I've probably mentioned before that the 1950s and 60s was a golden age for kids. We had it easy. We didn't have to work the farm, no depression and there were huge wonderful companies who spent their time thinking up great ways to entertain us.
The Toy companies had genius designers and inventors. Just check out the design and functionality of Johnny 7
We had the best toy weapons ever. I think we were better armed than the Marines. There were lots more like these too. We used to organize street wars with all the kids in the neighborhood and at the end of a Saturday afternoon, the lawns would be littered with our twitching expiring plastic bullet ridden bodies. Our Moms would revive us with wholesome sugar coated cereals.
I guess they stopped making this kind of stuff after the Hippies decided that toy guns inspired us to be violent. But I think we had a lot more violence in the generation that grew up with Barney and Care Bears.
This was one of my favorite toylines when I was kid. I wish I could find one of the cool commercials they had for these ramp walkers in the 1960s. Toylines used to combine characters from different studios and put them all together in one commercial. So you had all these buddies for different cartoon studios all walking down a plank. So you would see Donald and Mickey cuddling up in single file behind spooning Fred and Barney behind snuggling Woody and Walrus. The commercial alone would make your head explode with excitement. It forced me to want every one of these romantic couples for my own loose planks.
I guess they even made generic characters but I don't remember them. I looked down my nose at any toys that weren't based on real cartoon characters. I thought it was cheating. I apply the same rule to coloring books.