Toyland Lures Kids of All Ages, Some Via Memory Lane

W e can’t help ourselves. There we are, making fine progress, knifing through the department and specialty stores like a bargain-seeking missile, ticking off our holiday shopping list with brisk efficiency, and then . . .

The toy store sucks us in. And into the black hole of nostalgia goes another shopping day.

But hey, it’s almost Christmas, right? Time for all of us jaded adults to get a little goofy in the toy stores. Time to remember how much fun all this stuff used to be. And time to take a look at what the moppets of the ‘90s require for an optimum level of amusement.

HE: I expected to see virtual reality GI Joe battle helmets with realistic nuclear winter effects when we dropped in at F.A.O. Schwartz in South Coast Plaza recently, but it looks like--based on sheer volume--that Barbie is still the queen bee. I was stunned: an entire big corner of the store awash in pink, pink, pink.

SHE: Having just visited Manhattan, I flipped over the new Rockettes Barbie--such high-kicking glitz! And then I saw the Opening Night Barbie (pure gala dressing), the City Style Barbie (white Chanel-style suit with chain handbag) and the Happy Holiday Barbie (tiny silk poinsettias covering her gown’s bodice). I’ll take them all.

But where was Ken? Hard to find. And no wonder. A salesgirl told me Barbies outnumber Kens five to one at the store. “Barbie is just more popular,” she said. “Maybe it’s a ‘90s thing.” How does that make you feel?

HE: Like a ‘90s guy. Did you ever think you’d see the day when an entire sex was unpopular? Oh, well, at least there are still one or two toys that are canted toward a boy’s sensibilities. Trains, for instance, never seem to go out of style. And I got kind of a kick out of the remote control F-14 (doesn’t actually fly, but looks pretty cool cruising around on the floor).

The chemistry set is still around, too, but this particular incarnation was a bit of a disappointment. In a great show of large print on the box, the makers assured mom and dad that there was nothing in the set that would blow the house up or set the cat on fire or eat holes in the carpet. Geez, what kind of fun is that?

SHE: I fell in love with the pair of sequin-smothered ruby red slippers in the display case in the front of the store. I could think of a dozen people to give a pair to--all my pals struggling along their own yellow bricks roads. But, alas, they were for display only.

I found the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow among the tiny Madame Alexander Dolls. But no Dorothy! (Must be a bestseller.)

As an adult, the Oz dolls by Madame Alexander would be the Christmas toys I’d choose for myself. And the entire collection of Oz books.

HE: Pretty impressive collection of stuffed animals, including what looked like a life-sized Bengal tiger. Looked kind of tough to play with, though, and it would be a cinch to terrify the dog. The proliferation of stuffed Barneys terrified me, though.

On the automated front, I sort of expected the video and computer games to be slopping out of every display case, but that wasn’t so. Yes, there was a kind of high-tech video display toward the back of the store, but most of the kids I saw were fascinated with anything that had big moving parts, like the big clock display. Anything with big gears and flywheels and drive screws in it seems to be a natural. Maybe kids ought to put in for a life-sized working steam locomotive this year.

SHE: Stuffed animals were my favorite toys when I was a preteen. In fact, I still have the tiny tan dog I dubbed Puddles. I think I named him that because of all of the tears we shared while I cried over my boyfriends. He’s all wrapped in plastic and hides in a corner on a top closet shelf.

My favorite toys as a kid? Dolls, dolls, dolls. I had a beautiful wood doll that I left in a baby carriage in the back yard while my mother took me to the store. It rained while we were gone and, well, you can guess the rest. I was devastated.

When I was around 10 and having constant bouts with a sore throat, I would line up all of my dolls and teach English to them.

After dolls, I loved puppets. I was the neighborhood puppeteer--staged so many shows for the little kids that their mothers began to pay me to do them.

HE: My favorite, I suppose, was an old Lionel train set. The really big kind with the three-rail track and the switch engine that could plow a hole in a lath-and-plaster wall if you set up the track just right.

SHE: Glad to hear it wasn’t a bow and arrow set. I shudder every time I see one. There was this one Christmas, see, when my 13-year-old brother decided to warm the metal tip of one of his arrows on the stove. He hid in his room until I--a sweet, perfectly innocent 8-year-old--cruised by and he beckoned me into his room. “Now, close your eyes and reach out your hand,” he said. “ ‘Oh boy! Candy!’ I thought.” Zap!

I wore that arrow-shaped scar on the inside of my wrist until I was 20 years old.

HE: Sounds like your brother and I were true contemporaries. I was always trying to mechanically modify my gifts in some way that would cause an object to fly into the air: rocks, water balloons, my kid brother. Do you suppose the toy manufacturers are anticipating that tendency and trying to blunt the potential mayhem by offering stores full of Barneys and Rockette Barbies?

SHE: Barney and Barbie. Now there’s a couple for the ‘90s.