A Fun Peek Back at the Baby Boom Games and Toys That We Loved Back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s

At Boom Again, we’re big fans of games and toys. Boom Again is the new pop culture game that celebrates the music, movies, fads, fun and—yes—the toys and games of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

So we know quite a lot about the Baby Boom era. And if ever there was a time when what kids played and how they played was equal parts crazy and clever, it was at during the Boom.

Here, we take a look at the Baby Boom games and toys that are sure to spark fond memories.

What comes in an egg and makes the Sunday comics more fun?

If you guessed Silly Putty, you’re right! A little pink blob invented as a synthetic rubber substitute, Silly Putty could be stretched, bounced, and molded like clay.

Back in the  Boom, kids could also press it onto a page of the Sunday comics and the image would transfer onto the putty. Then for fun, you could stretch and distort the image. Then you’d roll up the Silly Putty to “erase” it and start all over today.

Sadly, this trick doesn’t work anymore because newspapers are now printed with non-transferable ink.

Open the door to your…Mystery Date

Back in the Baby Boom, girls could try their luck finding a blind date with a roll of the die. The Mystery Date game’s gameboard had a door in its center that you would open to reveal your date.

Would you get the dreamboat—a dashing man dressed in a tux holding out a bouquet of flowers? Or “the dud”—a slovenly, unshaven dude who, by today’s standards, was still pretty darned good looking.

Victory is sweet in this Baby Boom game

In the boardgame Candy Land, players race along a colorful winding path to try to be the first to get to the end. You might remember some of the sweets-themed stops along the way, like a peppermint stick forest, lollypop woods and gumdrop mountains.

The game was actually invented to entertain children in a hospital polio ward during the height of the polio epidemic.

Polio isn’t a threat anymore, but little kids today still love playing Candy Land, and it’s said to sell about a million copies every year.

She was chatty and her name was Cathy

Yep, we’re referring to the Chatty Cathy doll. This groundbreaking Mattel doll, created in 1959, could speak 11 phrases when her “chatty ring” was activated with a pull of the string on her back.

Chatty Cathy would say things like “Let’s play school” and “I love you” — and she represented a revolutionary technology for the toy industry.

And a doll for boys…

In the mid-1960s, Hasbro introduced G.I. Joe, and boys finally got a doll of their own. Similar in size to a Barbie, boys would tell you that this mini-military man wasn’t a doll, he was an action figure.

For girls, if you didn’t have a Ken doll, your brother’s G.I. Joe made a good stand-in.

Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200

Monopoly was one of the most popular Baby Boom games. Players would try to amass a fortune in real estate—and, if you were lucky, you could also bilk rent money out of people who landed on your property.

Do you remember the game tokens? The version of the game from the late ‘50s and into the ‘60s that was probably in your home had 10 game tokens: a battleship, boot, cannon, horse and rider, iron, racecar, dog, thimble, top hat, and wheelbarrow.

Monopoly has since replaced some of them with a Scottish terrier, penguin, cat, T-Rex and rubber duckie.

Big thrills with a tiny oven

Another popular toy was the Easy-Bake Oven. The tiny oven used only the heat from a light bulb to cook miniature cakes and other treats.

Sure, you were making a cake from a boxed mix sold at toy stores, not grocery stores—but let’s see any professional pastry chef match the talents of a little kid who could cook using only a light bulb.

The home surgery kit

Forget wasting all those years on medical school. Kids during the Boom could try their hand at surgery with the game Operation, no medical license required.

Cavity Sam, the cartoon patient in the game, is suffering from a series of silly ailments—like writer’s cramp (a tiny pencil stuck in his hand) and butterflies in the stomach (with an actual little plastic butterfly in his stomach).

Your job: to remove the objects with a tweezers without setting off the buzzer.

Let’s be sure to mention those Baby Boom games we played outside as kids

Just to name a few, there was Red Light Green Light,  Tag, Duck Duck Goose, Simon Says, Red Rover, Hopscotch, and—terrorizing children throughout the U.S.—Dodgeball.

What games and toys of the Baby Boom were your favorites?

 

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