, where do I even start? Army Men are cheap, every kid had at least a few, you could play with them anywhere, you could combine them with your Toy Story merch... But oddly enough, I think it's the first one that gives army men a lot of their appeal. They're cheap, so you can get a crapload of them easily enough; it doesn't matter if you break a few, so you can play rough; you can lose a few; you can paint or otherwise modify them. As I said, you can play with army men anywhere. Sidewalks, driveways, back yards, kitchen counters, floors, gardens, sadboxes, beaches, puddles, Christmas villages, anything, unless your school doesn't let you bring them. And of course, the Army Men sequence from Toy Story was a memorable part of the film, and I'm sure that a lot of kids wanted army men after seeing it. I actually have the recently released Toy Story Collection  Bucket O Soldiers, and they're beautifully sculpted, high-quality figures made from good plastic in a vibrant shade of green... and I've barely played with them. True, I'm older now that I was when I was really into army men, but even when I do play with them, I find myself trying to be gentle. I've never taken the outside- they're too nice and too expensive to risk. I've had a lot more fun with my cheap dollar store-Zellers-Bargain Shop armies over the years. I do, however, wish that more army men were actually molded in green- most are this horrible dark olive green colour or another green that's much too dark compared to the way army men are usually portrayed.

So that's my Top 10 Nostalgic Boy's Toys. I hope that you enjoyed it, and if anyone actually read this blog, I'd love to hear about your own nostalgic toys in the comments.

Also I'm not trying to rip off the Nostalgia Critic. He just doesn't have a monopoly on nostalgia.