When i was a kid, I remember wanting the He-Man castle. Castle Greyskull. I begged, pleaded, did extra chores aorund the house, and even stopped beating my little brother for like two whole weeks hoping that Santa would notice, and bring me that god damned castle. Well, that fat bastard (Santa) partially screwed me on this. I woke up to find an IOU under the tree, signed by Santa. Apparently, his elves weren't quick enough to Toy's R Us to get one before the mob bought them all. I had never been so disappointed in my life (To that point, anyway). I ended up getting my castle in the middle of May, but by that point it was old news, and I wanted GI Joe stuff instead. From that point on, I never trusted Santa again..... Fuck you, Santa!

I always, always, always wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. I begged for one every year up until a couple years ago (I'm 28), but my request fell on Santa's deaf ears. Imagine my surprise when a good friend sent me one for my birthday two years ago. Best. Gift. Ever. I can't say the same for the desserts, but it was still fun making them.

I have 4 brothers and when I was 5 all I wanted was a baby doll crib for the one baby they hadn't camouflaged with black and green markers and set on fire, yet. I got one for Christmas, it was so real...wooden and it was on rockers. It lasted like an hour until my two older brothers realized that my 3 year old brother might fit in it. They put him in , and the bottom broke right in half. My parents never fixed it. It was in the trash that night. I gave up playing babies after that and started playing army and matchbox cars, instead. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

when we first arrived in the US toys were not high on the list of things to acquire. more important were sofas and tables so we could all stop fighting over the one director's chair we'd gotten from god knows where and also stop using the box the TV came in as a makeshift table. (of course we had a TV before anything else. isn't that the way of the world?) anyhow, toys were bought at yard sales whenever possible. now, we all know what people sell at yard sales, the crap that's too good to throw away but not good enough to regift. so we had a lot of games/toys that were slightly broken or missing pieces. have you ever tried to play mousetrap without the mosue? or how about Sorry with only three of the five game pieces? Sorry indeed! :D

This wasn't necessarily the toy that got away or broke quickly, but the one that turned out to be a great deal of pain. One Christmas I wanted so bad a small sort of table/scooter(there was a surface molded for your knees and wheels under that, and handlebars in front of it to steer, you kick off, and fun should have been had), and boy did I get it. Instead of using it on my knees like it was intended I decided to get on my stomach and push myself around(seeing as how it was quite large). I learned that the plastic wheels did not take kindly to pebbles on our basketball court/patio in the front yard, as I ran over one, and the handle bars jumped and smacked me in the chin, thus flinging my body off of the object and on to the ground. For the next month or so I had a giant bruise on my chin.

P.S. I just so happened to own an Inch Worm myself when I was younger...sadly as a fat kid it scared me when I sat down on it, not sure if it would make it another inch when I sat up...

That worm thing looks so freaking awesome!!! I would have loved that as a kid...

I'm not sure if this counts. But like... every super soaker I've ever had has been the same story of overjoyed for a week or 2 then overbroken. Same with Nerf guns. It would be super fun for a week, then break. I dunno, bad luck maybe? Thing is, usually the basic functionality remained intact, but some auxiliary mechanism fell apart, causing it to be a big hassle, or big for a 12 year old.

*SIGH*

Oh yea, when I was like 5 or 6 I cut my foot up on x-mas day... even though I had a trove of wonderful presents... all I could do was cry.

Yes, I agree, that worm does look awesome.

I have a similar story, only this happened to me not as a little kid, but as a teen (last year).

I play guitar; and I had wanted an electric guitar for a while. So, for Christ-day last year, me mum took me to the shop to "look" at guitars. I found one I liked, and mom bought it. However, I found that the nut was broken. (The nut is what keeps the strings aligned on the neck) So we went back, returned it, and got a replacement. I inspected the nut, and it was fine. That did not end the day, however. On this one, the bridge was broken. (The bridge is what holds the strings at a certain height and alignment on the body). SO we went back that day and exchanged it for a real Gibson SG!

...the bridge was broken on that one, too. I had it for a month, but didn't want to believe the bridge was messed. I finally decided that it was. With some trouble, we returned that one. (I am NEVER going back to that shop)

There it is: 3 guitars in a month. I was a little discouraged from buying a guitar for a while you might imagine. I was.

My luck changed. In mid-to-late January this year, me dad bought a Gibson guitar, fresh out of the factory! I've had no problems with it; it is not broken in any way.

I love my parents and my guitar. :)

Ask any Brit what they wanted and never got and the answer will probably be "MR FROSTY", a Ice drink making toy.

I am a child of the Eighties, a decade of fantasy and futuristic toys to lead us to the new millennium. When I was ten years old, I desperately wanted what seemed to be the most modern and engaging toy ever conceived...dominoes. But these weren't your grandfather's dominoes, this was DOMINO RALLEY!™ In the commercial, the camera would chase the tumbling rows of dominoes like a rollercoaster ride, kids would smile orgasmically and give each other thumb ups, all set to an intense rock music score. After begging and pleading for months in advance, I got the set for Chrsitmas. Instead of substantial ivory pieces of yore, this toy set came with hip and modern fluorescent-colored plastic ones. There were bridges, and pre-assembled domino curves where all you had to do to reset them was a quick tip to the side. True to the commercial, you could have dominoes falling all over the place, making star-bursts, turning corners, climbing stairs, even launching a spring-loaded rocket. And true to the commercial, this excited motion only lasted about 30 seconds at best. I quickly realized that a 30 second payoff, even scored by rock music from my boombox, wasn't worth the hour of effort it took to set everything up. Because the dominoes were so light, they would easily start tumbling prematurely if a breeze blew or a cat tail hit them. By the time I had set up all the dominoes and had everything ready to go, I was paralyzed. Even though I couldn't describe the feeling at the time, that moment right before the first domino was tipped felt more futile than fun. It was like building a sand castle as the tide is coming in, pointless.

Ultimately, I gave the DOMINO RALLEY!™ set to my sister so she'd shut up about me having eaten a bunch of her Easter candy. She signed a contract and everything.

I just wanted an Oscar Mayer Wiener Whistle...

Yeah! Where IS my Mr.Frosty that.. Oh.. Its coming next year son.. Don't worry.. Santa must have loved the ice treats so much he took the machine..

Every year!

I used to have a stretchy rubber monkey, about as long as your hand (although not mine, since I was eleven). I carted it around everywhere, and one day as I was walking away from the library I started daydreaming, and the next thing I knew it just wasn't in my hand anymore.

I never did find that monkey...

Ebay is the modern Santa. There are always "Vintage" Toys to be had on Ebay. Eventually, someone is cleaning out their attic/garage/basement/storage closet and going to find your inchworm/greyskull castle/barbie/whatever.

I have a friend who found on Ebay a book from her childhood and a guest in her home saw it and she found ANOTHER one on Ebay. And dude she's in her 60s.

This one is for Nik ^^up there^^ i had that same exact domino set, and I can completely relate to EVERYTHING you said.

And heres my story, when I was about 6 (in the early 90's, mind you, i'm still a teenager) I got a board game for Christmas called "Knock Out". It was kinda like Jenga, you would build a wall of neon colored plastic bricks, and you would have to knock out one brick at a time with a little fake jack-hammer-thingy. Well anyway, we had our family over for a Christmas "party" and my cousins and I were all playing this game. There were plastic neon-colored bricks everywhere. One of my cousins, who was, and still is, "a-little" overweight came over and sat on the floor with us. CRUNCH. Two of those plastic bricks were crushed. I was pretty upset, so instead of buying me a new set, my "handy-man" dad glued, and tapped, them back together.

I got that "creepy Crawlers" thing when I was about 10. It looked so cool! pour in the goo, let bake for a bit and then custom-made rubber bugs and lizards! what could be better! It was great fun until the morning when I saw my little critters all dried up and shrivelled. Them bugs didn't even last one whole day! My dreams of scaring my mom with an army of realistic looking spiders and beetleswere as dried and shrivelled as my new toys. Biggest let-down ever. That was the year I stopped trusting tv commercials.

I received this little plastic robot. Purportedly it blew smoke out it's mouth, walked around, and could pick up things. Sadly, I never really got a chance to try it. The first day I had it, I had two friends [twins] over. And, somehow, they broke it.

My poor little robot was broken. I never even got a chance to play with him =(

As mentioned all young "brits" wanted a Mr frosty.

And as a young "brit" i most certainly wanted one - i remember pestering my poor parents for months regarding this - sadly i got a Castle Grayskull - which was great (until mid afternoon when my over zealous uncle broke it - what a bastard).

I can happily say two years ago my older sister brought herself one (a Mr Frosty) which i promptly stole - Unfortunately it would appear that the plastic "teeth" inside were not quite up to crushing ice and i broke it while making my first ice cold treat.

So in total i have a broken grayskull, a broken Mr Frosty, an idiot of an uncle and a very angry sibling.

This really isn't so much MY broken toy story, as a confession.

When I was in 8th grade, my parents went out of town and had my frail, ancient grandmother watch me and my 3 younger brothers. Yes, of course, I had a party, and I let everyone climb in through the basement window.

Someone stepped on our Atari console, and broke it. My brothers, stand-up twerps that they were, DIDN'T bust me. They claimed to my parents that they didn't know how it got broken (mind you there was a circle-shaped bunch of cracks right in the top). They caught hell for it, and didn't get another one.

Of course, they never let me forget it.

To this day, I scour flea markets and estate sales, looking for another Atari. I'd pay anything, ANYTHING, I tell you, just to get them to shut the f**k up, I mean FORGIVE me for my wrong.

When I was 5 I wanted a Big Wheel. All I wanted was that big wheel - I begged and pleaded, I wrote letter after letter to Santa, I circled it in the Eaton's catalogue. When Christmas finally came what was under the tree? A bright yellow second-hand bicycle with a banana seat. What a bummer.

I did have an inch worm though and it was great! You'd have loved it!

I never had a story like that.But I still want a pony.

