It’s that time of year when I feel justified in diving deep here on NN into my dork-fest mind, where I can’t help but scour the backgrounds of some of my favorite films to find relics of my childhood hidden within the scenes. With the holidays here, it seems obvious that GREMLINS would be the premium choice as the center stage for scoping some vintage toys seen throughout the Kingston Falls department store. And as we all know, GREMLINS is the goddamn greatest Christmas movie of all time (IMO), so toys, Christmas, and Stripe running around with a chainsaw inside (what is actually a Montgomery Ward) make for perfect timing here.

Being as how most of the scenes filmed in the department store in GREMLINS are pretty dimly lit, this posed as a real challenge and I spent a lot of time pausing, zooming in, and even had to break out my high-powered glasses for to actually make out certain items hidden in the background chase between Billy and Stripe; and I would do it again in a heartbeat! That’s the fun in all this, and I’m happy to the nerdy Lord’s work for the Internets to appease nostalgic nuggets like myself. This is the kind of shit I want to see on my feed, so I can only suspect those who follow me feel the same.

Anyways, enjoy what I found!

80s ET Faux-Leather Doll

So we’re gonna start with the most obvious one here all fans of the movie have seen-The ET doll shown here along with some Looney Tunes plushies from Warner Bros. The green jacket or blouse can throw you off a bit without a keen eye for observation, but this is, in fact, an ET vinyl doll that was mass-produced back in 1982 by KAMAR. Obviously, this ET doll itself was sold without any clothes, so production just threw something on ET to cover his naked ass for filming. Also, it’s a nice Easter egg in the film as in ET, the alien hides among stuffed animals from Elliot’s mom and the scene here has Stripe hiding among plushies as well hiding himself from Billy.

If you’re interested in purchasing a relic from your childhood, there’s a rough-looking one here on eBay for the nostalgic fan.

All the damn walking robots!

If there’s one toy that maintained consistency throughout the 80s, it’s the flashing walking robot. This toy was made by so many different companies and while they all looked a bit similar, there were very distinct differences in various models like missle launching, rolling, walking with their feet, to rotating a full 360 degrees. On the far left here, right before you see Gizmo come crashing through the scene, you’ll see one here that resembles the Magic Mike robot (heyo- not Channing Tatum) that was highly popular during this time made by New Bright. It was also known as Sonic Sam in some areas. I don’t believe THIS one in particular is a Magic Mike, as I could not for the life of me pinpoint the exact model, but it’s pretty damn close!

In this scene here where Billy is cautiously walking around after getting attacked with a chainsaw, we have a pair of robots anxiously hanging out waiting for the second round of Billy Vs Stripe. The red guy in the back has an upper body that rotates a full 360 with blinking lights in its chest which I do believe to be the Rotate-O-Matic Super Astronaut Robot made by Horikawa- who produced dozens of models of these as early as the 1960s! The white one in front looks to be another version of a New Bright model mentioned previously.

The Mad Magazine Board Game!

Behind an army of Odies’ and next to the Survive! game is the long-forgotten board game of the Mad Magazine game made by Parker Brothers that debuted in 1979! The game, in pure MAD fashion, is outright bonkers and basically is played the complete opposite of Monopoly with the person going bankrupt as the winner. The game will also have you doing some off-the-wall shit when you pick up cards that say things like, “If you like this game, cross your legs, sit on your hands, cackle like a chicken and lose 1 egg; also $500” or “If you are good-looking, stand up and imitate your favorite animal, and lose $2000.” It was a pretty fun game back in the day.

Barbie Remote Control Super Vette Car

Midnight Barbie Horse

Barbie Bath Set

In the same scene with the robots, there’s an awful lot of Barbie merchandise hanging around! First up is the 1979 Barbie Remote Control Super Vette Car seen on the far right on the shelves. This was the first remote control car vetted for fans of Barbie!

Next up is Barbie’s Midnight horse that first came to market in 1980 and was part of a long line of horses Barbie apparently owned since 1970. I should also note that mold here, known as the “Dallas” mold is the same mold used for Rainbow Brite’s horse Starlight in 1983!

Lastly, we have the Barbie Bubble Bath set from 1984 that literally ALL young Barbie fanatics either wanted or had. Throwing Babs around all day in the mud, we needed a way to bathe her properly dammit. And if you had the Dream House, you had to have the bathtub.

Garfield Plushies!

You basically couldn’t go anywhere in the 80s and not come across Garfield merchandise. Whether he was stuck to a car windshield or you had the infamous Garfield rotary telephone, he and his immense appetite for attention was inescapable- and we wouldn’t have had it any other way! Produced by Dakin toys, Garfield plushies were available in just about every department store, even making his way several times to McDonald’s’s as part of a Happy Meal or holiday portion in the form of dolls, action figures, and that one mug everyone had when we were kids at Grandma’s house.

You know the one…

If the next time you pop GREMLINS into your VHS for a rewatch and start scouring Kingston Falls Montgomery Ward for other toys not listed here, I feel like I’ve done my good deed for the day. If you got a kick out of this, check out the vintage toys I spotted in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT!