vintage toys

Today I went to a toy and collectible show, something I haven’t done in several years. Actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t gone to one since the 1990’s, although they do tend to have the kind of toys I like at comic shows. The odd thing is that they don’t seem to have them at toy shows anymore, or at least at this toy show. Instead, I saw a lot of oddly amusing vintage toys.

These monkeys, for example:



You really need to click the picture and see it bigger to see their crazy eyes. In the book Skeleton Crew Stephen King has a story about a killer windup monkey with cymbals, and I swear to God those monkeys look exactly the way I imagined that thing when I read it.

The Remco Movieland, on the other hand, intrigued me:



I wanted to buy it and bring it home to see how it worked. It says it comes with six movies. Are they real movies? Do they actually move, or is it like a slideshow? And how much fun would it actually be to play with? Most kids don’t like sitting in the dark for very long, especially if they’re trying to play with their cars at the same time, but I think if I’d had that as a kid I would have played with it all the time.

I never would have played with this, but I’m wondering who did:



I was laughing so hard I thought the woman was going to ask me to leave the table.