Thursday, May 7, 2009

Feature: Inside the Toy Box

Before Christmas (2008), I came across an old box of toys that me and my brother had when we were kids. After more than ten years, I had half forgotten what was inside, so expecting to finds all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, I grabbed a camera and got ready to have a good poke around.

Toy Box - The Box

Here's the box itself. It's from an an old Sharp microwave that recently expired in a plume of black smoke. I guess 15 years isn't too bad for an electrical appliance. Let's pop this sucker open.

Drum roll, please.

Toy Box - The Grand Opening

And what did I find inside? A bunch of toy cars of various types and states of decomposition belonging to my auto mobile-obsessed sibling.

Great.

Oh well, I don't know what I was expecting to see anyway. I was far too prone to loosing or breaking any toys I had to still have them in here. Let's press on anyway.

Toy Box - Mall Santa Present

First up is a crappy two-piece present from a mall Santa from about 1993. It's a turntable and a....lift thing (move over, Jeremy Clarkson) for small toy cars. I can't remember what I got from him, but I do remember that we got cardboard reindeer hats though. I guess they got binned.

Toy Box - Old Gloves

Ooh, it's something of mine. It's an tattered old pair of gloves that I used to ride my bike with. Not strictly necessary, but I thought they were pretty cool at the time.

This was a triumph.

Another of my brother's. It's a licensed toy from Gerry Anderson's short-lived 90's show, Space Precinct. I have no idea why he would have wanted this, neither of us were into the show, but he picked this as a Christmas present one year (1995, I think).

By then, Santa had seemingly gotten a bit lazy and decided to forgo the whole letter and workshop thing and let us pick what we wanted ourselves. Apparently he paid for the presents later through some sort arrangement with the shop. I wasn't buying it.

Toy Box - Tractor

A toy tractor my brother got as a present one year. He was totally thrilled, I mean who wouldn't be? It says "let's get to work!" when you push down the yellow bit on top for crying out loud!

Toy Box - Pepsi Hat

A blue Santa hat that they were giving away with Pepsi around Christmas 1996. If Pepsi got to redesign Santa, he'd wear this and probably have a goatee.

More bad jokes and dodgy camera work after the jump