Man, I have so many stories like this from when I was a kid. I could probably tell the one about all those damn paddle ball toys that ended up as tools of discipline, or the one about the X-Wing model that took months to build and only moments under my fat cousin’s ass to destroy, or maybe even the one about the "Ring of Fire" Evel Knievel motorcycle jump set that left a scar you can still see today, or even the toy box that ended up being a nightmare inducing trap, but the be-all-end-all major toy disappointment has to be my GI Joe.
I had wanted a GI Joe for years. Joe was the first toy I ever remember wanting actually. See, GI Joe wasn’t always the puny articulated toy he is now; he was once a magnificent action figure with weapons and uniforms, and a patch of Government Issue peach fuzz on his head. I was proud of my GI Joe, he stood guard on my dresser for all to see, and ready to fend off any encroaching Ruskies. He had many campaigns in the back yard against any and all comers, and he was always victorious.

Then it happened. One day while playing in the rain, for some reason Joe’s hair started to fall out.

I tried to dry Joe off, but his hair just rubbed off and he ended up looking like some refugee from an atomic blast. His uniform started to disintegrate, and in the ruckus of trying to save Joe I forgot to gather up his weapons. They were lost forever in the mud pit. No hair, a tattered uniform, and no weapons, Joe was a pale empty shell of a warrior. An utter disgrace, and a total disappointment, Joe let me down by just being a toy, and towards the end he lived out his life as a misfit monster and was finally relegated to being burned at the stake by my little green army men, and a stolen lighter, in some Lilliputian revenge battle later that Summer.

I had a Johnny Jumper as a young-un. God, I must have been like 1-2, but I remember loving that thing.

For any who don't remember, a Johnny Jumper was like a pair of underwear on gigatic elastic bands that you attached to the top of a doorway. Your parents stuck you in that thing and it was bouncing time.

I remember going house with that thing. But I think I heard they outlawed the JJ for hurting kids, something about head injuries.... Damn shame if they did.....

This isn't so much a post as to how I didn't get what I wanted, but getting yelled at on Christmas Eve for seeing a gift that was intended for me.

I happened to look into my older sister's bedroom (never mind that the door was WIDE OPEN and the LIGHTS WERE ALREADY ON!) and I saw a large box leaning against my sister's bed (no jokes, please). The box contained an air hockey table.

Now I wasn't an air hockey type kid, so I naturally assumed that the table was for one of my brothers. As I stood there trying to reason out who it was for, my other older sister sees me standing at the doorway of the room, walks up to me and screams "That was for YOU! YOU RUINED THE SURPRISE! WHY DID YOU DO THAT!"

My jaw was agape in shock. I ran out to the porch. I didn't know.

I didn't.

--sniffle--

Don't feel too badly, Steve. The worm was fun for a while, but you couldn't really get anywhere on it (after all, it was an inch worm). You just kind of bounced along for a while and then got bored and went off to play with something else.

I remember having some total dud of a bug maker, although I don't think it was the Creepy Crawler set mentioned above. It sucked hardcore and was returned to the toy store the next day, but no replacement. Also my best friend became over-zealous in a game of Wonder Woman vs. the Cooties. She repeatedly used the 12" Wonder Woman to stomp the Cooties into oblivion and alas, Wonder Woman's flexible foot broke off in her knee-high plastic red boot. However, I did get another Wonder Woman. Hurrah!

Like Dyanna, I always wanted an Easy-Bake oven and never received one. It was tragic. I just couldn't understand it. Shrinky Dinks, check. Monopoly, check. Farrah makeup head, check (poor Farrah- in later years she was resurrected from the basement and given a very short and spikey hair style, dyed red with blush, and some facial tattoos; she was then mounted by her suction cups onto the hood of my boyfriend's car). But year after year, no oven. I also wanted a Baby Alive, the baby doll that you could feed faux baby food or water from a baby bottle and it would poop and pee. But my mom said that was gross, and in retrospect, she was right.

Every Christmas our family and familyfriends had a huge Christmas party 2 weeks before Christmas. Santa always came to these annual parties and each kid got 1 present. One year I got a My Little Pony puzzle and I adored it, being the big MLP fan that I was. So the next year came and my yearly joy was squashed like a fat roach when I opened THE SAME PUZZLE that I got the year before. I cried oceans of tears - all the photos from that day have a crying me in them - and have never forgotten my first feeling of true and utter disappointment. :(

*goes off to cry a bit*

Jorge V, you have reminded me of another memory...when my one brother and I were about 7 and 5, respectively, we got into the Christmas present stash while my parents were out of the house. My older brothers were supposed to be watching us, but were, in fact, trying to break into our locked cable box so they could catch some skinemax while the folks were gone. Anyway, we found the most amazing rubber balls and we played with them the entire time until we heard my parents come in, and then we rushed to put them back. We spent the next few days in glorious anticipation of Christmas morning and getting those rubber balls. Except then Christmas morning came, and there were NO rubber balls. None. I've always wondered what happened to them...

I had one of those inchworms, it kicked ass. But what I always wanted, but never got, was a Snoopy Snowcone Maker.

Wow! My neighbor had one of those inchworms...haven't seen one of those in forever. It was lots of fun, but then other kids' toys are always more fun than your own. Later, we used Mr. Inchy for advertising and mascot purposes when we started selling earthworms in front of my house...we parked him in front of our cardboard box "booth". Despite Mr. Inchy's presence, our business was a failure- our only customers were my neighbor's mom and a mean older kid from down the street, who would purchase our worms, line them up in the street, and run them over with his bike :-(
I also had a similar Christmas Sadness story...instead of a beauty pageant, I had received a Barbie Hospital. I was happily engrossed in my playing, stretched out on the floor in my Grandma's living room, when one of my siblings' feet unintentionally came down on my hospital and snapped it in half. I remember freaking out, wailing, and being very dramatically upset, which was way out of character for me (I was a very reserved child). However, the story has a happy ending...I didn't realize my pink Barbie hospital was held together with pink plastic hinges, the kind that can be easily snapped back together, so all was quickly restored :-)

What's worse than this is when your own kid gets what you wanted as a kid.

I wanted a power-wheels throughout my childhood (until I was 16 and could drive a real car). But when I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of money, so it never happened.

The day my son turned two, my father comes to the party, and what does he give my son? A stinkin power wheels. Not only did he trump the gift his mother and I gave him, but he gave him my childhood toy that I never got!

Worst part about it? I don't fit in it!!! ;)

I remember the power wheels.
Not sure I f I ever really wanted one, but then what kid would say no to it?

This past Easter I fianlly got to ride in one.
Now, mind you, I am 18 and am far too big to really fit in it. Some how I managed. It turns out that those power wheels has some serious torque. I had the thing in reverse, then shifted straight to forward and flipped it backwards so that it was laying on its back, as was I.

Oh, what a good time...

Even better was watching my uncle ride in the thing.

One time, I thought I was going to get yet another sicilian puppet, but I got a toy accordian, instead.

Oh, my heart . . .

My toy story was in reverse. When I was 10, I so loved looking longingly at the pictures in the JC Penney catalog of electric football. It looked really cool, both teams dressed in their Super Bowl finery, the huge crowd cheering them on. I pictured being the coach of 22 little men who would obey my every command.

Alas, Christmas morning arrived and my little heart was disappointed to find the players were NOT painted in their colorful uniforms, and all they did was vibrate in circles in a ballet of frustration. The "ball" was a wad of felt. They wouldn't do anything football-like at all. And don't even get me started about using the so-called Quarterback. The game sat in my closet until high school, when I found it was a great way to seperate my pot, angling the game at 20 degrees, watching the seeds roll down when I hit the "on" switch.

Toys suck.

Mine was a Rubik's Revenge that I got for my birthday from my Aunt. I had mastered Rubik's Cube and was ready for the next challenge. When I opened it and messed it up I realized it was much harder than the cube. After playing with it for a while I figured I'd just easily take it apart like the cube and put it back together correctly. Unfortunately, the innards of Revenge are different than Cube and the trick to open a Cube, causes Revenge to break. I never told anyone that I broke it on the day I got it and I never got another.

Brian
http://myvogonpoetry.com

I remember 1 year being so excited about Christmas, I must have been 10 or so, I was big into the Dawn dolls. there were a couple of outfits I really wanted for Dawn, and I also wanted Clairol Herbal Essence perfume. That was really all I wanted. For some dumb reason our "big" present for my brother & I to share (he was 8) was a Sit n Spin. Both of us were way too big for it, and spinning makes me very sick, so I never used it at all. And my sister decided to be the big gift giver for the Herbal Essence...much to my surprise it was not the perfume, powder or cologne, but the shampoo! not even matching conditioner..damn I already had the shampoo. It was bad enough I couldn't use the Love Fresh Lemon Scent (my dad hates the smell of lemons) but now I didn't even have the Herbal Essence.. damn sucky Christmas,

my sister did get the creepy crawly thing, and we really liked it

When i was in preschool, i wanted a dragon action figure, except i didn't know how to articulate the concept to my parents. I asked for a plastic dragon, which i thought was an adequate discription, but they evidently heard plastic wagon. That sucks

In the late '70s, my family moved to Germany where my father was stationed. One of our first days there, my brother (who was about three or four at the time) went outside to play on the playground in the family housing area. About an hour later, he comes into the apartment, which was on the top floor of our building without an elevator, lugging in an inchworm he found on the playground. The thing was almost bigger than he was, but he wanted that inchworm so damn bad, it just didn't matter that he had to drag it across the field and up the flights of stairs to bring it home.

Of course, my father made him take it back outside so whoever left it there could go back and get it. My brother was devasted and cried the entire way back with the treasured inchworm that was almost, almost his.

When I was about 5 years old, I received a Cabbage Patch doll for my birthday. This was no ordinary Cabbage Patch doll- it had light pink hair. I loved it way more than the crappy original Cabbage Patch dolls that I had.

However, the very night of my birthday, my parents saw a commercial for the nightly news that said, "Can your child's Cabbage Patch doll KILL THEM?!? Find out tonight." So of course, they watched, and the whole report was about fake Cabbage Patch dolls that were constructed out of asbestos and lead paint... or something like that. My doll didn't have that Xavier Roberts tattoo on its ass which made it "authentic", so they took the doll away from me and I never saw her again.

I begged for - and was refused - a Snoopy Snow Cone Maker every year. My brother who is 3 years younger than me also NEEDED one (only because he thought whatever I wanted was cool.) Needless to say, I also never received my dream gift....untill, that is, 3 years ago. My brother got one for me for Christmas and promptly STOLE it!! I never did get to play with the damn thing and to add insult to injury, he says it makes pretty good "adult" snow cones.

