![\"Installing](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Navarone.jpg?resize=251%2C258&ssl=1\" "\\"Installing")
<\/p>\nAt some point, I suppose it’s inevitable that one looks back upon childhood and thinks about toys. No matter your generation, your toys were much cooler than the new-fangled gizmos the current generation plays with, and darn it, I’m right about that. Because not much can compare to Marx Toys’ Navarone Play Set!<\/p>\n
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Note that this large, grey play set, displayed here in a happy moment on Christmas Day, 1976, does not seem to be officially linked to Alistair MacLean’s The Guns of Navarone<\/em> action-thriller novel from 1957 nor the 1961 movie based upon the same. There’s no tie-in language on the packaging, which can be seen in a story on the Official Marx Toy Museum from the July 13, 2008, Reading Eagle<\/em><\/a>, and the name of the play set from the box is “Famous World War II Battle of Navarone Giant Play Set,” not “The Guns of Navarone Play Set.”<\/p>\n But, um, Navarone doesn’t actually exist<\/a> outside of MacLean’s fervid imagination, and there was no “Famous World War II Battle” there outside of book covers or movie theaters. I suppose IP lawyers were less active in those days. To live in simpler times…<\/p>\n The play set itself was, for a young lad, a work of beauty and genius all at once. Lots of cannons, rope ladders for scaling the face of the mountain, a working elevator in the back, and even bunk beds! And tons and tons of plastic army men—not that I didn’t have tons anyway, but more was always better. It was, in truth, sort of a Barbie house for plastic army men, though one bristled at the comparison at the time.<\/p>\n According to the 1976 JCPenney Christmas Catalog entry for this item (pictured above), we’re talking nine pounds of injection molded plastic fun!<\/p>\n Of note, there’s nothing electronic about the Navarone Play Set—no battery-powered sirens, no wind-up tanks or flashing lights, just plastic and imagination. By the time the G.I. Joe action figures<\/a> came out in the early 1980s, I still had the play set, and the Joes fought Cobra where once the green army men fought the grey ones, even if it was a bit of a tight fit.<\/p>\n I’m not the only person to fondly remember this toy. The set fetches high prices on the auction market, and there’s even a video demonstration of the set<\/a>, narrated by a lucky kid whose father is letting him play with it.<\/p>\n (Image courtesy of Wishbook<\/a> via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike License<\/a>.)<\/p>\n [Update September 3, 2021: Image link to the Navarone Playset in the Sears Wishbook above no longer works. A similar image can be found here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At some point, I suppose it’s inevitable that one looks back upon childhood and thinks about toys. No matter your generation, your toys were much cooler than the new-fangled gizmos the current generation plays with, and darn it, I’m right about that. Because not much can compare to Marx Toys’ Navarone Play Set! Note that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[135,136],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toys","tag-lost-toys","tag-marx"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pedXm-7X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6234,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/6234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Detail](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chrisbaer.net\/mp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/playset_detail.jpg?resize=630%2C410&ssl=1\" "\\"Detail")
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