Aunt Larissa and I had a Fisher Price airport and house when we were kids. They have survived nearly four decades of storage and are now ready to be abused by another generation.
The question that has haunted me all these years is: Why in god's name do these people have no arms or legs? And why do all of the male characters wear cowboy hats? Was there a horrible nuclear accident in Texas that I didn't hear about, producing tiny mutant limbless cowboys? Oh, there's one guy that wears a saucepan instead of a cowboy hat. That didn't make sense when I was a kid, and it doesn't make sense now.
"Saucepan Guy" was there to test your powers of observation. You passed! It makes us really, really happy to see a second generation of Chadwick kids playing with that airport!!
ReplyDeleteGrandpa Chadwick
Just curious...why does it take FOUR tries to post a comment? Does the blog vendor get paid by keystokes? :-) And then I got a really cool password to enter: "hincimp" Who comes up with those? I think it's the same guys who make up names for subdivisons and cars. "Pleasant Valley"..."Murano."
ReplyDeleteGrandpa C.
As one of six quasi-civilized siblings, I am shocked to see that those toys survived even one generation.
ReplyDeleteAs for the pot-head, the pot was to protect his brain from the radiation that was erroneously blamed for the abrachius pandemic that afflicted Fisher-Pricelanders.
In truth, that was the result of a confluence of S.T.A.R.T. advocacy with the out-of-control Sarah Brady followers, coupled with English-as-a-second-language bureaucrats who misinterpreted the directives. Fisher Price management caved like Cro- Magnons. Alas, armless mini-men. Why are they smiling?
Without arms, the pot-head couldn't make a tin foil hat; but, all he needed do with the pot was to jam his head into it, assuming that his hat size was equivalent to a two-quart saucepan. Cowboy hats were, of course, ten-gallon size.
The toys to be had by those wishing for mini-manikins with mobile appendages were "Crazy Ikes" (see here: http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-1954-crazy-ikes-over-50-pieces). No doubt they were extincted by the C.P.S.C.'s obsession with modern children's proclivity for ingesting anything smaller than a tricycle. I say let the kids play with what they want, and, if necessary, put muzzles on them.
Kids in my generation (neanderthal) swallowed all kinds of things, from second-hand gum to buttons to jewelry to bugs to an occasional small animal (like a newt or an itinerant terrestrial quahog). That was before the coming of the ever-evolving food pyramid, when nutrition was more a question of quantity over quality. Of course, the matter of satisfying one's curiosity over what a given object might taste like was a large part of the equation. If one could fit the object into one's buccal cavity, then it was fair game. One could always spit it out or hurl it. That's why God gave mankind the gag reflex. (That, and Dancing with the Stars.)
Life is a journey. Bon appetit!
Grandpa Grimm