STAN FREBERG HERE...Christmas Toys Not The Same Anymore
Stan Freberg here. As Christmas gets nearer and sanity seems further away, I have a few thoughts about Christmas toys. It seems to me they used to be simpler: less electronic, less high-tech, and a lot less expensive. But where have I been living, under a rock? In a time warp? Maybe. Be right back. [:60 SPOT BREAK]
Freberg again, thinking about toys for my young granddaughter, Riley Jean. I wonder, when her mother - my daughter - and my son were little kids, and Christmas rolled around, were the toys they asked for so tied with an umbilical cord to their TV sets?
Now that I think about it, yes. My daughter, Donna Jean, would surely not have wanted a "Mr. Machine" or "Barbie" and "Ken" dolls if she hadn't had 'em touted to her day and night on the tube. And my son, Donavan. Would he have said, "Dad! Can I have 'Stretch Armstrong' and a Shogun robot," if he hadn't been inundated by TV ads hawking them?
So what else is new? It's all the same; just different toys. So my granddaughter is just doing her thing, hitting on her parents and grandparents as TV pumps her up on the way to Christmas: the "Creepy Crawlers" oven for making plastic bugs, and "Mighty Morphin Power Ranger" molds to go with it, and various dolls that do unspeakable things.
Actually, "Stretch Armstrong" is back again, having a stretch renaissance. We didn't have "Stretch Armstrong" or "Power Rangers" when I was a kid - an Erector set and Lincoln Logs was more like it.
When Abe Lincoln was a kid, do you think he asked his dad at Christmas, "Can I have some little toy logs named after me?"
Stan Freberg here.
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