Toy Hunter

I've reminisced in my blog before about the cool toys I had in my childhood. Now some guy picked up with the idea and ran with it! Link to Toy Hunter Show!

Friday the Travel Channel ran several episodes of Toy Hunter back to back. I saw several toys the Bullocks had, or that I aspired to have. I was a lil tomboy ya know. I wanted all the boy toys.

Susi and Cindy had Barbie like that one

Show Host Jordan Hembrough has a dream job if you ask me. He gets to do what he loves, and it won't make him fat like those eating shows will - such as my other fave "Drive Ins, Diners and Dives". To drive around the country and look at people's stashes of toys? Zingo! What a job. Of course they only show the good stuff on TV. We don't see the creepy places where the toys are junk. (The land of misfit toys from the Rudolph Show?) I hope he has staff to screen those places.

I was putzing around, but I saw parts of four episodes. My era toys are big right now! I found out that my GI Joe was a cool one - but the guy that had the one Jordan found must have not even played with it. It was still in a box. He actually had three "action figures" and Jordan paid like $300 for all of them. The marine was the coolest one - and I had that one! Complete with the knife and tiny fake pistol.

The marine was the coolest!

He didn't have the cool jeep and rocket launcher though. See my Cousin Richard, Jordan...I'm sure he still has mine!

I was delighted when one episode uneartherd a game that we had that I had totally forgotten about - Haunted House by Ideal. What made me remember the game was that the winner opened that door at the top left and received a beautiful plastic gem! That was the kicker for Jordan to buy this one - most people have lost the gem (or it's been stolen for its great value!)

This was the first 3D game - groundbreaking!

 

The cool thing about the show is that Jordan gives the history and background of the toy and the era when he reveals the piece. He came up with one toy that was actually a prototype, that was never actually sold, and some others that were limited. Another time the man had the box the toy came in, but he had cut out the "Proof of Purchase" to send in to get another piece that you could only get by mail.

Jordan bought a Magna Doodle from a lady - that's a toy from my kids' era! Amy, my artist especially loved it! It was their version of Etch A Sketch.

Magna Doodle - this one was listed for $49.99 on Ebay!

 

As you can see it's pretty simple - it's a plastic frame with the see through screen. Metal shavings are trapped in there and you draw and make shapes with magnets that pull those shavings up to the surface. Pretty cool and simple concept. Amy spent a great deal of time with this baby - she probably was putting together food labels or bridal invites...

From what I can tell, Jordan goes around playing with other people's toys and if he likes them, he buys them. They don't really bring a lot. So I'm not mad that my mom didn't keep the Haunted House game - even though he paid the guy a few hundred bucks for it. I woulda had to split with my sissies - nobody would have been able to remember whose game it was to begin with.

It's interesting how intrigued I am by games and toys, because frankly I don't really like to play them now. Jud and Kara play games all the time - and so does Kara's family. Our fam - not so much. I wonder if I think of it as too much like work.

Or it's because I have flashbacks from playing the worst game of all time. Candyland. The inventor of that game should be sentenced to LIVE in Candyland and sent back to the beginning over and over (like Groundhog Day). When we played that dreaded game with the kids we finally resorted to bending Plumpy - the green Goblin card so we would know that Jud should not select it - the tantrum would be too great. I'm glad he's all growed up!