I also remember getting a monkey puppet and a guinea pig for Christmas one year. The guinea immediately peed on the puppet which had to go into the washer and dryer. Unfortunately the '70s era synthetic fur melted and my monkey was ruined. Of course my brother's was in perfect shape and he proceeded to taunt me until I wanted to kill him.

I always wanted a Big Wheel, or a Green Machine. Nothing seemed cooler than spinning that giant front wheel before taking off, doing power slides and cruising around the neighborhood like the low-slung baddy I wanted to be.

Alas, it was not to be. Now my Mom doesn't understand why I want a cheap 80's Camaro.

What year was it when there was a huge rush on Cabbage Patch Dolls? '85, maybe? Anyway I wanted one. BAD. Not just any one, but one that looked just like me with the blonde pigtails and blues eyes. My folks (Santa) couldn’t find one to my specifications, so on Christmas Morning I woke up to a spunky short haired girl named Corey gene. I was still supper happy. She had the CUTEST little yellow corduroy romper with green lace. For years, I kept Corey gene in lovely dresses and bows in her sporty do.

Then one day I learned the terrible truth … Core gene was actually Corey EUgene. My parents had forcibly given the poor guy a sex change by using a needle to scratch out the “EU” from the birth certificate, and sewing some lace on his outfit. I never suspected a thing. That poor doll. Behind that plastic smile he must have been screaming out “I am a boy! I AM A BOY !!!

I’m pretty sure we should all be registered on some sort of offender list.

(please don't laugh at my age)...back in the early 1960s I wanted nothing but a Thumbelina doll. This was a life-sized soft baby doll with a wind-up knob in the back that made her head kind of slowly rotate (no, not like the Exorcist!). I wasn't really the kind of kid that played with dolls much, but this one MOVED for chrissakes! I got the doll for Christmas, and I think I had it a couple of weeks when the rotten neighbor girl busted the knob off and it would no longer move. I think it was the first time I ever had a broken heart. My dad tried to fix it with a typewriter knob and some glue, but it always fell off. It was tainted. The next year they came out with a "newborn" Thumbelina that made mine look like a big Baby Huey and I never played with it again.

When my son was a kid, (don't remember the year exactly) he asked for a Stretch Armstrong for Christmas. For those who don't know, this was a "doll" marketed to boys that had stretchable arms and legs. To his delight, he found one in his stocking and gave it a few warm-up stretches immediately after opening it up. He then passed it to over me to give it a try so I grabbed it by its tiny little hands and gave it a mighty yank. Of course, one of the arms promptly snapped off. I'll never forget the look on my son's face. You'd have thought I'd pulled one of HIS arms off. We never did get him a replacement. He's 22 yrs old now but every so often he'll still bring it up.....

In 1984, I temporarily demoted G.I. JOEs to second-favorite toy status because of a toy that I didn't even own. What I wanted that Christmas more than anything ever wanted by anyone in the history of the universe was a transformer. I wasn't even picky. I would have even taken Ironhide, and he and the ambulance one were crappy. And low and behold, when I tore open a rectangular package from my grandma, I found Bluestreak, an Autobot who turned into a Datsun Z. I had him for all of a week when my dumbass friend snapped Bluestreak's roof clean off. Bryan got married a couple years ago; needless to say I didn't go.

One of my most disappointing Xmas' is still vivid in my memories, even almost 30 years later.

As a tomboy I had a lot of odd requests, but one of the biggest was GI Joe Jeep about 1974/75, my Mom had actually bought it! We celebrate on Xmas eve, so we open presents at about 5PM Xmas eve, and sure enough I opened it, my eyes lit up wide, it was so perfect, GI Joe and Barbie both fit in it, and I was in pre-teen nirvana, then about 10 minutes in, it broke in so many ways, things didn't work all over, in retrospect it was just a very shoddy product, but at that age I didn't know that.

I'm sure I presented many tears, and mom took pity since I remember us going out on Xmas eve to the toy store and actually buying something else that was better built.

To this day I think mom tried, but was crazy for trying to "fix it" by buying a different item, and the disappointment is still there.

and to this day I think I still look to "buy happiness" go figger...

Since I was like 5 all I've really wanted for christmas was a Nintendo... an original Nintendo, that's all. I ask every year and I have yet to get one. I gave up begging and pleading years ago, but I still ask every year.
Actually I do have a nintendo, but get this... some asshole spilled coke on it and fried it. I was crushed, I finally had my dream present and it's broken beyond repair.
The only thing that kept me from crumbling completely when my Nintendo broke is my Pong game system. (that's right, pong.)
On a side note, every year for as long as I can remember Christmas has sucked. I can't even recall one Christmas that didn't have something really shitty happen. (did I mention I HATE Christmas?) It really has little to do with the gifts I've gotten, they're usually pretty good, but something always goes terribly wrong.

It was Christmas of 1983. I was 12 years old and I, like every other boy that year, I wanted the He-Man action figure. He-man was the greatest!

Well, Santa messed up that year! Oh yeah, he messed up big time! Then again, maybe he did it on purpose because I was a little brat.

Instead of He-man, I got Faker I. I can already hear your thoughts: "Faker I? What the F*/%!!!!"

Well, here is a link to a picture.

I remember trying to decide if I should cry or throw up. Regardless, I gave the dog a "hand me down" present that year. I thought Faker I looked a lot better once the dog had finished chewing it up. I am sure anyone who took the time to look at the picture agrees with me.

I was seven or eight, and the Mego versions of my favorite superheroes were all the rage. I had Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk... more than a dozen in all.
My birthday rolled around, and I was granted the rare opportunity to shop for my own present. Oh, the anticipation! Only the announcement of a trip to Disney World could have topped it. (That never happened, however.)
But this shopping trip was laced with the hair from the proverbial monkey's paw. Instead of a toy store or even Sears, I was saddled with choosing my present from a farm equipment outlet called Fleet Supply. A death sentence, to be sure.
Imagine my surprise when this store actually had a toy department stocked with items other than ERTL die-cast tractors. And, there, hanging on peg-hooks on the boys aisle, were the Mego heroes I so longed to possess.
And here is where my own poor judgment scarred me for life. On the rack were all four figures from the fabled "Teen Titans" series -- Wonder Girl, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Speedy -- waiting patiently for me to snatch them up and sprint for the check-out. Speedy, with his bow and arrow, was particularly inticing.
Then my eye caught a glimpse of purple and orange. What is this? Mr. Mxyzptlk (I don't care if I misspelled it), one of Superman's "greatest" foes! I was torn, and in a moment of weakness, knowing that my heroes had no villains with which to do battle, this overweight, aging imp was in my hands.
I hated that action figure once I got it home. A major disappointment. I could have been shooting arrows with Speedy. Instead, Mr. M sat unused on my toy shelf.
To add insult to injury, in my adult years I learned that Speedy could have financed my college education with the price he fetches in the collectors market. Mr. M? Not so much.
This is my private childhood hell.

In the 80's I used to collect GI JOE toys. I remember at one point that the toy company had a special offer. If you sent in so many proof-of-purchase points and a small shipping and handling fee, they would send you a special wind-surfing action figure that you couldn't buy in stores.

It must have taken me a year to save up enough POP points. I felt like the kid from 'A Christmas Story'... checking the mail everyday waiting for my exclusive GI JOE action figure and wind surfer.

When the box finally arrived, I was so excited. I tore open the box, only to find the toy windsurfer sail, and the action figure's gun... that was it. I never did get the whole thing :-(

Oh, and another thing about GI JOE. A couple years into production they changed the design so that the action figures' crotches would always break after a few hours of play (with the action figure, not the crotch). What kid really wants to play with GI Eunuch?

Go Castrato!

By the time I was six I had pretty much figured out that anything I asked for was going to be purchased for my sister, who wasn't going to let me play with it, so I started asking for books instead.

This did not stop me from wanting that big scary Barbie head where you could do the hair and put makeup on her.

Forgive me if this post on the subject of disappointment becomes too metaphysical. It’s not really even about Christmas. But what the hell, this is July.

As a young Catholic school boy in the early sixties, I listened carefully to everything the nuns taught us. I found the idea of heaven especially interesting. The way I understood the deal, you do good all your life, pray, go to church, avoid impure thoughts (whatever THEY were); and when you die, God lets you into heaven. And in heaven, you get anything you want. Now I wanted a suit of armor. And a sword. And a horse. Like every kid, I knew that even a pony was probably out of the question, but a full sized horse and a complete set of knightly raiment had to be beyond the pale.

But God can do anything, so I realized that all I had to do to become the black knight was to toe the line here on earth and someday glory would be mine.

Here’s where it gets metaphysical. I started thinking about the whole subject of desire and how it seems to change with time. I had never observed a single adult who gave two hoots about anything really cool. Adults didn’t use the swingsets. They didn’t skip in the rain or splash in mud puddles. In fact, as far as I could tell, grownups had nothing better to do on Sundays than sit around in church singing hymns and drinking coffee afterwards while they talked.

That’s when I realized that the whole business was one big scam. Sure, if you were good you’d get anything you wanted when you died. But by the time you were old enough to die, you wouldn’t want anything worth having anymore! God’s pony supply was in absolutely no danger whatsoever. And as for suits of armor? He wouldn’t even have to keep them in stock.

Those nuns! I never saw a more slippery bunch of con artists.

I don't mean to rub it in but I had one of those inchworms. To this day it was the best toy I ever had. I liked it so much that I rode it to the point it fell apart. By that time the plastic had turned a pale chalk green and the paint in the eyes had worn out.

When I saw the picture on your page I had an immediate flashback to my younger days.

I remember one christmas all I wanted was a good big plastic sled. We had snow the christmas before and i was reduced to sledding on old cardboard boxes.

Christmas came and I got my sled.

There wasn't a good snow in oklahoma for 2 years after that. By then my sled was stowed away in the abyss my grandparents called a garage.

I never got to sled on it.

It was my 9th birthday and my parents gave me the choice of having the toy of my choice, or $20.00. Now I’m the kind of red-blooded American guy who will do almost ANYTHING for 20 bucks, but back then, the appeal of a piece of paper money just hadn’t kicked-in. So I opted for, what I thought was the coolest toy EVER…The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. My parents tried as hard as they could to talk me out of the Stunt Cycle and into the $20, to no avail…I was resolute in my decision.

