These five toys just go to show that classics are classics for a reason. Decades (in some cases) after they first appeared, all five of these toys are still immensely popular today.<\/p>\n
1. Play Doh<\/strong><\/p>\n Why it was awesome then:<\/p>\n Originally, of all things, a wallpaper cleaner, Play Doh\u2019s been around since the mid-1950\u2019s. For several generations, and probably many more to come, the smell of play-doh instantly transports them back to their childhood. Whether you made play-doh pizzas, cut play-doh hair, or simply squished all the colours together until it was one big swirly-coloured ball (yes, I\u2019m looking at you, younger sibling) Play-Doh was a ridiculous amount of fun. Also? Messy!<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s still awesome:<\/p>\n Have you played with it? It\u2019s brilliant! You can make pizzas!! Not very effective for encouraging kids to not eat things they shouldn\u2019t, but hey…\u00a0 they\u2019re learning to cook. Sort of. Plus, squishing the extruder lever thing and creating \u201cspaghetti\u201d or making \u201chair\u201d grow out of a plastic figure\u2019s head is oh, so satisfying.<\/p>\n Why they were awesome then:<\/p>\n These tiny, furry, cute little animals first appeared on the toy scene in 1985. With an entire world of houses, furniture, accessories, clothes and vehicles, they very quickly became collectibles. They won toy of the year three years in a row. But in the late 1990s, they began to decline in popularity and were discontinued in the UK. However, going to show that you can\u2019t keep tiny fuzzy animals down, they have now been relaunched and are as popular as ever.<\/p>\n Why they\u2019re still awesome:<\/p>\n Cute! And tiny! And cute! In all seriousness, since their comeback, Sylvanian Families have really branched out.\u00a0 No longer just woodland creatures, there are now all sorts of animals from all over the world. They\u2019re immensely popular in the US & Canada (where they\u2019re known as Calico Critters), Japan and Australia. And vintage and second hand Sylvanian Families figures are incredibly collectible. Probably because they\u2019re cute.<\/p>\n Why it was awesome then:<\/p>\n Although the Lego company has existed since 1934, it was only in 1949 that the now famous plastic bricks first appeared. \u00a0Lego \u2013 the company name is taken from the Danish for \u201cplay well\u201d \u2013 consists of an array of colourful plastic bricks, gears, figures and other assorted bits and pieces, all of which are terrifically painful to step on in your bare feet.<\/p>\n Houses, cars, pirate ships, machines… the list of things you could build was endless. The traditional Lego brick was the foundation of the brand. And according to the Lego website, \u201cthere are actually more than 900 million different ways of combining six eight-stud bricks\u201d!<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s still awesome:<\/p>\n The beauty of Lego was that you could make pretty much anything, and you still can.<\/p>\n Many incarnations (Technic, Duplo, Fabuland, Belville, Bionicle…), dozens of film franchises (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter…) and four theme parks later, Lego is still going strong. And with three new theme parks scheduled to open over the next year, it doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s going to slow down any time soon. Why he was awesome then:<\/p>\n He was born in 1952, got married in 1953, quit smoking in 1986, and made his film debut in 1995. He\u2019s been a mermaid, a rockstar, a pirate and a chef. Oh, and he was the first toy ever to be advertised to<\/em> kids<\/em> on television. We all know how hard kids are to please, so if that isn\u2019t a sign of awesomeness, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n The premise of Mr Potato Head is wonderfully simple. He\u2019s a plastic potato with holes in, to which you can attach a load of different body parts (originally intended to be stuck into a real <\/em>potato, until government regulations intervened \u2013 sharp pointy things and small children don\u2019t mix, after all). And he\u2019s never been out of production in nearly 60 years.<\/p>\n Why he\u2019s still awesome:<\/p>\n Have you seen Toy Story? 2? 3? If not, then go away and sort your life out. If you have, then you\u2019ll know why Mr Potato Head is awesome.\u00a0 Say no more.<\/p>\n Why it was awesome then:<\/p>\n Because it made even the most artistically challenged child into a design genius? Okay, maybe not, but it was a heck of a lot of fun. And it\u2019s a toy<\/em> based on rather complicated maths<\/em>. That\u2019s pretty cool…<\/p>\n Another three-time Toy of the Year winner, Spirograph first appeared in 1965, and was invented by a man named Denys Fisher. He originally meant it to be a draftsman\u2019s tool, but decided that it was too much fun and should be a toy instead. The swirly twirly designs it could create were wildly popular in the Swinging Sixties, and it quickly caught on.<\/p>\n Spirograph is a series of small cogs, wheels and racks. You pinned a wheel or rack to some paper on a cardboard base, then lined up one of the cogs with it and used a coloured pen to turn the cog, producing the pattern.\u00a0 Thousands of patterns were possible, and it appealed to adults and children alike.<\/p>\n Why it\u2019s still awesome:<\/p>\n It\u2019s online! (http:\/\/wordsmith.org\/~anu\/java\/spirograph.html) But that\u2019s not all. It\u2019s got different shaped pieces so you can draw even MORE patterns. Hundreds and hundreds of them. It\u2019s even got a couple of Facebook pages devoted to it. It encourages children to draw and improves hand-eye co-ordination.<\/p>\n But mostly, it\u2019s just really cool.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n2. Sylvanian Families<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n3. Lego<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n4. Mr Potato Head<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n5. Spirograph<\/strong><\/p>\n