Just watching TV toy adverts and getting that old urge to rush out and buy some! Nearly as good a feeling is reading about other fans' excitement about toy shopping. I love John Marshall's descriptions of his Saturday trips to Toy City [great name!] in his supercool book Action Figures of the Sixties. He kept his collecting bug sharp in the Seventies too at those natty named stores like K-Mart.
It must have been so amazing round 1974 to see a whole shelf of those huge boxed Mego Batmobiles towering up to the ceiling or all those Mego Super Heroes standing tall along the aisles. I don't remember them in the UK probably because I was a teenager in the mid-Seventies with other stuff on my mind. Did anyone get any Mego action figures or vehicles as kids? Do you still collect them? What toy shops did you go to?
picture: vectis
I actually shopped at most of the same stores that John Marshall did.Were both New Jersey natives and most of those stores decribed were in the Berlin area like K mart and J.M.Fields.There is also several large shopping Centers(Malls)in the area.Cherry Hill,Moorestown,and Echelon were the most popular.In Mr Marshall's G.I.Joe book, he describes Christmas 1971 when he recieves a G.I. Joe figure and the Eight Ropes of Danger Playset.There's also a picture of him playing with Sesame Street Muppets.That makes me laugh because I got the exact same thing that same Christmas.Probably because our moms shopped at the same stores!
ReplyDeleteMy mom used to take me on the bus to the Downtown area. Her favorite haunts were The Boston Store, Gimbels, F.W. Woolworth's, and Walgreen's. When dad drove us on the weekends we would hit Target and Treasure Island, and Sears. I simply don't recall Mego as a kid but do remember Ideal, Hasbro, and Marx but when the 1966 Batman show was hot I was into the 12" G.I. Joe figures and their knock-offs.
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