My birthday eventually rolled-around, and I was excited as could be to unwrap my present. My brother & I set up the jump ramp in the kitchen, and I torqued-up the motorcycle and let it fly on it’s maiden voyage. The bike hit the ramp perfectly at break-neck speed. Evel never looked so smooth and fluid as he sailed impossibly high into the air, and then, much like his namesake, little Evel came crashing down and perhaps not-so-ironically smashed the handlebars to bits and broke his arm off. I was devastated…and never got a replacement. I guess I learned a lesson that day…TAKE THE FRIGGIN" MONEY!!!

My private hell...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/EvelKnievelStuntCycle.jpg

I remember wanting a 10 foot tall stuffed unicorn from a store called R. Gang when I was about 6 (that was about 1982). That store sold giant stuffed animals. The unicorn must have been priced at about $400. Thank goodness I didn't get that unicorn - what would I do with it? I still cried like a baby Christmas morning when it wasn't in my living room.

One Christmas, my grandmother came to visit and she brought me a gift. Being the greedy bastardette I was, in the middle of the night, I did that thing all kids do where they open a present and then try to slyly repackage it.

Imagine my guilt and remorse when I opened it to find a Bible. And even thought it was a perfect brick shape, at only 6 years old, there was no way I could put the gift wrap back on.

I distinctly remember the next morning when my parents found the unwrapped bible and were quick to say, "I hope you're happy. You ruined Christmas!"

I totally wanted the worm, too!! Never got it, though. My toy story is about what I’d consider a defining moment in my life. I have a freind who asks me to tell this story al the time, he loves a tragic comedy. Someday, I’m going to write it up properly, but here’s the gist.

I used to have a Barbie airplane (it was called the Friend Ship) I loved this airplane and I hated Donna. She was a girl whose mother used to babysit my brother and me. Donna used to pinch me all the time. All. The. Time. She was a terrible little girl, but only because her mother was an abusive shrew, which only occurred to me years later. So Donna was at my house and we were playing with my Barbie airplane. (For the record, I was not a small girl. I was a chubby kid who enjoyed her share of what the fine folks at Hostess cakes had to offer.) At some point during our playtime, Donna wrote the words “Pig Debbie” on the airplane. In purple pen. I can still visualize the actual pen she used. It was a Bic Banana. The sides of the plane were covered in white vinyl with a thin layer of padding underneath. This made the words “Pig Debbie” dig deeply into the vinyl, it was permanently etched there. I cried like a little girl and ran to my mother, knowing that she could undo Donna’s misdeed. My mother took the plane away so she could work her maternal magic. Lousy Donna, this would show her. She can’t hurt me, my mom will fix everything. A short while later, my mother returned with the plane. She seemed pleased with her solution and I knew I would be too. She handed me the plane and said “There! All better!” She had changed the “P” to a “B”. Now it said “Big Debbie”.

Once in a while, when I’m extremely bored, I peruse eBay to see if anyone has the Friend Ship “Big Debbie” for sale. They never do.

I've had two train sets taken away. My father kept storing them in our apartment house cellar, where the locks kept getting broken, and N-gauge trains appropriated for community use.

www.forgotten-ny.com

My sisters story: she discovered her christmas present early (a BIG box of barbie clothes) she wanted it so bad that she cried for like four days because she wished she hadn't found it.
My Story: On my Golden Birthday (5) I thought everything I would get would be made of gold. Instead everything was pink. blech. But I did get a Cabbage Patch Big Wheel that birthday so I actually was pretty happy.

By the way, have you ever seen this site? It has, among other things, sound from toy commercials of the 70's. This guy used to tape them on his tape recorder when he was a kid. What a forward-thinking lil' bastard!

http://dt.prohosting.com/70s/childtv/childtv.html

I was never much of a girl when it came to toys. I always sat in my room wearing my cute little twirly dress playing with Ninja Turtles, Legos, Aliens, and Dinosaurs. Well one year a Barbie came out that was "super poseable" with joints at her knees and elbows. You could put this sucker in any pose you wanted, it was awesome. If I had her she would be the most poseable action figure in my entire collection. Plus she came with a dolphin or a seal or something like that. So I asked for this Barbie, and my mother thought that my request for a Barbie meant that I had finally given up my love of "boyish toys" and embraced the fact that I was a girl and I needed to play with girly toys. She informed the family. The next Christmas, ALL I GOT WAS BARBIES. It was horrid. I hated the stupid things (unless they were cool Barbies like mermaids or came with a horse or something), and here I was with a Christmas haul of nothing but the plastic ladies. I only have two cousins, and they're both boys, and they got cool swag like Nerf guns and RC cars. I was all "Hey can I play with your cars?" and "Does anybody want to play Mall Madness?" Needless to say that Christmas was not fun.

I was an only child until I was a teenager, so I always got what I wanted. It wasn't until I was too old for toys that Christmas gifts became lame and now I really want a Ferrari, but do I get it? NO! I get towels. I hate my parents. They totally don't get me.

When I was 4 my mom and her friend decided to take a good chunk of stuff, that had accumulated through out the 60’s, to the Midway swap meet (the midway was a drive-in theater hat had fallen on hard times by the 70’s). My mom told my sister and I that if we were good, we could each have a toy at the end of the day, that my mom’s friend was selling. I became transfixed on this little space toy. It was a white plastic rocket with wheels and a little bubble top that lifted up and a little red man could climb out and walk around on the moon and fight aliens and shoot lasers and HOLY CRAP I needed that toy.

I sat and stared at it all day. People would stop by and look at stuff. Some would by a trinket here, an old pot or pan there. Every few people would pick up my beloved toy and my hart stop and my eyes would go wide and I would scream in my head ‘NO’. eventually they would put it down and move on.

The day finally came to a close and the toy was to be mine. I was just waiting for my mom to ask what toy I wanted (as if she couldn’t tell) so that she could fulfill her promise of that morning.

Just then a man walked up while the adults were putting stuff away. He picked up my little toy, asked how much, paid, walked away…

I couldn’t believe it. Just like that my future joys fell flat on their ass. My mom turned and asked what toy I wanted. There was one of those vibrating football games. I half heartedly pointed and said that… She said I was too young. I didn’t get nothing.

To this day, when I am at a garage sale and something white and red and plastic catches the corner of my eye. I will turn to look, heart racing a little, but inevitably it is never my little white rocket ship with the little red man.

One Christmas my parents got me an inflatable E.T. I think it was a puching bag or something; it had sand at it's base so it could stay upright. I also got a little blue plastic doctor's kit. I immediately decided to open the doctor's kit and give E.T. a checkup. His heartbeat was okay, but he didn't survive the shot.

I never got Barbie's dream house, my god all the Christmas's I spent crying for that thing. Of course the reality is I would have gotten it and my brothers would have immediately converted it to the Battleground for GI Joe... but damn I wanted that thing.

I always wanted a damned Kitty-Kitty-Kitten when i was little. I begged for one every chance I got. Several years after I was over my obssession for stuffed cats with wooden balls in their heads, at age 15, my mother got me one. That smelly old bag!!! No, seirously, I love my mama.

Man, this brings back bad memories.

I had always wanted a Hoppity Horse.. anyone remember those? Picture a big inflatable ball with a horses head on it. You sit on it and bounce around like you're a cowboy on some bloated horse.
We lived in an apartment complex near a river and the day I got my Hopppity horse I was out on the sidewalk, near the rivers edge, with my cowboy hat, bouncing along under a blue summer sky. Suddenly I was engulfed in the shadow of three "big kids" who wanted to try my hoppity horse.
No I said.
Took it they did and bounced on it for a bit, then proceeded to toss it into the river, and run away laughing.
I watched my hoppity horse float away and I think he was happy. Perhaps he had always dreamed of being a boat.

Debbie..thanks so much for the site on the 70's commercials...my favorite was Freakies cereal, loved that stuff and loved cowmumble. I used to take my Freakies figures to school with me to piss off my teachers. I would have them on my desk in every class, and play with them...hmm maybe that's why the teachers didn't want them there..
I was reading where the guy said he used to tape the commercials. I was born in 1960 so I was half 60's/half 70's. There was 5 of us kids and we didn't have alot of money (and VCRS weren't out yet) whenever any of us stayed home from school we would tape I Love Lucy on our old baby blue reel to reel tape recorder. we would also tape Price is Right, but that's not as good without the visual. We had seen all the I Love Lucy's a gazillion times, so just the sound track was enough. We thought we were pretty cool that we had a color tv downstairs and a little 11" black & white...TWO TV's!!! hardly anybody had that.

I was a big Lone Ranger fan and wanted two six shooters complete with bejeweled (giant rubies!) holsters. Two things kept me from my fantasy of running all over the apartment popping caps (literally), both of them in the form of my father.
One: Upon reaching the store, my father was appalled at how much the twin guns cost, so he demanded the store split the set (could this happen today? Bargaining with success in a store in a major metropolitan area? Shucks, no.)
Two: In an attempt to cheer me up about being only half as potentially deadly as the Lone Ranger, he spent what seemed an hour tying the holster to my leg with some cord he scrounged up. It would make it more "real." There were numerous lessons on how to be a quick-draw champeen and propably a history lesson about the black cowboys, too. Anyway, I grew out of my cowboy phase and went back to wishing I'd magically turn from a brown little boy to Linda Carter. Yes.

When I was 5, my big sister told me that I was bad and all I was getting for christmas was garbage. So I get up all happy Xmas morning, and whats under the tree but a huge black trash bag. I was skeptical, until I opened the drawstring and all i saw was newspaper. I went running to my room in tears for most of the morning until my mom came in and showed me this stuffed bear that was bigger than me. I felt like a fool the rest of the day.

I have two fathers, biological and adopted. My adopted fathers family saw me as the black sheep for a few years growing up. At Christmas time, my half-brother and half-sister from my adopted father, would get cool presents from my grandparents and I would always get shit. Like this one time my siblings got some cool toys and nice clothes, and all I got was a Hulk Hogan thumb wrestler. While my siblings and cousins got to play with all their cool stuff, I had to sit there all day with my thumb up Hulk Hogan's butt.

Good Lord! I'm feeling rather depressed now. Pretty sure that I can never have kids. Even something as wonderful as Christmas can scar a child for life. I don't want THAT on my head!

I think Todd's story about the rocket ship is probably the saddest thing I'll read all week.

