Sixties Brutal Playtime

Here's something I didn't expect to see while cooking my eggs:

 You've heard of Mr. Potato Head?
Introducing Mr. Fried Egg Face.

I admit it was difficult having to dip my toast into his eyes. 

Now cracks a noble shell.

Goodbye, sweet anthropomorphic food; 

And bites of egg will bring thee to digest. (Hamlet and eggs?)

I may have had a Mr. Potato Head toy as a kid, but I'm not sure. If I did, I grew weary of it in short order, as I did with most of my toys. 

The box the toys came in on the other hand, provided days of entertainment. I could do whatever the heck I liked with them and have no worries whether or not they would break. I could turn them into a fort or a funhouse or crawl into one and use it as a ride to slide down the stairs. The stairs had a sharp turn near the bottom, so crashing into the wall at full child-laden-box-on-a-staircase speed was inevitable, yet still loads of fun. I'm a little surprised that Mattel didn't have the foresight to market the Box in a Box ® (and sell it at an exorbitant price, of course).

Knives, swords, guns, rifles, machine guns, bazookas, grenades and missiles; I had them all as a kid. All toys mind you, but they and more like them were integral parts of this typical Canadian's wholesome upbringing. 

The Johnny Seven O.M.A. (One Man Army) almost covered that entire list in one savage toy. My brother had this one, and no one in the neighborhood dared mess with him. There very well may have been a few countries back then that would have thought twice about a conflict with some kid armed with the Johnny Seven. We felt we were well equipped to fight off any communist aggression. "Back off Kruschev, or Kruschoff, or however they say your name. That goes for you too Fidel and any of your comrades." Woe betide the pinko who didn't heed that warning!

The Johnny Seven

Only a hyperactive war hawk with ten times the legal limit of caffeine in their system could have designed this thing. No batteries needed; just a certain degree of bloodlust.

Wham-O air blasters, bows and arrows, firecrackers, Bowie knives, pea shooters, BB guns; those were the days. The days that thankfully have come and gone without serious injury, for me at least.

I'm sure they're still around today, but even the board games we played were violent to a degree. Clue was about murder, while Risk was about world military conquest. Actual conflict arose from that fun pastime; "What are you attacking me for? There's a much bigger threat on your eastern front! Are you on Kruschev's side or what? I'll get you for this."

"Oooh, what are you gonna do? Call an emergency session of the United Nations?"

Even Monopoly got tempers flared with all the deals and back-stabbing. A Wikipedia entry about the game has this quote from Computer Gaming World; "Virtually no one plays the game with the rules as written."

Ain't that the truth; "If you don't make a deal with me now, just wait till you land on my Boardwalk. The rent will cost you three zillion dollars. No, make that three kazillion dollars. Told you I'd get you for that game of Risk, you communist sympathizer." 

Of course we were just kids and likely used the term "big doofus" instead of "communist sympathizer". As JFK similarly said to the Soviet leader in October of 1962, "I just want to say-uh Mr. Kruschev that-uh you are a-uh big doofus."

I was fascinated by the U.S. Civil War. Way back when I was a little tyke, I thought the war was a mammoth tussle between North America and South America. That would have been a humdinger. But when I found out that it was restricted to the U.S., it didn't diminish my fascination. As I put it to my parents once, "It's my favorite war!"

I had a collection of these Civil War trading cards when I was a kid. They were made by a company called Topps, who are well known for selling trading cards with bubble gum. The cards had images which were incredible graphic and gory. They made the Texas Chainsaw Massacre look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  They sure as heck wouldn't fly today.

Now I'm not a violent man, nor do I like to see graphic violence on film or TV, but when I was a little shaver of about eight or nine years old, I could look at these illustrations of butchery, bloodshed, and slaughter and think they were the coolest thing ever. 

Our mouths half-filled with bubble gum, my buddy and I would be chawin' away while looking at all these images of carnage and destruction. One of us would say, "Wow, stuck clean through with a bayonet! These are great!" or "Oh, man! Look at this one! The guy's gettin' his head crushed by a wagon wheel. Cool!"

Bubble Gum, Confederate Money, and War? 

All For Just 5 Cents?

What More Could A Kid Ask For?

The packaging of that product is a little puzzling. Are they saying that this is surplus bubble gum from the days of the Civil War? You'd break a molar on that for sure. Or are they implying that bubble gum was a big deal for Confederate and Yankee soldiers? If that's the case, then it's hard to believe the belligerents would have been engaged in mortal combat while chewing gum and blowing bubbles. I suppose the fellow in the illustration could have a mouthful of that chewy confection.

Come to think of it, that might be a good strategy to curb all military aggression. Just give the soldiers on both sides an ample amount of bubble gum. Who wants to fight while you're chewing sweet pink gum and using it to make big sticky bubbles?

A Canadian lad in his Yankee forage cap WAY back when.

I can't believe that's me in that photo (not all that long after the Civil War, relatively speaking). Today I look more like a grizzled old Civil War general, or more like the father of a grizzled old Civil War general.

So that pretty well sums up my violent childhood playtime; discounting the roughhouse of playground games like football, Red Rover, snowball fights, and dodgeball. Fortunately, I somehow turned out to be a relatively well-adjusted adult. In retrospect, I probably should have had more toys like Mr. Potato Head.

Wait a second, I've just had an idea! Mr. Mashed Potato Head!
That would have been so cool!