When I was a kid I pestered my mom for months prior to Xmas for this lovely tank. I had convinced her that owning one would somehow make me a computer programmer because it was one of the first toys on the market where you punched in commands and pressed go. That’s debatable, of course, the Japanese were making wooden tea servants long before Big Trak, but I digress.
Xmas came and I tore into that gift like Tom Sizemore at a hooker convention. Within 15 minutes I was jabbing commands into it’s touch pad arse. By the end of the day, the batteries were worn out and it had already jammed up an axle on the shag carpet by crawling around in the livingroom. My family breathed a sigh of relief (the thing made a huge “Ka-Zort!” noise from it’s laser cannon that would give a migraine to pencil).
Toys! What was your fave growing up?
13 thoughts on “Big Trak”
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K9 was two banners back. Where have you been?
I’ve been looking for him in my many disks so I can put it in my banner gallery but no luck yet. So many to sort through…
I also had this for the longest time until I moved to England.
I so wanted this Big Trak also. Never got one. My other desires were the Star Wars Death Star playset, which I never got but a friend had it. I did manage to get the Millenium Falcon after I hunted it down by phoning every toy store in NYC. The dam things costed $50. Back then that was a LOT.
Other things I really wanted but didn’t exist so I had to improvise. A Stormtrooper blaster (a real one), although I did have a Star Trek utility belt with phaser, communicator, and tricorder once. As well as a Space:1999 stun gun. And I also wanted a Colonial blaster and a Sandman’s gun. Are we seieng a pattern here??? I’d scour the classfieds of scifi magazines like STARLOG for plans on how to build these things. I even sent away once for blaster kit plans thinking I could build a real laser blaster. I put $7.95 cash in an self-addressed-stamped-envelope (SASE) but never recieved anything back. LOL
BTW, I love Robby on your mast head now but what happened to my beloved K9!?!?!
My older brother and I received a hotwheels set for Christmas 1970…I was 4 he was 7. It was the one with orange track held together with purple guides between each section with two curves and a loop-de-loop. It was powered by two power houses that were placed equidistance on the tracks with the moving rubber wheels inside. You would push your car to the power house and then the wheel would grab it and shoot it around to the next one…you had to have some timing skill to adjust the powerhouses for continous movement. We ran out 20 “D” batteries in a weekend on that thing…then the fights started…he was possessive of it and I was not having any of that…I would hide the powerhouses or the cars to get to play with it…eventually I got so tired of if his possessiveness of it, I pissed in one of the power houses…yeah I know…yellow hanky and an early age, who knew?? 20 minutes later when he went to push his car through, he got sprayed with piss. Dad put it in the attic after that.
Also loved LINCOLN LOGS and TINKER TOYS…I would build stuff and tear it down all day long…and also loved my cassette recorder…I would record farts and play them back all day, laughing until I was sick to my stomach..and I would beat on the pots and pans and record the music. ALL of this was before I was 6 and allowed to ride my bike on the road(lived in the rural farm country of NC, i.e. HARDLY ANY TRAFFIC) gave up toys then and was forever on the bike riding somewhere hours on end….
we had to make our own toys out of soy chaff. fuck your plastic world.
Computer Command Corvette — similar to your toy, with a touch-pad underneath the hood
I think it’s still in storage somewhere. I should dig it out.
I had an full set of Planet of the Apes dolls with Tree House and Prison… I’m not sure what happened to them except for Dr. Zaeus, he ended up tied to the back of my bicycle as I took him for rides…
I use to love boardgames, and almost cried when my mom told me she had gotten rid of them… I mean, classic board games from the 60’s, remember Masterpiece with the 60’s outfit the main guys wore??? Can’t find that anymore… well, you can if you look. I manage to find most of them by visiting local Goodwill Stores… some are missing pieces but they look so much cooler than the newer version they’ve printed…
I also had a Big Trak that I also begged for for Xmas. I loved that thing!
G.I. Joe was probably my favorite toy, tho. I had a bunch of different ones, and the big command center and jeep. And the Mego superheroes were also a big favorite. It’s fun to take my Mom on a trip through Ebay and show here how much money she tossed out when she cleaned out my room one year when I was at camp (all the toys got tossed).
1. Model Trains (we’re talking old school O Scale with the 3-rail tracks)
2. Aurora AFX slot racing sets.
3. A blue robot that walked and had a screen in it’s chest that lit up showing some turning picture of a planet or something. It would probably be worth money now – if I hadn’t taken it completely apart to see how it worked.
4. 2XL – a robot that took 8-track tapes. (http://www.2xlrobot.com/)
I must be the oldest one reading this blog- Lego!
1 Hotwheels track with Powerbooster and Loop de Loop. I guilted my parents into buying this for me because they refused to leave their party and take me to the hospital when my appendix was rupturing (who knew?).
2 GI Joe doll. I had to hide it in a tree at Mike Mallon’s house because my father said that no son of his was ever going to play with dolls. My father learned of this secret years later and bought me GI Joe for my 40th birthday. LOL.
3 I too had a Mustang bike with big handle bars and big white banana seat. The handle bars were perfect for doubling, my younger sister could just fit within the handle grips. I would speed down the street and slam on the brakes launching my sister into the ditch. Neither of us tired of that activity although my mother was horrified.
1 Matchbox cars. (pre Hot wheels)
2 Electric train set. (that I eventually tore apart in an effort to see how it ran)
3 My lime green CCM Mustang bike with the green glitter banana seat and high handle bars (HEY! IT WAS THE 60’S)
4 Model cars. Once I was done building, painting and playing with them, I’d torch. I was somewhat of a pyromaniac back then but that’s a whole different story and prolly someone’s thesis in psychology.
I had a Big Trak. I ended up taking it apart.
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