Category: Art’s Toybox

Hot Wheels cars were introduced in 1968.  They were the coolest die cast cars that kids could play with.  They were similar to Matchbox cars, but they had cooler designs. They also had a better axle design so they rolled smoother and faster than any other die cast car on the market.  I was 6 years old with these cars were introduced so I was the prime target for them.  In addition to collecting the cars, I had a variety of tracks, cases and other Hot Wheels related items including a board game.  Most of the cars ended up in an official Hot Wheels wheel-shaped case.  This case is still at my father’s house today.

Toymaker Mattel created a toy in the 1960’s call Creepy Crawlers.  It consisted of molds that you would fill with colored liquids called Plastigoop.  Then you would put the mold in a special hot plate call the Thingmaker.  The Thingmaker heated up to about 400° F and cured the liquid into a soft rubbery, plastic toy.  You would remove the mold and place it in a tray of water until it cooled. Then you would use a metal pick to remove these toys from the mold.  The Creepy Crawlers looked like various bugs.  Mattel made other sets that used the Thingmaker.  I had the Creepy Crawler and Creepy People sets.  With the Creepy People set, you could make heads, arms and feet that could be placed on a pencil to create the people.  

The television series Dark Shadows started in 1966 but really became popular in 1967.  In 1968, a board game company named Whitman came out with a Dark Shadows board game. It was a typical 1960’s game that wasn’t that outstanding. In 1969, game company Milton Bradley came out with another game called the Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows Game.  Its name came from the popular vampire character of the show. The commercials for the game showed that it had several glow-in-the-dark pieces.  Seems like glow-in-the-dark could sell anything at that time and it made this game a must have for kids my age. 

I received a Marx farm playset for Christmas on the very first year I have memories of a Christmas.  I remember that year as much as I do because we have home movies of me getting presents from under the Christmas tree.  The farm set had a metal barn and silo.  It also had plastic farm figures like pieces of fence, a farmer, his wife and a variety of farm animals.  The barn and silo didn’t last too long, but the plastic figures ended up in a wicker basket where my mom stored any toys like this. There were also figures of football players, cowboys and Indians and tons of little green army men.  The figures from the farm set didn’t get played with that much.  Except for the cows.  The cows were probably played with more than anything else in the basket.