I remember the Christmas…or was it birthday? when my sister got an Easy Bake Oven. She is 8 years younger than I am, so it was one of the earliest models. The first models were like what you see pictured on the cover of the book featured in this post, and turquoise in color.
I have to admit I felt a little envious….and probably did all I could to have a chance to cook something with her little oven, at least once. Toys were getting pretty advanced at this point, I mean an oven that you could actually bake miniature little cakes in with small bakewear and utensils….all from the heat of a light bulb, kind of amazing when you think about it…and I imagine the safety restrictions on the newer Easy Bake Ovens are a zillion times stricter now…it’s amazing we all survived to this point without all the toy safety restrictions they have now:-)
Once you had one of these ovens, you had to buy your cake, frosting, and cookie mixes from then on. I can remember each of us in our family of 6 getting a teeny tiny piece of whatever my sister baked. I don’t remember whether it tasted that good, but it’s just another memory from times gone by that pops into the head, that leads to other memories.
I’ve just had the best time looking at old television commercials from my childhood, a whole hour of them, ads from the 1950′s and 1960′s. They were simple commercials, often with a familiar jingle that would stick in your mind, so you wouldn’t forget. I remember almost every one that I saw, whether it was from my own childhood, or hearing them when my brother and sister were young. Things like Bosco, Good Humer Ice Cream, Colorforms, Slinky, Rin Tin Tin’s toy shopping spree contest, G.I. Joe, and who could even be SEEN without a pair of P.F. Flyers?
Remember “every boy wants a Remco Toy”, and what girl didn’t want a Tiny Tears doll. If you wanted a doll that produced “water from the “other end”, there was Betsy Wetsy – now that I’m an adult, that just sounds strange. Do girls even play with baby dolls anymore? Do they still play “Doctor” or “Nurse” with little stethoscopes and plastic toy syringes? With my children grown, and no grandchildren yet, I’m a bit out of touch.Why don’t you take a trip down memory lane if you were a child in the ’50′s & ’60′s? Here’s a whole hour of children’s toy commercials.
A few months ago I was involved in a discussion about, of all things, the Hula-Hoop. It set off a lot of memories, and only now am I getting here to post some thoughts…only to find that today is the anniversary of the patenting of the hula-hoop in 1963 by Hasbro Toys. I would have been about 11 or 12 then, and remember getting my first hula-hoop. It was a lot of fun, and great exercise. I had great fun with it, until one day it was missing. The next day I saw the girl next door playing with a hula-hoop and surprise surprise, it looked JUST like the one I had. So I went over, and confronted her, asking her where she got it. She said her parents had purchased it for her, but I knew better, the marking that I had put on it to identify it as mine was there. How did the story end? I decided that it wasn’t worth fighting over. I don’t remember exactly what happened, whether I ever got the hula hoop back, or lost interest, there were so many other things to do in the great outdoors, and she remained a friend.
Here’s a GREAT video of a talented young man in Ireland doing tricks with hula-hoops. Turn down, or off the sound if you don’t like lively music. Enjoy…he’s great!
I remember the Christmas…or was it birthday? when my sister got an Easy Bake Oven. She is 8 years younger than I am, so it was one of the earliest models. The first models were like what you see pictured on the cover of the book featured in this post, and turquoise in color.