Retro TV and Toys for the Very Young- Cabbage Patch Dolls

Hi!  My old computer died and I am trying to get the hang of doing things on my new IPad, including using the Blogger app. I haven't done a Retro TV and toys post for a super long time and I'm hoping to get back in the habit of doing these types of posts every so often!  Here is a picture of my Cabbage Patch doll, Fern.  I got her in 1985 during the Cabbage Patch craze years.  Remember the stories about people fighting over these dolls at the malls?  My doll's real name is Gretchen Fernanda.  That's what it said on her adoption certificate.  I cried and cried when I saw the name, I thought it was so horrible!  Thankfully my mom saved the day and suggested "Fern" for short- cute, and it's the name of the little girl in the book "Charlotte's Web". Do any of you still have your Cabbage Patches?

Retro TV and Toys for the Very Young - Rainbow Brite

 

 

 

 

 

 

AAAAAAND we're back!  Finally!  :)
When we were kids, my sister had a set of Rainbow Brite paper dolls.  Her favourite character was Red Butler, and mine was Patty O'Green.  I was excited to see new Rainbow Brite books being published and I bought a few for my daughter, as you can see in the first picture.  I've also included here some scans of a vintage Rainbow Brite book from the 80's.  Sometime I would love to buy a Rainbow Brite doll or other related merchandise for myselfImeanmykids.  :)

Retro TV and Toys for the Very Young - Holly Hobbie

 

Source - Etsy

Source - Etsy

Here's one of  my daughters holding my Holly Hobbie doll, which I got when I was 2 and has somehow survived all these years and through all of the times we have moved.  Who else had/has one?  There's a ton of adorable Holly Hobbie paraphernalia that you can buy on Etsy - check this adorable book and collector's plate.  This Holly Hobbie colorforms commercial made me smile- so sweet!

Retro TV and Toys for The Very Young - Mr. Dressup

Happy New Year!  Recently we have been watching some Mr. Dressup dvd's from the library.  I have great memories of this show from when I was a kid.  It ran for a long, long time - 1967-1996! Mr. Dressup was originally a puppeteer for Mr. Rogers. Did any of you watch this show?  Do you remember Casey and Finnegan and their tree house, the Tickle Trunk with all of the dressup clothes, Mr. Dressup's drawings and crafts, and the owl on the wall?  ('too-whit, too-whooo!  I always was a little bit scared of him!)  Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs) died in 2001.  Mr. Dressup is a great part of Canadian culture - I wonder if any of my American readers that lived in the more northern parts watched the show as well.  If not, you should introduce your kids to it via YouTube!  Have fun watching this clip- I love hearing the theme song again!

Retro TV and Toys for The Very Young- Monchichi

I was so excited last year to see that Monchichi are back!  I was at Chapters and I immediately bought one to give to my baby daughter for Christmas.  Then at Easter I saw one at Shopper's Drug Mart and nabbed that one.  And now just the other day I bought a mini-Christmas ornament one, at Chapters again. (see photo below.) I remember I had a mini-Monchichi when I was a kid.  These Japanese stuffed toy monkeys were first released in 1974.  Check out this clip from YouTube of Monchichis, produced by Hanna-Barbera, and also this Monchichis commercial.  I love the 80's!!!

Retro TV and Toys for The Very Young - The Electric Company

HEYYYY YOU GUUUUYYYYYSSS!!!  (If you have never watched the show before then just ignore that!) My 6-year-old has been watching the episodes of the modern re-make of The Electric Company on Netflix. Once she saw the first episode, she was hooked. It's about 4 kids who have super powers with words.  I really like it too- the bad guys, known as 'The Pranksters', are funny and the songs are really catchy.  The show has had star appearances from Wyclef Jean, Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Ne-Yo, Mario, Pete Wentz, Jack McBrayer, and more.  A good choice as far as children's programming goes! And of course it's great for helping kids with practising their reading, spelling, and new vocabulary too!  The new version is very different from the old version from the 70's.  I bought a 'best of' from the original version on dvd for my daughter's recent birthday.  I was a little bit worried she wouldn't like it - I explained to her beforehand that it was very different from the show she was used to.  But she likes the old one too - yay!  She laughs at the sketches and likes the songs and animations. The old series ran from 1971-1977.  It was designed for kids who had 'graduated' from Sesame Street.   Some of its well-known cast members were Bill Coby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman.  It has guest appearances from celebrities such as Carol Burnett, Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Carroll O'Connor, and Lily Tomlin.  Enjoy these clips below from the 'old' and 'new' versions of the show.

Retro TV and Toys for The Very Young- Super Friends

I would like to start occasionally posting about retro TV shows and toys that I enjoyed as a child or that I am sharing with my kids now.  These posts will be just a quick diversion from all my posts about my first love- vintage children's books!  :)

So the first Retro TV and Toys for the Very Young post will be about the Super Friends since my almost-6-year-old has been watching these episodes lately, thanks to our public library.  My husband was and is a big fan of comic books and superheroes, etc.  He bought the Batman Lego game for X-box for Keira and I think that is how she has started to be interested in superheroes.  Then we bought
an early-reader type of book of a collection of Super Friends stories and she really liked that.  So I then decided to see if I could find the Super Friends dvd at our library - fun!  I did not watch this show myself as a child - I guess it was not aired on the limited channels we had growing up in Northern Ontario in the 70's and 80's.  We had 4 channels back then - one of them pretty much always had a hockey game on , one was TV Ontario which was a limited amount of children's shows and a lot of documentaries, another channel was French, and the last channel was a 'normal' one but pretty much all adult shows, the news, etc.

Super Friends ran from 1973-1986 on Saturday mornings - remember when Saturday morning cartoons actually existed?  Not so much nowadays - I guess because there are sooo many kids shows on basically all the time now.  Super Friends featured characters such as Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern, the Wonder Twins, and more.  ("Wonder Twin powers, ACTIVATE!!")  The Wonder Twins make me laugh - especially every time that Jayna transforms into an eagle and Zan transforms into water which Gleek the space monkey carries in a bucket while riding on Jayna-as-an-eagle's back...  That sounds like the weirdest sentence I have ever written!

We also bought these Super Friends Little People for our 1-year-old daughter Tegan a while ago - way too cute!!

Here's a clip!  Have a great Thanksgiving weekend, fellow Canadians!!