Bluebird was founded on two very solid principles. Small girls like doll’s houses. Small girls also like plastic tea sets for serving cups of invisible tea to their dollies. Then someone fell into a filing cabinet at the office Christmas party and came up with the bizarre idea of crossbreeding the two. Yes, this was a doll’s house, but made of yellow plastic and shaped like a huge teapot. ... more>>>

Now, of course we weren’t covetous of these chunky, cheery toys – good God, we barely knew they existed! But who was it, do you think, that looked down on the cross-legged kids busy with the 23-piece toolkit, shape-sorter or play family garage and thought “Hmm… this lot are a bit lazy, all told – they could do with starting work a bit younger”? Whoever it was, we’ll bet our state pension they’re the same people now campaigning to raise the retirement age. Giving it to us at both ends? Tthanks. ... more>>>

This early learning toy was the delight of many an infant school kid mainly due to its simplicity, a highly tactile nature and the opportunity to make rude pictures when teachers weren’t looking. Available in a variety of themes, allowing depictions of any everyday scene from “farmyard” to “ballet”, the typical Fuzzy Felt set comprised a piece of card (about 10” by 6”) with a dark, coloured Velcro-esque material glued to it and a collection of brightly coloured felt shapes (children, birds, trees) to attach to this background. ... more>>>

Not, you’ll note, Hungry Hungry Hippos. As far as we’re concerned, you can leave all that Americanized, homogenous, “brand realignment” at the door. Especially when it means changing the name just ‘cos the advert jingle was so bloody catchy. They did it with Snickers, Starburst and Oil Of Olay, but those Yanks can keep their hands off our indigestion-proof ungulates. The name’s Hungry Hippos - well, technically The Hungry Hippos Game – but one adjective is enough, thank you very much. ... more>>>

Dallas - the home of cowboys, oil wells and early integrated circuits as produced by Texas Instruments. Originally founded in seismography (to wheedle out those reticent little underground reservoirs of oil), TI moved into electronics in the ‘50s. A couple of decades later, the Speak & Spell was born (and the rest is history), though it was preceded by it’s less talkative cousin, the Little Professor. ... more>>>

The origins of this wallpaper cleaner made good are documented in lumpen detail elsewhere (go on, Google it if you must, thicko). By far the most interesting fact about Play Doh, though, is that it was first manufactured by a company called Kutol Chemical Products – a name so redolent of industrial toxicity it wouldn’t sound out of place in one of those post-apocalyptic ‘70s BBC dramas like Survivors or Doomwatch. ... more>>>

Benjamin Franklin wrote that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. Closely challenging those two for a bronze medal place, however, is the likelihood that you’d always find a couple of stray Sticklebricks at the bottom of your primary school toybox. Ubiquitous in the Cream era, a part-filled bucket of Sticklebrick squares, triangles and oblongs was a stalwart of the wet breaktime classroom scramble. Ironically for a set of plastic toy blocks whose whole raison d’etre was to stick together, pieces would inexplicably find themselves strewn all over the place (as any parent or teacher carelessly wandering around in stockinged feet would confirm). ... more>>>

Sporting that “Billy Bunter as played by Brian Glover in a wig” look to a man (and woman, and child), Airfix Weebles were the egg-sized shellacked cousins of the inflatable “bop-bag”. The classic Cream-era Weeble was pug-ugly, pink-faced and yet blessed with one of the all-time most memorable catchphrases ever. ... more>>>