Awesome question, Steve!
Like Glen, I wanted the Creepy Crawlie thing, except I wanted the ones you could eat, Incredible Edibles. I campaigned shamelessly for months before Christmas. On Christmas morning, imagine my indignation to find that it was not among my presents. Did I not make it CLEAR what I wanted? Then, imagine my shame when my dad lifted a pillow to reveal the hidden treasure.
Sad thing is, the "bugs" tasted like crap, and everyone in my second grade class had also seen all of the commercials, so no foolin' them. To date, the most sought after and the worst present ever.

Is it just me or did every kid in the world have a Powerwheel but me? Every christmas I would hopefully wait for my parents to unveil the present that was "too big to fit under the tree, so it's out in the garage" only to have my dreams shattered into a million pieces. Me and my powerwheel could've gone places, we could've explored the far corners of the earth and had tales of our own. I could've recited my extraordinary adventures in detail to my grandchildren on my death bed. Me and my Powerwheel would've set this world on fire. But instead I had to settle for some lame ass sweater. Thanks a lot dad, asshole.

My mom's dad was a German baker. He passed on all his baking shenannigans down to my mom- who's a better baker than he is. So, when i was little, i wanted to be cool like all the other girls and have an Easy Bake Oven.
I asked (i was never big on begging), and i asked a lot. And one day, when i was asking for it again, my mom said "you don't need an easy bake"
"..Of course i do!" (go childhood logic)
"Why? You've got the real thing right here."

...Damn mothers, trumping me again on my childhood dreams. She never did deny me in my love for barbies- at one point in time, i had over 45 barbies to leave naked around the house at my heart's content (then we sold them, and i used to the money to buy CDs to leave around to my heart's content).

I'm with you on that one "T". Reading Todd's story bummed me out and made me feel bad about the one I was going to relate (I received a bike one birthday that was the wrong color and took super-human strength to peddle - but I still got the damn thing). I'll keep an eye out for your rocket, Todd.

On a lighter note, Jason and his story about GI Joe cracked me up almost as much as Steve does.

TO relive a lot of your child hood memories you all should check out X-E. Matt, has tons of articles from old 80's toys (really anything pertaining to the 80's, even food) and their commercials....

I had the inch worm... and Goobie (the yellow plastic ride on thing that looked sort of like a BarbaPapa)...
When I out grew the inch worm, I wanted a Green Machine...like Scottie across the street... know what I got... a friggin' rock tumbler.

Yeah. My friends were out riding their Green Machines, and I was making key chains out of granite.

I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid. No, really. I desperately, desperately wanted one. Did I ever get one? Nope. My parents got me one of those lame knockoffs instead. No adoption papers, no name that came with the 'Kid. A fake knockoff. I'm still bitter about it.

When I was 5 All I really wanted was to go fly kites one day with my dad and my brother and sister. My dad caved and took me to walmart to purchase a cool kite. I chose Yogi Bear, by far my favorite cartoon ever. I let it fly for like 2 minutes before the string broke. My dad offered to buy a replacement but it just wasn't the same. My brother walked around the lake we were flying the kites by looking for it, but it was nowhere to be found. He did find a turtle though and gave it to me to make me feel better.

SNOOPY SNOW CONE!

I wanted one of those for years as a kid, and I think that my sister and I finally got one to share when I was about 12. Now, you can imagine the difficulties that we had sharing that fine toy - but we WERE the hit of the neighbourhood until the ice grinder started to wear down and Snoopy's little red rubber hat sugared shut.

But don't cry, girls and boys, there is a happy ending. Last year for Christmas my boyfriend got me my very own Snoopy Snow Cone Maker ... thanks Ebay.

I had the Ghostbusters Echo-1 when I was a kid... I was sooooooooooooo happy... until the bully next door promptly wrecked the damn toy car the following week.

The Mego KISS Dolls, were awsome.
I begged, I pleaded and on Xmas morn Streach Freakin Armstrong !!!!!!
Suck my inner 7 year old wee wee... Santa!!! You fat bastard !!!

I got that game, "Buckaroo", for my birthday -- maybe my ninth? It consisted of a little plastic spring-loaded donkey, with a saddle on; and you had to load your plastic gear (ropes and canteens and the like) on the saddle's hooks, without triggering the donkey to "buck" and throw the pieces off. My friend and I played with it once, and then when we decided to do something else I tidily put the game away in its box to keep it safe (so I wouldn't lose the little pieces). My mom, ever more tidy than I, absently went around the room picking up wrapping paper, and grabbed what she thought was an empty box (i.e. my Buckaroo box), to stuff the wrapping paper into. My dad then took all the burnable trash out to the big oil drum where he proceeded to, all unknowing, burn my birthday present.

I wept when I realised what had happened, and I don't think my parents have ever forgiven themselves.

And then my puppy died, that evening. No word of a lie, he was in an accident and so badly hurt that he had to be put down.

I have never gotten a replacement for my Buckaroo game, either. I have hated birthdays ever since.

it was a dark and stormy childhood.times were tough in the sixties and my dad was probably laid off at this time (again).though we always had spaghetti,i was always left with a feeling of hollowness since poptarts were newish and i had never tasted one.YET THAT FAT FUCKING TOMMY NEXT DOOR ALWAYS HAD CANDY MONEY AND POPTARTS.well anyway my grandpap took me to kmart and bought me this palastic exploding kind of ......diorama?.. hill type of thing that shot soldiers in the air as a jeep crossed a bridge. hmmm! on the way home i was so happy that i had to hang it out the car window as imagined the wonderfull gory action of japs being blown to hell.just as my grandpap said get that godamned thing back inside the car before you drop it ,i dropped it. being the great pap that he was he got the hell off the side of the road real quick and ill never forget him trying to run into the lane of traffic ala frogger when some bastard crushed my jap killing exploding diorama.hell of an effort on my grandfathers part but he never took me back to kmart for a new one.ill be a grandfather in ten or fifteen years and i cant wait to fuck my grandchild over when his imagination runs amok. ps .icried like a baby when pap died.

My Astronaut Raphael Ninja Turtle that I got for xmas when I was 5... the brace the kept the legs in place broke before the end of the night... but for years he was "Crazy Dance Raphael"...

I also got a luigi (mario bros) keychain from my gay uncle one year... I got a super nintendo game from my parents - believe it or not, I played with the Luigi a lot more, they were amazed.

I can't remember a specific toy I didn't get (though I know there were some), but there were plenty I campaigned for that ended up sucking. Like the giant plastic barbie head (the hair on mine was all screwed up), the remote control Barbie corvette (which was attached to the remote by a three-foot wire--lame!), the "board" game Haunted Mansion (the rooms were made out of the cheapest paperboard and just plain sucked), the Jeopardy board game (the questions were a lot harder than the tv show and way beyond my scope at the time), the Casio SK1 sampler keyboard, which seemed so cool in the commercials but was fairly lame in real life (actually, it wasn't so bad--just the sampling part sucked, which of course, was the major draw).

And then there was the time my mom threw away ALL of my barbies. She tries to claim now that she asked me if she could give them away and I said go ahead, but I never would have said that. EVER. She musta been smoking crack. I still remember how I felt when I went looking in the closet for that big box of dolls and their clothes and then asked her what had happened to them (and she told me she tossed them "because you never play with them", not gave them away--and it wasn't even true! I played with them all the time at my friend's house, who had cooler accessories than I did). All I had left was a really tacky pair of synthetic yellow-with-orange-stripe jogging pants that somehow missed the garbage bag.

I still collect barbies to this day to fill that dark, empty hole inside. And the great irony is that my grandmother threw away all my mother's dolls when she was a girl because she was "too old for them", and it scarred my mom for life. She's been collecting dolls for years (has a gigantic collection) and makes and sells doll clothes on ebay. Go figure.

And I asked for a guitar for years, but didn't get one until I was in college. My mom kept saying I'd never play it (yeah, hard to play if I don't HAVE one). Thanks a lot, ma.

My husband has a great Christmas disappointment story. His parents decided to get him and his younger brother football jerseys and helmets for their favorite teams (they liked different ones). My husband went out there xmas morning and saw his brother's Cowboys shirt and helmet, and then saw his Dolphins shirt...and nothing. Pure heartbreak. Turns out his parents couldn't find a Dolphins helmet, but they still gave his brother his Cowboys one (even though it was a surprise that neither kid was expecting, so it wouldn't have hurt to have kept the helmet for later). I mean, why would Santa do something like that??

Then there was the Christmas of Wham! the Video. When I was twelve I wanted that so freaking bad, that I almost bought it days before xmas with my own money, but my mom forbid it. Which told me I must be getting it for Christmas. But as the presents dwindled, and I hadn't yet discovered it, I got more and more upset. Finally, we come to the last box, a really big one. Yes! I'm thinking, it's got to be disguised! So I tear it open, and inside...a giant teddy bear dressed in a christmas sweater. I swear, I about burst into tears right there. Until my mom made me look underneath the bear and get the video out. Duh.

Ok, I'll stop hogging comments now.

I just bought this little disc shooter thing at Wal*Mart and some girl took it from me at work and broke the cap that fastened down over the discs.

I guess that's what I get for only paying 88 cents.

Hey Viki, Your Atari console is here:
http://www.atari.com/us/games/atari_flashback/7800

This month's Wired Magazine reviews an even cooler one!

Good luck!

when I was like ten or so I got this easy-bakeish thing that made a little cake in the microwave (can you imagine anything more disgusting) for my birthday. The first time I used it it made the microwave spark as if I had put metal in it, which I thought was pretty cool until my parents realized that their microwave was being destroyed. Needless to say we had to buy a new microwave (actually we sent a letter complete with gruesome pictures to the cake maker company and they sent us a check to buy a new microwave, which was pretty awesome) and my cake thing was reduced to a smoldering pile of plastic. the end

When I was 7 or so, back in the early 70's, there was a doll called Timey Tell that I so desperately wanted for Christmas. Premise of the doll was you set the little watch on her wrist, pull the string, and voila! She would tell you the time! Christmas came, and Santa did bring me good ol' Timey. With trepidation, I set her watch, turned her around, and as I pulled her string...the damn string came out! I never even got to hear Timey Tell me the freaking time! Needless to say, I bawled all day, my siblings taunted me with the remnants of Timey's string, and my cheap ass parents never got me a replacement. After that, my parents should have gotten me something more useful, like therapy.

