Does each generation have its own golden age or is the idea of a golden age fixed?
For instance for me the golden age of toys were the Sixties and early Seventies - Major Matt Mason, Project SWORD, Johnny Seven and so on - but my 36 year old daughter's golden age of toys is the Eighties and early 90's when she was a kid. So Rainbow Bright, Cabbage Patch Kids and Game Boy.
So does this label of golden age simply move with each generation of toys? What about comics? Films? Kids' TV? Model kits? Do they have golden periods which are set in time and what followed was therefore forever lessened?
What do you think readers?
Indeed, the Golden Age is a movable feast.
ReplyDeleteThat is why it is our duty as people who remember the sixties (even if most of it was past our bedtime!) to try and educate those who have come after us, about the glories of cold war popular culture!
Each generation does have its Golden Age, but some are more Golden than others !
ReplyDeleteThink the 60s were the golden age of space toys?
ReplyDeleteComics have set Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age periods, so those are fixed.
ReplyDeleteHollywood had its Golden Age from the 1930s to the 1950s. The big studios were well established, and had the money to mount major productions, there was high output (even if a lot of it was run of the mill), the technical expertise was there, including sound and special effects, and the stars really were stars - shinning brightly from the silver screen. After that output fell, the stars became dimmer, and the studios either disappeared or were taken over by companies with little knowledge of film.
Toys are different. As you say, each generation remembers best the toys they played with. Laura Legends and Bella's Toy Chest mainly cover toys that mean little to me, as they are from a later period. I remember the toys of the 1960s and 1970s that I grew up with. I would say the 1950s and 1960s for plastic kits, and the 1960s for die-casts. Each field was fairly new, companies were trying out new ideas, there was a high level of technical skill in design and production, and plenty of variety. Then came increasing costs and often pointless toy safety regulations, which strangled new ideas and fun. I have little interest in the cast-iron toys of the 19th Century, lead toy soldiers of the early 20th Century, or tinplate toys - all well before my time. Nice, but not my thing, as I have no memories of them except for a few tinplate toys from the 1960s, just about the end of the era.
Fascinating insights guys. I suppose this blog celebrates that golden age of toys and kids TV and films. Mission drift is inevitable after 13 years and I now include the eighties and the nineties, the new best toy decades for a younger readership.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above assessments, but of course like to think that the stfuff I like (50s-60s Space Toys) was the REAL golden age...
ReplyDeleteit just all came together didn't it Zigg, Space, Spies, Monsters and Heroes. The perfect storm!
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