Saturday 27 October 2007

Homemade fun...


Proustian rush:

Whilst idly surfing I stumbled on this marvellous gem. The web as a store room for the worlds ephemera is as good use as any and this site is the acme of all that, more of which in a moment.

When talking to younger acquaintances I sometimes sound like I grew up in 1940’s; the simple things of my childhood seem quite strange now.
The cliché of “we had to make our own fun” was very true. With the telly being either off or rubbish for most of the day, videos games only existing in seaside arcades and the tinter net 20 years in the future, kids play derived more from our own imagination (this is an empirical fact).
Lego was simpler and wasn’t themed around star wars or killer robots, toy cars didn’t change into anything, Barbie was called Cindy and only had a horse and air hostess uniform.

Which is where this wonderful site comes in. Me and my Bros loved Asterix as kids and so to get free Asterix Viking Boat on the back of Weetabix box was fantastic and kept us entertained for several hours. They where well designed and course wonderfully drawn by Gonscinny . And of course you could collect the set even if our tight parents made us eat every last flake (including that stale dust you use to get at the bottom of cereal boxes) before starting a new one!

This site also has scans of Letraset action transfers. Which we also loved, seeing the battle of the little big horn or Battle of Britain books again just now was great. Yes, kids a book you finished off yourselves, you got to choose where the figures went even if the finish wasn’t great if you pressed too hard and occasionally scribbled over the edge with your biro.

Enjoy







Here's some more

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Methinks you might have to first explain the concept of a book.
Mr.G

al_uk said...

Awesome...weetabix feature...I could almost taste them as I reminisced and the backgrounds on the web-site.......wow wee!!!

Clair said...

I bloody loved those transfers....

BLTP said...

I was totally taken away when I found this site.