Category Archives: Toys

by

Spin Again Sunday: Emily Post Popularity Game

Today’s Game: Emily Post Popularity Game

Copyright Date: 1970

Object: “Players learn of the rewards that come from good manners while going to parties, sports events, dinners and other activities with their friends.”

Game Board: Wispy cartoons show wholesome scenes of teenage life.

An all-too-typical teen problem

Game Pieces: Players move regular colored pegs and draw “Emily Post says…” cards that give points for good manners and issue penalties for etiquette violations.

This nice young lesbian couple uses good manners while gathering psychedelic mushrooms.

Recommended Ages: “For girls 8 to 14.” I guess boys don’t need “the rewards that come from good manners.”

Game Play: Players compete to attract the largest circle of friends. You can’t

win if you’re holding the dog card in your hand. Personally, I’d rather befriend the dog than these humans. I mean, Cathy looks like a smug know-it-all, and Tony is clearly up to no good.

I hope this boy and girl can find a polite way to deal with the blonde girl who’s stalking them.

Final Fun Facts: Elizabeth Post, addressing players from the inside of the box lid, makes no pretense that fine inner qualities create social success. “What is it that makes a person popular?” she asks. “Is it good looks, smart clothes, or attractive manners? It is, of course, a combination of all three, but the last is surely the most important.”

The dog is the undesirable one? Really?

Elizabeth Post, the wife of Emily Post’s only grandson, assumed leadership of the Emily Post Institute after the original etiquette maven died. Several Post descendants still write about etiquette, including her great-great-grandaughter Lizzie Post.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Charlie’s Angels

Laverne & Shirley

H.R. Pufnstuf

by

Play Family Matters

When I was about four, I walked with my mom to a nearby store. I can still remember walking home, up a hill, carrying a large box, and bursting with excitement. For no special reason at all, my mom had bought me the Fisher Price Play Family School that day.

Play Family toys were among my favorites. Besides the School, I had the House and the Houseboat. When I was five, Santa brought me the wonderful Play Family Village, which included a firehouse, dental office, theater, post office, police station, barber shop, garage, restaurant, and telephone booth.

I don’t have any of my old Fisher Price toys, but my husband has picked up some vintage structures at flea markets and yard sales. My daughter, who is nine, still enjoys playing with them now and then. Today, she set up a Play Family city around the living room rug.

Here’s how our little people spent Labor Day.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

by

Spin Again Sunday: H.R. Pufnstuf

Another week, another cardboard-and-plastic journey to the past.

Today’s Game: H.R. Pufnstuf Game

Copyright Date: 1971

Object: Be first to collect cards completing picture of PufnStuf characters.

Game Board: Colorful and cartoony, though the cartoon likenesses leave a lot to be desired.

Game Pieces: None. Cards and a spinner are all you need to play this game.

Recommended Ages: 6-12. The game box, with its full-color photos, might have attracted kids throughout that age range, but the graphics inside scream little kid.

Game Play: The board is really superfluous in this game; players don’t move around it. They just spin and collect cards and try to complete a puzzle. (It’s nice that Freddy the Flute gets his own puzzle; on the show, he just squeaked “Jimmy” and got stolen a lot.

Personal Notes: I never had this game as a child—I would’ve been too young to play it in 1971. I did watch H.R. Pufnstuf, though, and still have the disturbing, hallucinatory memories to prove it.

About the Show: H.R. Pufnstuf premiered on September 6, 1969, as part of NBC’s Saturday morning lineup. Popular with kids, it aired for two years on NBC, one year on ABC, and two and a half years in widespread syndication—an amazing feat considering that Sid and Marty Krofft only produced 17 episodes.

Final Fun Fact: Jack Wild, who starred as Jimmy, got to keep one of the original Freddy the Flutes as a souvenir after the show wrapped, according to the book Pufnstuf and Other Stuff.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Charlie’s Angels

Laverne & Shirley

by

Spin Again Sunday: Laverne & Shirley

Let us venture again into the world of vintage board games.

Today’s Game: Laverne & Shirley

Copyright Date: 1977

Object: “Make all your dreams come true.” (In this game, all your dreams must involve dating. She who dates the most, wins.)

Game Board: Colorful, but the Laverne and Shirley caricatures are drab. Perhaps they complement the drab vision of blue collar life this game portrays—an endless round of rent paying, hair washing, TV viewing, bus riding, and brown-bag lunching.

Game Pieces: Standard plastic pegs. The most interesting game element is your “diary,” which you strive to fill up with dating minutes.

Recommended Ages: 8-14. Manufacturers often put an upper age limit of 13 or 14 on these TV show games. I don’t what their reasoning was, but I can imagine parents using it to their advantage: “I’d love to play Laverne & Shirley with you, Lisa, but rules are rules.”

Personal Notes: Did you ever see something and know you’ve seen it before, long ago? That’s how I felt looking at this game board, though I’m pretty sure I never owned the game. I must have played it at a friend’s house.

About the Show: Laverne & Shirley premiered in January 1976. I remember watching the first episode and finding it hilarious. The rest of America agreed, quickly propelling the show to number one. I was 7; I don’t know what the rest of America’s excuse was.

Final Fun Fact: According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows, “Critics called (the show) TV junk food; ABC program chief Fred Silverman responded by comparing it to the classic satire of the 17th century French playwright Moliere.”

Previous Entries in this Series

Charlie’s Angels

by

Flea Market Finds

For all of $3 at a local flea market on Sunday, I got two cute Whitman items from the 1970s.

I like this Barbie frame-tray puzzle from 1972 because it includes Skipper and because Barbie is a redhead. In the two decades following the debut of Superstar Barbie in 1977, white Barbie dolls were almost invariably blond.

This puzzle also suggests an interesting story–Skipper’s horse is sporting a first-place ribbon, and Skipper is beaming with pride. Barbie, who’s clutching a third-place ribbon, is responding with a pretty cold stare.

The Calico Cathy paper dolls are from 1976, the height of the “prairie” trend in 1970s fashion. I remember my fellow first-grade girls wearing sunbonnets and long skirts and Little-House braids around this time. Calico Cathy takes things further–even her pantsuits are calico. Well, I guess that’s how she earned the name Calico Cathy.

by

Spin Again Sunday: Charlie’s Angels

Each weekend, I will forage into my vintage board game collection to show you a truly embarrassing treasure.

Today’s Game: Charlie’s Angels Game (“Based on the television series,” the box announces helpfully, so you know it’s not based on a Chekhov play of the same name or something.)

Copyright Date: 1978

Object: “Be the first to capture the culprit with your team”

Recommended Ages: 8-14. Realistically, this game probably appealed to girls age 8-10, while the Jaclyn-Smith-in-a-bikini game piece appealed to boys ages 12 and up.

Game Board: Better than most TV board games, since it featured real cast photos instead of vaguely related cartoon drawings.

Game Pieces: Cool! A team of actual Angels and a creepy villain beats colored plastic pegs any day.

Personal Notes: I never owned this game as a child, but it was my go-to birthday party gift in third grade. Board games always made a respectable gift, and if a TV show was popular, its board game would produce a satisfying response from the birthday girl and her guests.

Kelly mesmerizes the villain while Kris and Sabrina sneak up on him

Game Play: Whether the birthday girl would ever play the game was another matter. TV show games generally put the “bored” in board games, with simple “move 2 spaces forward,” “move 1 space back” instructions. At least in the Charlie’s Angels Game, the object relates to the show’s crime-fighting concept. To win the game, however, you have to trap the villain THREE times. I forced my daughter to play this with me, but we gave up before trapping him even once.