Hobbies And Interests
Action Figures
The first series of "Star Wars" films ended in the '80s, and some 100 action figures were based on "Star Wars" characters alone. The "He-Man" range of toy figures was based on the animated TV series of the same name. The line included such characters as He-Man himself and the villainous Skeletor, as well as a model of He-Man's Castle Grayskull. "Thundercats" were a cross between humans and big cats. Some "Thundercats" figures featured "Battle-matic" levers so the figure could swing a weapon.
Dolls
The era had a few new doll lines, including Glo Worms, My Little Pony and the fad hit Cabbage Patch Kids. Glo Worms were plush or plastic toys looked a lot like worms in costume. Their key feature was that they glowed in the dark at night. My Little Pony dolls resembled miniature plastic horses with manes and tails the user could brush. The Cabbage Patch Kids were a marketing sensation. Each cloth kid came with adoption papers.
Physical and Outdoor
Some toys emphasized physical fitness or outdoor play. A Roller Racer was essentially a low plastic seat with handlebars positioned so the user's feet could operate them. That left the user's hands free to play team games like hockey while on the Racers. The Pogo Ball was a large ball with a platform in the middle. Kids squeezed the top part of the ball with their feet to get the ball to bounce. The Lemon Twister consisted of a ring connected by a tube to a plastic lemon. The ring went around the user's ankle. The user had to spin the tube around and skip over the lemon.
Games
The 1980 Rubik's Cube was an updated version of a European toy called the "Magic Cube." Each face of the square cube contained nine stickers of the same color. The player rotated the Cube's sections until all of the colors were thoroughly mixed up, and then tried to restore all faces to the same color as quickly as possible. The cube was so popular so fast that a book about how to solve it sold more than 1.5 million copies in 1981. The electronic game "Simon" consisted of a circular platform with four colored buttons. The buttons lit up in a sequence players had to repeat to win. The home video game market, which started in the last half of the '70s, but had early hits in the '80s with the Atari 5200 and Colecovision systems. The first Nintendo system had its debut in 1985, and the first Sega was released in 1986.