I always wanted an oopsy-daisy doll that would try and crawl then fall down, and say "Oopsy-Daisy!"

I have no idea why i wanted that stupid thing, but I never did get one. I just got one that peed its pants and pooped when you fed it nasty fake baby food.

Damn mom, I wanted to to be realistic, but thats taking it too far!!!

Oh wow- talk about flashbacks...
My biggest present disappointment story was my 12th birthday. I had decided that I really wanted to learn to play the guitar, so asked Mum and Dad for a guitar and lessons for my birthday.
So about a week before, we go to the music shop to get a guitar. I had the choice of two- a second hand guitar and a new (fairly cheap and nasty though) guitar. The new one was cheaper but Mum said that if I got the cheaper guitar she could pay for some lessons too, if I got the dearer guitar I would have to wait for lessons.
So, realising that I would need to learn things like what the strings were, I opted for the cheaper one....
Turns out that it was a big mistake. Not only did I never get any lessons (thanks Mum!), but the cheap guitar was cheap because it was a heap of rubbish. The strings were about 6 inches from the frets and the bridge broke about three times. I ended up trying to learn to play from a 'teach yourself guitar book' filled with songs that I had never heard of (so I will never know if I played right!) before the guitar broke for the third time and I gave up.
Oh- and the 19th birthday where I was given a mobile I didn't want (back in the brick days) and was not allowed to use unless it was an emergency. And this was after my family said 'Do you want a mobile' and I said 'NO!' and provided a long list of things that I did want/need.
I don't like birthdays.

I was around nine or ten when the Cabbage Patch craze was afoot. I never followed trends when I was a kid, and this was definitely no exception...I HATED those gross little shovel-faced creatures. Well, my mother knew this, but I guess she thought it was an act on my part, because we were poor and I knew she couldn't afford one anyway. Cut to Christmas morn: my BIG present? A Cabbage Patch doll. Even worse: it was a Preemie. Does anyone remember how disgusting those little things were? It was like the It's Alive baby, only balder and uglier. But, I acted like I loved it because I knew to what extent my mother had to go to acquire the nasty little monster. I brought it over to my best friend's house to play with and "accidentally" left it there repeatedly because I knew she loved Cabbage Patch dolls, so at least someone would get some use out of it. I don't even remember what mine was named, but I remember my best friend's was Ruthie, and she loved that thing more than her own family.

*Samuel P. Reese--you almost made me cry

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted a Lite-Bright. I asked my parents every Christmas and birthday...but I never got it. I did get a pair of Ficsher-Price rollerskates when I was three...I learned that morning the pain of bruising my tailbone. When I was older, I'd expressed iterest in learning to play drums (though I still wanted that Lite-Bright!)...my parent bought me a gutiar. And still later, they gave me a heater.

All I ever wanted was that damn Lite-Bright. Oh well...Now I'm 20 and too broke to buy my own...but soon, hopefully...I'll get a job...yeah...

"Dear Santa, I've been a very good girl all year. For Christmas, I would like Josh Homme, wrapped up in red ribbons, please."
Instead I got a folk guitar-playing physics major. (Who turned out to be a lot of fun anyway. But I'm still disappointed I didn't get my toy of choice.)

Two anecdotes for you. One Christmas when I ws around 8-ish, I decided I would be terribly clever and wrap up a box full of junk I found around the house -- buttons, a penny, an old nail, etc. -- and put my mother's name on it. So when she saw this lovely little box from me, she was curious and couldn't figure out what it might be. I told her it was "something special" and hammed it up a bit. So when she goes to open it, she is so excited she can hardly contain herself. And upon discovering that she was the victim of a cruel prank, she was heartbroken. She cried for hours. I'm still working it out in therapy.

On a lighter note, did anyone ever open their presents before the fated day and play with them? The best Christmas ever was when I got my Atari system. I was probably 11 or so and by that time in my young life, I had mastered the art of the "re-wrap." School was out a full week before Christmas and I was home alone all day. So I opened my Atari and the 2 or 3 games (that were also wrapped) EVERY DAY and played it all day long, being careful to allow myself time to re-wrap it all before the inevitable arrival of the parentals. So skilled was I in the art of the re-wrap that my chicanery went undetected. I kicked everybody's ass at those games on Christmas Day and no one could figure out how I got so good so fast.

Man, I'm almost crying.

I have a happy Christmas story. My husband and I had ordered a great big stuffed Clydesdale horse from Budweiser for our baby's first Christmas. She was only 11 months old, and probably wouldn't have noticed it not there, but we were incredibly disappointed when we went to bed Christmas Eve, and it hadn't arrived. Then, early Christmas morning, there was a knock on the door, and our neighbor was standing there with the horse! It had come the day before when we weren't home, so they had taken it for us, and made sure to get it to us plenty early in the morning, so the baby would think Santa had brought it. As far as I'm concerned, he did...

When I was 3, I got what was called a Mickey Bopper(or I called it that anyway), that was an articulated Mickey Mouse doll that would dance when music was played.
I hugged it so hard I broke it.

Some of my favorite toys that I remember getting and losing were Teddy Ruxpin, and my etch-a-sketch Animator. Both of them met the same demise...my family moved away and my mom sold them in a yard sale without asking me or telling me that she had done so, so when we get to the new house, where's Teddy? All mom can say is he was adopted by a happy new family, along with the Animator. That's just dirty mom, dirty I say...

My older brother and I were searching for toys hidden by my mom a few days before Christmas. We found a "U-Fly-It" in the basement (Toy plane attached to a string; flies up and back; weee). I couldn't have been more excited. Thought about it for days. Woke up Christmas morning, it was all wrapped up; for my brother.

Crapola.

So parents, one of the biggest lessons to learn from these entries is to NEVER HIDE THE GOOD TOY AND TRY TO SAVE IT FOR LAST! I know in their adult minds they've constructed some sort of symphony of presents that ends with the big bang. But you're not thinking like a kid.

Think about it. Does your kid like to savor a nice steak and potato dinner all the while pretending that he's all out of chocolate cake, then suddenly finding a cake at the back of the fridge? No. Your little kids would gladly eat the cake first and be happier for it.

I suppose the bigger lesson here is for parents to actually pay atttention to what their kids want. But if you can make it that far, please don't try to be some clever bastard and attempt to hide "the present" ala the Red Rider BB Gun.

Debbie: ebay has lots of Barbie Friend Ships. Thirteen, it looks like, and cheap too.

In the summer of '71 (I must have been 4 y.o.), I wanted a Hippity Hop so freakin' bad -- but not just the regular one, but a pink Minnie Mouse one. Unfortunately, the only ones left at the store were the boring regular type or Donald Duck. I settled for the damned Duck because I wanted it so bad and couldn't wait for the Minnie. I soon regretted that decision when a girl on my block was spotted with a Minnie weeks later. I was crushed.

Funny when I googled 'Hippity Hop' I found this pic of a little girl who looks like how I felt on the inside -- wanting the toy so bad and settling for the one I really didn't want just have one. Kinda reminds me of my past relationships. Hmmm...

Just had to chime back in and say I recommend the book The Toy Collector by James Gunn. It's a little twisted but a great read, especially for those obsessed with lost childhood toys.

I'm going to get sentimental here, gag.

Growing up, we were not very rich, but weren't dirt poor. My mother was a housewife and made 75% of our Christmas gifts by hand. Whereas my grandmother (Dad's mom) is almost richer than God and got us whatever we wanted for Christmas. We would make a list and she would get us every single thing on that list.

So what's the point. I am 24 years old and still have the majority of gifts my mother has made me, while all the toys grandma got are in the garbage.

Oh I'm such a sap. Someone punch me in the arm please.

I had the worm! I got it when I was 4 or 5 and wore that thing out! I think I finally gave up riding it when I entered high school. Why I had to grow up then, I still don't understand. =)

PoGoBall....I use to have one, and an adult tried to use ti the ball part of the pogoball would come out.....I got a replacement and the same darn thing happened again from an adult.....never got another.

I have been desperately searching for a Mickey Mouse Talking Phone from the 80's. There were pictures of the different Disney characters and when you pushed a button the character would talk to you. I seriously thought Mickey was on the other end of that thing. Does anyone remember this fabulous creation? This was my favorite toy of all time. Help!

For me it was a Megatron transformers toy, the one that transformed into the awesome 38 calibur handgun (not exactly something we can get away with these days, huh?). It lasted two or three transformations and then just fell apart. It's like every little screw in the thing just came out. It's a real shame, too, because the fucker's worth about five hundred bucks or something nowadays.

I never got everything I had ever asked for but was never dissapointed. My wife on the other hand never lets me forget just how bad she had it. She was never selfish and wouldn't ask for alot at christmas. One Christmas all she wanted was a sweatshirt with her school name on it and got generic one from the dept store instead.

I still remember the look on her face when she told me how she wanted a Rockem Sockem when she was little and I told her how I got two one time. One from my parents and one from my aunt who didn't know they each bought one.

If looks could kill...

I cracked a Pogo-Ball on my brothers half-pipe :(

That's okay though... because then I got into skateboarding!

All I wanted when I was little was a My Little Pony Paradise Estates. I mean... COME ON! IT HAD A POOL! I asked for one every year from the time I was 5 in my letter to Santa. I never got it (turns out my dad didnt want to lug the huge box around everytime we moved... bastard.)

But this story has a happy ending. and Thanks to Ebay... I got a slightly less than perfect Paradise Estates in the original box for my 20th Christmas. No thanks to Santa or Dad... but my Mommy is the best.

For years, I begged, pleaded, cajoled, what-have-you to Santa for a Barbie Motor Home. And year after year, none under the tree.

Finally one year, I got one, much to my giddy surprise! Christmas night, after all the friends and family had gone home, my parents and I sat down to put everything together.

Imagine my parents' consternation when most of the parts WOULDN'T fit together, no matter how much "Daddy Ingenuity" was used...

Imagine my dispair as my parents packed it up and took it back to the store a few days later...and I never got anything in exchange for it.

It haunts me still to this day...

when i was a kid, i used to thumb thru the christmas catalogs and pick out shit that i would totally not apply to me. i wanted a sled so bad and could not understand why the parents wouldnt buy it for me. every year, they plagued me by not buying me a sled. as i grew older i realized that living in South GA was not really the place for a sled since it only gets cool, NOT cold, for a couple months. DUH!

