Ladies, brace yourselves, because you’re reading the blog of a 30-year-old man who still collects action figures. Oh yes, oh yes. Take a few breaths if your hearts are fluttering too much. But I kid. I love toys. They’re such a wonderfully wacky and colorful part of our world.

And I only sometimes take my action figures down off the shelf to play battles with them.

No school like the old school

But not every toyline is as successful as the Transformers or LEGO. And not every toy can stay popular like the Ninja Turtles or superheroes. Sometimes, in this unfair world of ours, some truly great toys are lost to the ages. I’m as much a fan of nostalgia as the next person, so what say we spend an afternoon reminiscing about the great toys of our youth and wondering where it all went wrong! Join me after the jump for my six favorite childhood toys!

Honorable Mention: Battle Beasts

I remember that purple elephant better than I remember some extended family members

Battle Beasts were the bomb for so many awesome reasons! There were dozens of them, so they were great to collect. They were anthropomorphic animals, which as a kid, was just the coolest thing to me (probably because of the Ninja Turtles). And they were wearing armor as part of some imagined war between the forces of fire, water and…wood. Yeah, wood.

Battle Beasts would have topped this list, except that the universe decided to bring them back a few years ago with new figures and a comic book series. I’m pretty sure they’ve bombed quite spectacularly since then, but still, the Battle Beasts were not so lost as we thought.

6. Monster in My Pocket

I’ve got a monster in my front pocket, for you

The best thing about Monster in My Pocket (much different from Pocket Monsters), was that they were educational! These tiny collectibles not only used guys like Frankenstein and Dracula, but they also dug into mythical monsters, like the Jersey Devil and Baba Yaga. My youthful curiosity was piqued quite considerably by all the nifty monsters, and I was definitely one of those kids who loved mythology back in the day. These blandly colored little choking hazards were a cute, little collectible treat when I was a kid, and were much safer than Creepy Crawlers. Those things could burn you!

5. Troll dolls

I never really liked Troll dolls

Why did Troll dolls ever go out of style? I never owned any myself, or had anything to do with them, but people seemed to love them. Cute, hairy, versatile, Trolls could do or be anything we wanted. They’re ripe for a good, solid comeback. Maybe a gritty reboot!

Oh wait, they already tried that, the time they turned the Troll dolls into badass action figures!

I just wanted a chance to reference the Stone Protectors! Hells yeah!

Those guys should definitely be a thing again. And yes, they totally got a cartoon! Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if every single toy on this list got some kind of cartoon…

4. Food Fighters

It was a simpler time

To this day, I have no idea why I loved the Food Fighters so much. They were such cheap, crappy little toys! Basically just hollow, rubber bodies with little plastic arms, feet and helmets. But I was hooked! They were just so badass-looking. And, again, blame Ninja Turtles for my love of all things anthropomorphized. I owned the donut, the chicken leg and the pizza, otherwise known as Major Munch, Lieutenant Legg and Private Pizza. And I know a friend had the Combat Carton vehicle playset. I think they were just cheap and easily collectible, which made them such a draw.

Plus, of course, there’s that pun.

3. Army Ants

I think I was Pro-Orange back in the day

Apparently I loved little, rubber figurines with a passion. The Army Ants were even cooler than the Monsters in My Pocket, because the Army Ants were soldiers fighting an unending war between the blue and orange ants! It may have helped that those black carpenter ants were the most frequent insect I’d encounter in my childhood, and I had a pretty strong fascination with them (and with kicking over their anthills).

The Army Ants were individually crafted, and each one seemed to have their own personality. That went a long way to capturing my interest. They were ants carrying guns and bombs, and in my mind, some of them knew karate, because of course they did! Ants are karate masters! I can also vividly remember chewing on their little removable abdomens and getting them suction stuck on my tongue.

Young Sean was clearly an idiot.

2. The Incredible Crash Dummies

The Geico Cavemen of their day

If my parents are reading this, I want them to know I’m so, so, so incredibly sorry for that tantrum I once threw in the toy store because they wouldn’t buy me Hubat and Bumper, the cat and dog dummies. I was an idiot. My parents were willing to buy me any of the other Incredible Crash Dummies toys, but for some insane childish reason, I wanted the dog and cat, even though all they could do was go squish. Talk about embarrassing.

The real Crash Dummies were just so cool! Why didn’t I see that at the time? They were fully poseable action figures (which wasn’t too common back then), with an awesome gimmick of having their heads and limbs fall off at the press of a button! How cool is that? Granted, the internal springs involved wound up breaking over time, but still! These guys could juggle their heads! Talk about awesome horror story playtime options!

1. Dino-Riders

An image worth 1,000 words

Look at that picture and tell me your heart didn’t just stop beating for a moment out of sheer awe. Dinosaurs crossed with cybernetics to turn them into tanks. If the concept of riding dinosaurs wasn’t cool enough, this old toyline included amazingly cool extra features like robotic attachments, and two warring armies of humans and aliens! Were they aliens? I don’t really remember. What I do remember was the mighty behemoth of a T-Rex battle machine! Personally, I had the triceratops and the pterodactyl, and both were all manner of cool.

The Dino-Riders concept is as pure awesome as any concept has ever been or could ever be. The past meets the future, dinosaurs meet tanks; if awesome and fun hooked up and had a baby, it would be Dino-Riders! I’m almost afraid to look them up on wikipedia, because I bet the human and alien characters have some kind of insane backstory that takes away from the thrill of riding cyborg dinosaurs…

Valorians…Rulons…yep, I figured as much.

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What were the classic toys from your childhood that you wished had never gone away? What toys should make a comeback in today’s collector-friendly market? Let us know in the comments!