Get Playful With This Quiz on 1970s Toys

Shrinky Dinks, the plastic toys that shrunk to about one-third of their size when baked, were invented in 1973 by two women who were crafting projects for their sons' Boy Scout troop. After creating the original shrinking polymer product, the women knew they had a hit and quickly formed a company. Within a year, people across the U.S. were baking plastic charms, clips, and tags of all shapes and designs.

In 1973, Kenner debuted the Baby Alive doll, which could eat, drink, and dirty her diaper. Children could "feed" the doll packets of powdered food mixed with water, which would then travel through Baby Alive's plastic digestive system and eventually dirty her diaper. While Baby Alive couldn't talk in the original version, a 1992 update gave her a voice, which allowed the doll to tell children when she had had an accident.

Today, Texas Instruments is best known for its graphing calculators and semiconductors, but in the late 1970s, its most visible product was the Speak & Spell. The toy was intended as an educational game to help children learn to spell and pronounce more than 200 commonly misspelled words. It marked the first time a human voice was electronically duplicated by a single computer chip.

The "world's first indoor ball" was introduced in 1969 and quickly became one of the 1970s' most popular toys. Nerf advertised the ball as utterly harmless, saying, "Throw it indoors; you can't damage lamps or break windows. You can't hurt babies or old people." After the success of its first ball, Nerf went on to make more cushy playthings, including a football, basketball, baseball, and even an archery set.

In 1976, the Stretch Armstrong action figure made its debut. Sold in stores for $11, the toy made its manufacturer Kenner more than $50 million. The twisty, bendy muscleman was essentially a latex sack filled with a boiled infusion of corn syrup. The combination was a hit, and Stretch became one of the most popular toys of the 1970s.

L'Écran Magique, or "the magic screen," is the French name for Etch a Sketch. Invented by French electrical technician André Cassagnes, the aluminum powder toy was first released in 1960 by the Ohio Art Company and continued its popularity well into the 1970s. Appearances in "Toy Story" (1995) and "Breaking Bad" (2008) have kept the Etch a Sketch relevant, and some enthusiasts have been known to create artistic masterpieces using the toy.

In 1978, Milton Bradley released Simon, a memory game that bridged the gap between board games and video games. Simon had four buttons — red, blue, yellow, and green — that lit up and played a unique note. Players had to repeat Simon's pattern, which got increasingly longer as the round went on. The game quickly became a top-seller despite its hefty $25 price tag (about $100 in 2022).

In 1973, when daredevil Evel Knievel was at the peak of his death-defying career, Ideal toy company released the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle, a "gyro powered," battery-free toy that allowed children to create their own dangerous jumps for Evel to perform. The product was extremely popular, and some historians even credit it with helping to save the struggling toy industry.

After its initial release in the late '60s, Lite-Brite hit its stride in the '70s. The machine consisted of a single light bulb behind a grid of 1,735 holes, in which users could insert colored pegs to create pictures. In order to keep the light from washing out the picture, users had to put a piece of black paper between the light and the pegs each time they wanted to create a new image.

Pong was released in 1972 and became the world's first commercially successful video game. Invented by two Atari engineers, Pong was inspired by table tennis. After selling thousands of machines to arcades around the country, Atari turned Pong into a home console game, which was played by millions of families worldwide.

According to the official manual, "when you own a Pet Rock you never have problems with leash law violations, you'll never have to clean up nasty messes, and your pet will never keep you and the neighbors awake at night." The silly toy was first released in 1975 by Gary Dahl, who sold more than a million pet rocks at $3.95 a piece.

Introduced in the late 1960s and popular well into the 1970s, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots featured the Blue Bomber from Umgluck against the Red Rocker from Soltarus II in a boxing match. Two players controlled the fighters and used their designated levers to punch their opponent, with the goal of hitting the mechanical head. In 2021, Mattel Films announced a live-action adaptation of the toy in development.

In 1971, Romper Room introduced the world to a series of egg-shaped toys called Weebles that "wobble, but they don't fall down." The characters, which feature a low center of gravity as their core mechanism, could be purchased with a variety of accessories, including a submarine, haunted house, camper van, and tree house.

Using a magnetic wand to move metal shavings around a face, players could form the perfect eyebrows, hair, and mustache for Wooly Willy.

Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2, and Chewbacca were in the original set of “Star Wars” figurines, but Yoda didn’t come out until later.

In this popular board game, players rush to fit 25 geometric shapes into matching holes before the timer runs out.

In 1969, the Ideal toy company introduced the world to Crissy, a doll with the ability to change her hair length. Two years later, Talky Crissy was released with a 12-phrase vocabulary, including such sentences as "Let's have a party" and "I love you." Crissy was popular across the United States, but her toy line ended in 1974 following Ideal's financial difficulties.

Milton Bradley introduced the strategic guessing game at the end of the 1960s.

When Hungry Hungry Hippos debuted in 1978, the four ball-chomping ungulates were all given names. Lizzie Hippo was purple, Henry Hippo was orange, Homer Hippo was green, and Harry Hippo was yellow. During play, the four mammalian characters would compete to see which could swallow the most of the 20 plastic balls in the center of the game, which is still produced today.

Originally dubbed the “Thousand Wonder Toy,” this construction set has been around for more than 100 years.

The Big Wheel prototype was made from a disassembled tricycle reassembled upside down for easier handling.

The character first appeared on an American Greetings Valentine’s Day card and was later turned into a toy.

Hungarian design teacher Ernő Rubik’s puzzle toy has captivated “cubers” for decades.

Tens of millions of sweet treats were made in Easy-Bake Ovens during the 1970s.

The children’s book character, which was made into a popular stuffed animal, was named after the bustling Central London train station.