When I was 6 I desperately wanted this doll that you could feed water from her bottle and she would pee in her own little pink potty. My single mom didn't have much money, but she put the thing on layaway and made payments until Christmas. I was so excited on Christmas morning. All of my other presents were thrown by the wayside as I tore open the box to play with my cool doll. I sat her on her potty and squeezed water into the hole in her mouth and pushed the button on her back and... nothing happened. I thought maybe she just needed more water, that you had to fill her up before she would pee. So I just kept squeezing it in there but nothing came out. I shook the doll to see if the water would come out that way, and she did reward me with a few drops but otherwise you could hear all the water sloshing around inside. I kept that stupid thing for a long time so I wouldn't hurt my moms' feelings but I still think it was a total gyp.

I wanted the "Hungry hungry hippos" for a really brief time, and the game "Operation," which my mom said I'd get bored by too soon (which is true). Still, I feel sorta ripped off that I've never played Operation.

I also always wanted a Lite Brite, one of those damn Sno-cone makers (I think they had a Strawberry Shortcake one, though), and, of course, the EZ-Bake oven.

For some weird reason whenever I saw those old "loom" sets (make a potholder- whee!) at garage sales I always wanted one, but of course people were always trying to sell broken/ empty sets.

I had a Slinky once that an older cousin or someone took and was playing with, and even though Slinkys are boring as hell (come on, even IF you find stairs, they have to be just the right size to work), I still was kinda entertained by just sort of whooshing it back and forth between my hands making that *chingching* sound (old metal Slinky, of course)... So, yeah, I was pretty pissed when I told him NOT to hook the ends together, which of course he did anyway, and it NEVER ever came back apart.

Jerk.

I don't remember any broken toys or anything I wanted and never got from Santa (I'm spoiled ROTTEN) but I do remember the Christmas in which Santa brought a "Sit and Spin" for my little sister. She sat. She spun. She puked all over the living room and all over me. Damn Sit and Spin. Whose idea was that anyway? Sheesh.

I grew up on a ranch in the desert. On my tenth birthday, my father set up a tetherball in our front yard before he left for his day of work. I LOVED it. It was the summer, I had a friend over, and we played tetherball all freakin' day. When my dad finally got home late that night, I was so happily exhausted from the day that I forgot to thank him for the excellent gift. Whereupon my parents (who clearly had their own issues going on here) tore down the tetherball and gave it to our even-farther-out-in-the-desert neighbors. All my crying and pleading were to no avail, though to their credit, the neighbors returned the tetherball when they moved a year later.

Pretty depressing, huh? Well, here's what reminded me of that particular episode: the day before yesterday I was out on a walk when I passed a house with a dinged-up trampoline for sale in the front yard. The owner of the house, cleaning his garage, exchanged a few friendly words with me, which I thought was nice. A half-block later a woman and her young (maybe 11-year-old) daughter approached me, asking if the trampoline I had passed was for sale. I said it was. "That's my trampoline!" the girl declared, and the mother proceeded to call the police department on her cell phone; she had a protective order against the guy.

Sigh. I hope the kid got her trampoline back, even if it was a pretty crappy one.

Nick-
Pogo Balls were the shit!!!

I have a toys = tears story that landed me in tears twice; once as a child, once as an adult.
My grandfather once gave me a Raggedy Ann doll that I cherished above all others. When my siblings and I got hit with chicken pox, however, my baby sister decided Ann should join us and christened her entire body with green-marker inflicted pox. I was devastated. I never forgave her and the sore topic was brought up repeatedly over the years.
Three years ago (& a good 25+ years after the incident), I gave birth to my daughter. Within minutes of her birth, my sister produced a gift bag for the new member of the family. Since the baby still wasn't that great at opening gifts yet, being only half an hour old or so, I opened it on her behalf, and what did I find inside but a perfect, beautiful Raggedy Ann doll for her. Tears. Tears. And more tears. Sis has been forgiven. :)

When I was about 10 i wanted a remote control car soo bad i could taste it. All of my fiends were getting them for Christmas and they knew it. So one night when my parents were out I decided to snoop a bit and I opend every present with my name on it with a razor blade and then taped them back carefully.....every single time NO CAR. I got more and more upset I got soooo upset i kicked a hole in the wall next to the laundry shoot and went to bed crying. When my parents got home they asked me what happend and i told them some lame lie about the close getting stuck and I sliped or something. Any way I was not very excited about christmas because i did not get what I wanted I thought my parents didnt like me or something I guess. Christmas morning we opened all the presents and nothing...... Then Dad pipes up with "hey whats that big box over there in the corner?" it was my car the fastes damn car out of all my friends i was so excited and i felt soooo bad for snooping and kicking the hole in the wall i still to this day have not told them. I am such a spoild bratt.

Strech Armstrong wows :( when I was about 5 my aunt got married and my brother was one of the candel lighters and so was my older cousin and my younger cousin was the ring bearer. I didnt have a job :( so i was a bit upset but didnt thing too much of it. Come the night of the wedding rehearsal all the cousins except me got a gift my brother and younger cousind got streach armstrongs and i was left with nothing how could they forget me i was sooo upset i was running arround the church crying and i fell and hit my head on one of the pews. i had a huge knot on my head and never forgave my anut. Finaly for my 18th birthday my mom rememberd the little trauma her poor little boy sufferd and bought me a strech Armstrong. i still have him today 13yrs later :D THANKS MOM FOR NOT FORGETTING ME :D

I remember momentarily wanting an inchworm, but then I saw a Big Wheel (and got one), and that was that.

Anyway, I was a big Mego action figure kid ... I had a good collection of figures: Capt. Kirk, Spock, Scotty; Batman, Robin, the Joker ... you name it. But what I REALLY wanted was Superman. He was my favorite superhero.

After much begging, my birthday rolled around and low and behold, I had Superman in my then-chubby little hands. He was spectacular. I was flying him around, having him do all his super-terrific things, and decided that he would have to "super-kick" the joker's bony ass. So I brought Supe's leg back, and ... snap.

It broke right at the thigh. Snapped clean through.

I was shocked. First, how could the SUPERMAN figure be the most delicate of the batch?! Secondly, I had performed the same move with every one of my Mego figures, and never a snapped leg. I never broke my toys, so my folks were very sympathetic. A short time later, I had a new Superman.

So now I'm totally ready to kick Joker's ass. Remembering the bad leg, I handled Supes like he was glass ...

and then his leg broke. New figure, but the leg broke in the same place.

Now I was pissed. So pissed, in fact, that I wrote to none other than then-president Jimmy Carter, complaining about my poorly-made Supes. I think I was 6 or 7 at the time. I scrawled out this note filled with 7 year old vitriol at the Mego company. I though that the president of all people would take care of this.

Well, Jimmy Carter did not send the Mego execs to a federal facility, but he did send me a form letter and a little pamphlet about the White House. I think it was titled "The White House, it's Your House, Too."

Imagine my dismay leafing through pictures of the Oval office while my gimpy Superman looked on.

I eventually got a THIRD Superman (thanks to a very sympathetic grandmother), and he held together, but the magic of the Megos had definitely faded by then.

My cousins broke every toy I EVER HAD! My Mum actually started buying me dye cast metel mini-action figures just so I could have a toy they couldn't break. Years later, when one of them got they're first car it "accidentally" ended up nose down in the ditch. Hey, I'm not crazy! My hilarious uncle said I could!

Hey Todd!
I think I found your rocket.
http://home.att.net/~g.ruboyianes/mpc.html
scroll down.. is that it?

I am emailing this to him in case he is on a binge as a result of dredging up old memories.

I always wanted one of those little cow toys whereby you pump it's tail and it gives milk through the fake udders. I think you had to fill the cow with water and insert a dissolvable white tablet. Or maybe it was coke. I could be wrong. I also wanted the Jaws shark that you had to fish junk out of the mouth before the jaws snapped shut. I love the animal toys!

Oh, and I desperately wanted the kid size tractor/trailer combo with pedals. I'd a been stylin'.

Lite Bright!!! Yeah, I wanted one of those. But my parents didn't have the dough, apparently, so I got the knockoff version. Those little plugs sucked, wouldn't stay in, so the neighbor and I wound up chewing on 'em.

And I just wanna say that Stretch Strongarm ROCKS. My brother wound up doing surgery on one of Stretch's arms and all the goo leaked out.

The one toy I remember really wanting (and still do!) was that big ball that you sat on, and it had a handle you could hold on to. They had them at school, and I always loved it when I got to play on one, even though it was only minutes before some other kid would steal it from me. Then the movie Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead came out, in which Sue Ellen and her boyfriend bouned around the toy store on those balls, which totally made me want one even more.

Years later, I still have no ball to show for my troubles. I did find one in a toy store once, but it was tiny, hardly big enough for 5 year old kid.

But you know, the best toy I ever had was the springy horse. My neighbor and I would get our springy horses going out on his concrete driveway, singing "Rhinestone Cowboy" at the top of our lungs, driving the 'hood crazy. We'd bounce those horses up and down the driveway, and reared back on them so hard that they tails scraped the concrete.

I'd love to have an adult sized springy horse!

I loved my springy horse... I named him champion and rode him everyday, then we moved from Singapore to New Zealand and my cheap arse parents wouldn't ship him over, 20 years later I have made peace with it, firstly because I'd break poor champion's back if I tried to ride him now, and secondly because my cousin's cute little kids now love him as much as I did. I also had a Snoopy crushed ice maker... but the horrid grating grinding crushing ice noise used to make me feel as if my teeth were bleeding.

God I have so many sad toy stories... I've always been a complete tomboy (had he-man and transformers, oh yeah), unfortunatly I'm the only girl of 5 boy cousins on my dad's side so all I got were dolls. I remember drooling over the cool toys all my boy cousins got and sitting there with my 'PJ Sparkles'.

Another time I remember that I desperatly wanted this 3 foot high ninja turtle toy (michaelangelo ofcourse...cowabunga dude!). Fully articulated with real mini nun chucks and everything; but the bloody thing cost a bomb. Then one day a local cinema offered them up as prizes in a colouring contest, so I coloured my little brains out and every night prayed for Michaelangelo. Well I wound up winning. Hooray for me! Unfortunatly when he was home he was just a little too big... and too scary. He gave me nightmares just sitting there on the shelf looking at me... always looking....

