These are from WishbookWeb, an absolutely brilliant site where you can find beautiful scans of complete Christmas catalogs all the way back to the ’30s. Yes, my plan is to go through these catalogs (from the ’70s and ’80s, anyway) one page at a time and post the stuff I like and probably circled when making Christmas lists as a kid. (Click images to enlarge.)
Lego may be the single greatest toy line ever produced for kids, and Lego Space, in my opinion, is the company’s greatest achievement. We essentially built our own visions of life in space. Sure, the first time through we followed the directions and built what we saw on the front of the box, but after that the Legos went into giant Tupperware containers with hundreds of other Legos, at which point we relied exclusively on imagination. Unfortunately, Legos have always been too expensive. All the kids in my neighborhood would have to get together and combine Lego forces to produce our individual and collective masterpieces. Nobody ever went home with the same Legos they brought to the table. And that was okay.
I had a lot of fun playing (mostly with myself) Crossbows and Catapults, until all those goddamn caroms got lost. A hundred years from now, if the houses we grew up in are still standing, the inhabitants will still be digging these things out from the crevasses. And they would really fly, man, especially if you double-wrapped the rubber bands on the catapults.
It’s funny to see all the satanic D&D stuff (notice the Endless Quest books?) in a respectable catalog. I remember seeing the Star Frontiers ads in the comics of the day, but I never had it or played it (apparently some of the old folks still play it today). The Star Trek RPG came out in ’82, although I was too into D&D at the time to notice.
2 Warps to Neptune 