Tuesday, January 6, 2009

My Favorite Toy: Little People

Little People. I loved to play with Little People. Some of my first toys were Little People.

I remember one Christmas, I was about 2 or 3 years old. We received Kenner Tree Tots complete with their own Tree House. I Loved playing with the tree tots! Yes. It was a family who lived in a tree. Fascinating! I called the girl Chrissy and the boy Tommy and the dog Barclay. I don't know if those were their official names or not, but that's what I called them.


That same Christmas we also got some Playskool's Weebles little people. And Weebles were cool because "Weebles Wobble but they don't fall down!". Yes, that was their slogan. There must have been an epidemic with competitors' "Little People" always falling down or something, because that catchy phrase sold millions of Weebles!

We can't talk "Little People" without mentioning the Fisher Price Little People. Fisher Price took the concept of Little People to a whole new level. There were farmers and school children and even Sesame Street Characters! A few of my lucky rich friends had whole towns of Fisher Price Little People in their playrooms. There was the Farm, the Amusement Park, the French Tudor Style 2-story House, the School House, the Auto-Mechanic shop with attached Gas Station and Parking Garage, and even an A-Frame "vacation" home!
We were only ever fortunate to have the red barn because we weren't "lucky rich kids". No, we just had a simple wooden doll house and regular boring old wooden blocks to "build" houses and furniture for our little people.

Nonetheless, playing with Little People became my favorite pastime. I think I played with Little People even after I was "too old" to be playing with them. And I was no respecter of Little People either. I mixed and matched the FP Little People with the Weebles and the Tree Tots. No discrimination here!
I was always a "story-maker", even before I began writing. Playing with these Little People allowed me an avenue by which to create storylines and characters with ongoing plot lines. I remember once, Mrs. Weeble was trying to have an affair with Fisher Price Farmer Bob. However, Fisher Price Granny caught on and wouldn't hear of it. And Tommy and Chrissy's Tree House broke at some point but thankfully the Farmer Bob and his wife adopted them. All was well in the land of the Little People.
In a house full of 7 kids, sometimes I just wanted my own space to do my own thing. These were definitely my favorite toys. I could play by myself for hours on end with the Little People. Until, that is, one of the other kids wanted a chance to play too. It's true. My mom would have to put time restrictions on how long I was able to play with Little People before letting one of the others have a turn.
I obviously don't play with Little People anymore. Though, that doesn't mean there still aren't characters with storylines and unfolding plots forever on-going in my mind. But now, I just write it all down.
What about you out there in the blogosphere? What was your favorite childhood toy?

16 comments:

Green said...

FP little people..the memories :)
I'm sorry...please accept my apology for not telling you that I gave you an award yesterday. I'm so embarassed!

greenolive said...

I loved our little people too. I really liked my little mermaids and rose petal dolls too but maybe only because I didn't have to share them with you guys because they were mine, all mine.

TravAndToni said...

I loved the Fisher Price Little People! We had the farm set and the airplane. Go ahead and try to wrap your mind around the types of stories my little folks played out. Someone was constantly trying to sneak animals onto the plane, and once the little white chicken even saved everyone on the plane from certain death!

I was also a Barbie girl. (Which is amazing to me now, as I'm so NOT a girly girl.) I had enough Barbie junk that I could fill the entire living room with 'scenes' and Barbie and her often lover, G.I. Joe would drive their little convertible from the full sized house to one scene or another. Their social scene was four times as large as mine, and they even had a bowling lane! (I think Skipper was the doll that came with a lane - going to have to check that.)

*An hour later* After an exhausting web search, I found her! It's Bowling Party Stacy, not Skipper.

I want to play now. :)

Amy said...

I love Little People!!! Sydney has 2 hugh bins of Little People in storage, I wish she was a little people so she would play with them, I think we bought her about everyone they made between 2000 and 2004!!!

Emily said...

"were little people we like to laugh and play, Little people..." I don't remember the rest of it. I was right there with Syd while she was playing... OH MY HECK! I loved playing with little people! and of course the Weebles! My My brothers broke almost every toy I ever had.. DUMB BROTHERS

Unknown said...

Hehe my sister always liked those little people and would whine for me to play with her.
Bad, evil things happen when people try to get me to play with dolls. ;-)

Rhonda said...

I never had little people and I don't remember my favorite toy. We honestly rarely had "toys". I remember a wheel of fortune game I got for Chrismtas and I loved it but nobody in my house would play with me so it wasn't very fun after a while.

Oh wait, I think my moms friend was giving away a big barbie house that had an elevator and everything (with a hand crank I think) and I was SO excited to get that. don't know where or when it went though!

The Willeyes said...

I love Little People!~ They are awesome. I love giving my nieces and nephews them for gifts.
I loved barbies. My dad and mom made me the most awesome dollhouse with furniture. I also had the Sunshine Family. Do you remember them. What fun memories:)
Love your new story. Can't wait for the next chapter:)

Charlotte said...

We had plenty of little people too. We had the house, the school house, and the airport. My mom still has them somewhere. She's saving them for grandkids one day. I had Barbies and My Little Ponys and Lady Lovelylocks.

Vickie said...

My favorite toy was Barbie Dolls. My sister and I would play for hours with our dolls. We had around 20 dolls and they were one major huge family.

We have little people all over our house.

Ruthykins said...

i called the tree tots laura and skippy and i don't remember the dog's name. ej named the fp little people so they were just blueman, yellowwoman, gramma, redboy, redgirl, blueboy, freckleface, and plainface. oh, and we had wibblewobble. freckleface and plainface were both greengirls, but plainface's freckles had worn off since we had her longer than freckleface. i think i'll look on ebay to see if i can find some little people. i don't like these new fangled ones that fisher price is coming out with.

Unknown said...

TREE TOTS! Oh my stars... one of my friends had that and I wanted it SOOOOOOO badly... but never got it. Sigh... so sad.

I, too, was a great lover of Little People. I had the camper (with the boat roof) and the A-Frame cabin... I don't remember if I had other peices... but I too played with them long after one "should" (and used the little girl little person as a baby for my Barbies). Just the other day I noticed that the new little people have moveable legs, and I was bemoaning the fact that it was hard enough on me when they stopped being pegs with heads (or the poor mom with the boobs all the way around her body) but LEGS?? moveable legs???

Oh my - thank you for the lovely little trip down memory lane!!!

purplehaze said...

My all time favorite has always been Barbie! I loved it when I had my daughter because than I had an accuse to play with them again. I use to pretend they got hurt and than I would doctor them up. When ever mom ran out of gauze or bandaids she always new where they went to.

Susie said...

I would have to say Barbies were my favorite. I was a real girlie girl:-)

ann said...

I loved little people but then again what girl didn't back in the day? We had the aframe house and the reg. house. and the school bus. I played with them every chance I got and so did my brothers!! I did love my Barbies I played with them way to long I bordered on having a problem. I set up houses in my bed room with books and boxes as walls and I even had a water bed! Made out of a plactic bag (mom was not to happy about that one!) I loved being a child!

Megan said...

Cute! I loved Little People too, but my favorites were Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Ponies.