Oh! I forgot all about the inchworm!

All I really wanted was one of those "Secret Keepers," those bizarre animals with a body part that moved aside after you inserted a key. You could keep treasured things inside and lock them away from prying eyes.

But was it ME who got one, begging and pleading and writing out polite Santa letters? NO. My LITTLE SISTER got the pink snail instead of me.

But I showed her good: I threw it into a pond! Haha!

My parents funded her revenge by getting her the swan, which was more pink and bejeweled than the snail. Eventually, they bought me the lame-o penguin, which was black and covered with yellow music notes.

Oh well. I think I one-upped her with the invincible help of grandma and grandpa: they bought me the queen of the Fashion Star Fillies with long sparkly pink hair and that little star that would twist the hair into cool braids. Ya can't beat that!

Don't hate me, Steve, but I had that worm.

We were kinda poor. My parents were college educated and both worked steadily in their professions, we didn't have enough cash for "extras." Still, I just want to go on record as saying that they did a really fantastic job of making every Christmas as special as possible. We weren't spoiled, but they listened very carefully to the things that we liked. To this day, I have no idea how they pulled it off.

Carsten,
Holy Crap, I saw the photos and my heart jumped. The little man was one of the red guys with the gun. Now I have a place to start looking. The site said they were made by Multiple Plastics Corp. (MPC), Processed Plastics Corp, Multiple Toymakers Inc. Thanks for taking the time to research this.
Todd

P.S. Didn’t mean to make people sad with my story. It is just a point in my childhood that sticks out and my brain will hit upon every now and than. I think it sticks out because it is the first time I ever wanted anything… I mean REALY WANTED and I never got it. But don’t feel sorry for the four year old who didn’t get his little toy. I was at the prime age when Star Wars hit. And it hit my parents like a billion little red spacemen and there white rockets. HA!

I had a Snoopy Snow Cone maker!

I'm going to ask my mom for her perspective on this story. I wonder if she still remembers.

I went shopping with my mom for prizes for my older sister's 7th birthday party. She bought the usual plastic junk, then she found the one thing that made my eyes shine. It was a plastic jewelry box (really a white pencil box with girly stickers on it) that contained a pearl necklace, earrings and bracelet. I pleaded with my mother to buy it for me instead. She said I could have it under TWO conditions: that my sister invites me to her party and that I win it as a prize playing games.

My sister reluctantly let her 4 year old sister come to her party. I found out what games my mom was planning, and trained for them like it was the Olympic track and field trials. I was dropping clothespins into bottles, I was pinning tails on donkeys, running around the backyard balancing eggs on spoons, you get the picture.

I also cheerfully assisted my mother in wrapping the prizes, knowing full well which one contained the coveted pearl set.

When it came time for the games at the party, what I wasn't counting on was the uneven playing field of dexterity between a 4 year old and 7 year old. I also wasn't counting on the donkey poster pinned 6 inches higher than I had been training. I gave it my best and lost game after game. And yet the pearl set remain in the pile giving me a sense of hope.

The last game I played was clothespins in the milk bottle and I lost to my sister's friend Rose. She could have selected any one of the 5 remaining packages but she chose the pearls. She chose wrong...

I let out a blood-curdling "noooooooooooooo!" and proceed to play tug of war with her over the gift. I was immediately spanked and sent to my room.

My mother was angry and horrified, but my dad was pretty understanding about it. I explained the torture mom put me through in order to acquire the prize. He explained to me how that was not to act as a guest at my sister's party.

He determined that since I was the only party guest that didn't get a prize and I had helped with the preparations, I was entitled. He took me back to the store to see if there were any pearl sets left. Of course not. I ended up getting a Mighty Mouse flashlight instead.

Worst part? My parents decided kids' birthday parties were not worth the hassle and they never threw another birthday partyfor any of us, outside of the immediate family coming over for cake. No slumber parties, no Chuck E Cheese, no school friends over. The most my folks would do is allow us to invite another friend out for Happy Meals at McDonalds or Burger Chef.

Man, my husband gave me a real pearl set for my 5th wedding anniversary, but it's just not the same.

Even cooler than Stretch Armstrong, I had a Stretch X-Ray! He was like Stretch's messed up giant fetal cousin. He was see-through. He glowed. He had a messed up exposed-brain head. And when you put him in the freezer he got rock hard. Unfortunately at sub-zero temperatures the stretch feature didn't work so good; I ended up snapping off one of his legs with very little effort. Needless to say that he wasn't of much use in the thawed state, as snot tended to flow out of his amputated leg hole.

When I was 4 or 5, after months of my begging, my parents bought me the He-Man Slime Pit. Within hours of giving it to me, though, the saw the err in their ways, as green slime was stuck in my hair and embedded deep in the living room carpet. When my parents told me they were returning my Slime Pit to Toys R Us, I threw the temper tantrum of all temper tantrums. My mom had to sit on me, pinning me to the ground, while my dad made a break for the door with the slime pit in his grasp, like a running-back breaking out for a touchdown.

My brother just sent me an email to this site saying I should have a look; he wrote "You used to ride that stupid toy ALL the time..." without him even telling me what the "stupid toy" was I knew immediately, my little inch worm.

Yes, I had it, and I rode it, I rode my little heart out...and it was fantastic. The .2 mph coverage you have inching your way across the driveway, bobbing up and down to sheer bliss.

I am sorry to say that you missed a very important part of your otherwise delicate childhood, one that sadly to say, you can't get back.

But it is not a happy ending friend. Along with so many other wonderful gadgets and bicycles (especially my scooter with a Gorilla on the foot plate saying "Get off my face!") the inch worm found its way behind my mother’s station wagon on her way to work, and crunch. The rush to watch "Rocky and Bullwinkle" was not well worth the resulting events and tears.

Rest in Peace little guy, you will be missed.

I like to think that somewhere in some underdevolped country a little boy is bobbing his way up and down and inching his way across to his dreams.

My brother just sent me an email to this site saying I should have a look; he wrote "You used to ride that stupid toy ALL the time..." without him even telling me what the "stupid toy" was I knew immediately, my little inch worm.

Yes, I had it, and I rode it, I rode my little heart out...and it was fantastic. The .2 mph coverage you have inching your way across the driveway, bobbing up and down to sheer bliss.

I am sorry to say that you missed a very important part of your otherwise delicate childhood, one that sadly to say, you can't get back.

But it is not a happy ending friend. Along with so many other wonderful gadgets and bicycles (especially my scooter with a Gorilla on the foot plate saying "Get off my face!") the inch worm found its way behind my mother’s station wagon on her way to work, and crunch. The rush to watch "Rocky and Bullwinkle" was not well worth the resulting events and tears.

Rest in Peace little guy, you will be missed.

I like to think that somewhere in some underdevolped country a little boy is bobbing his way up and down and inching his way across to his dreams.

Viki, the 1 who wants an atari, why dont u go on ebay?

All I ever wanted was a "My Pet Monster". I beged and begged and begged my mother for one for months and I never received one. My birthday went by and no "My Pet Monster". Christmas was fast approaching and I kept begging for one when finally my mother told me, "You're not getting one and that's it. I'm not buying you one because it is too ugly."

So that was that. I never got one because it didn't have good looks. It's a monster. Since when are monsters supposed be pretty. Sigh... thanks mom for teaching me a valuable lesson. lol

I really wanted one of those "life-size" barbies that were the size of a four year old even though I was six or so. I figured I could dress it in my sisters clothes. And I waited for Christmas.

And under the tree was a long box. What else could it be? it was for me, and I was the one who asked for that cool doll.

So I watched the tv commercials with a satisfied feeling, knowing I would be lucky and get it.

But come Christmas morning, I waited to open it till last. I was one of those rare kids who loves the suspense.

And when I opened the huge package....

it was a roll of paper. I roll of light blue paper, so the colours wouldn't come out right, and everything. I've never been an artist, and didn't even like drawing that much.

To rub salt it the wounds, my mother also decided that this would a toy that would live at my Aunt's house. So even if I had a change of heart and wanted to draw, I couldn't unless I was at my Aunt's.

That sucked.

Every Christmas I would make a list of the top ten or so toys I wanted. And I never got number one on the list. We went to the toy store and bought whatever was number one that year and donated it to Toys for Tots.

I have only a vague recollection of this but my Mom said I never lied and made some crappy toy #1 so I could get what I really wanted for Christmas.

When I was in the 3rd grade (around 8 years old), I desired a Barbie doll. I didn't care which one I got. We did not have money for things such as this, but it was a desire that I had. Lo & behold, I got one for Christmas! It was a brunette one that had really corse hair. It came up a little plastic 'curling iron'. The hair was so corse that it would hold a curl. Anyway, I loved it. For New Years, I went to my cousin (rich bitch cousin-Ava) to play & spend the night. She had at least 4 Barbies & a ton of clothes. But no Ken. Anyway, the next day, I packed my stuff (including my Barbie) into a bag. Right after lunch, my mother came to pick me up. When I got home, my Barbie was not in the bag. My mother & I went back to my cousins house the next day. She said she had not seen it. I knew she had gotten it out of my bag! We looked all over the house. She half ass looked. My Barbie was gone. Sometime later, we stopped by to visit. She had all her Barbie stuff out on the den floor. I spied my Barbie with all her hair cut off (she looked 'butch') & in a Ken outfit. She had cut the hair all off in a crude attempt to make it look like Ken (one one of his gay pals). Before I could get it, she grabbed it. Ran out the back door & threw it out in the field behind their house. I told my mother & aunt what happened. My mothers reply was something like "Well, that will teach you to not leave your stuff behind." Argh! My aunt was drunk so she was clueless as to what had happened. To this day, whenever I see my cousin, I think about my Barbie. I guess I have issues! Next time I see her, I think I will confront her. Gee...what a little bitch she was! I did get what I desired, but I only had it for about a week. I never had another Barbie. Thanks for letting me vent!

Man Kyle! That blows! What sort of life lesson was your mom trying to teach you?!

A similar instance to your wife's happened to me and my beloved Magna Doodle one year many moons ago. I hadn't even had it 10 minutes when "BOOM" my older brother fell on top of it. Since my parents weren't the richest family in the world, and the Magna Doodle still functioned normally, they didn't buy me a new one. The Magna Doodle still lives on with the big black lighning streak looking scar going straight down the middle of it. Needless to say, m