🧸 Toys & Games

1950s 1950

Meccano

Perforated steel strips, brass nuts and a tiny spanner. Meccano built engineers, and quite a lot of frustration.

🧸 Toys & Games

1950s 1955

Ludo And The Lid Of The Box

Four counters, one die, and a rule about sixes that every family interpreted differently.

🧸 Toys & Games🛋️ Around The House

1950s 1958

Clackers In The Playground

You swung them until they clacked top and bottom. Then they shattered, and that was the end of clackers.

🧸 Toys & Games✏️ School

1960s 1960

Sooty And The XYLOPHONE

Harry Corbett's glove puppet, bought on Blackpool pier, who became one of the longest-running acts in British television.

📺 Telly🧸 Toys & Games

1960s 1962

Airfix Kits

Polystyrene model kits sold in polythene bags on a card, cheap enough to buy with pocket money.

🧸 Toys & Games

1960s 1963

Sindy

Launched by Pedigree as the girl next door: flat shoes, duffle coat, and outfits your gran could knit.

🧸 Toys & Games

1960s 1964

Trolls (The Original Ones)

A Danish woodcutter carved one for his daughter, and within five years they were on every school desk in Britain.

🧸 Toys & Games

1960s 1965

The Chopper's Ancestor: The Raleigh RSW16

Raleigh's answer to the Moulton: a shopper bike with 16-inch wheels and balloon tyres that rode like a sofa.

🚗 Cars & Transport🧸 Toys & Games

1960s 1965

The Spirograph

Toothed plastic wheels, a biro and a lot of pins, producing patterns that looked far more impressive than the effort involved.

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1960s 1966

Action Man

Palitoy's licensed version of GI Joe, sold in Britain with a straight face and an enormous range of kit.

🧸 Toys & Games

1970s 1970

The Raleigh Chopper

High-back seat, ape-hanger bars, gear lever on the crossbar and a front wheel that lifted if you breathed.

🚗 Cars & Transport🧸 Toys & Games

1970s 1971

Space Hopper

You sat on it, gripped the horns, and bounced down the road at roughly walking pace with enormous effort.

🧸 Toys & Games

1970s 1976

Chopper Bike Playing Cards In The Spokes

Peg a playing card against the spokes and your bike made a noise. That was the whole technology.

🧸 Toys & Games🚗 Cars & Transport

1980s 1980

The Rubik's Cube

A Hungarian architecture professor's teaching aid became the fastest-selling toy in the world.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1982

Kerplunk

Thread the straws, tip in the marbles, then pull them out one at a time and try not to be the one who drops the lot.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1983

He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe Figures

Mattel's line of chunky figures, sold alongside a cartoon that existed mainly to advertise them.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1986

Mr Frosty

A plastic snowman with a hand crank that was meant to crush ice into perfect slush. It did not.

🧸 Toys & Games

1980s 1987

The Argos Catalogue Christmas Wishlist

The Christmas edition landed in autumn and the toy section was destroyed by December.

🏬 Shops & High Street🧸 Toys & Games

1990s 1995

Pogs

You stacked them, slammed them, and kept whichever landed face up. Then every school in Britain banned them.

🧸 Toys & Games✏️ School

1990s 1995

Tazos In Walkers Crisps

Looney Tunes and Pokémon discs given away in crisp packets, which drove sales to extraordinary levels.

🍬 Sweets & Chocolate🧸 Toys & Games

1990s 1997

Tamagotchi

An egg-shaped keyring with three buttons and an alien creature that demanded feeding every few hours, forever.

🧸 Toys & Games

2010s 2014

Loom Bands

A plastic loom and bags of coloured elastic bands that produced bracelets, and then covered every floor in Britain.

🧸 Toys & Games✏️ School

2010s 2017

The Fidget Spinner

A bearing in a plastic frame that spun. Every child in Britain had one by May 2017 and none by September.

🧸 Toys & Games✏️ School

2010s 2018

Toys R Us Closing

All 100 UK stores closed in 2018, ending the out-of-town toy superstore.

🏬 Shops & High Street🧸 Toys & Games