Best Kids' Television Commercials from the 1970s

I was born in 1977 so many of the commercials ran during the 1970s are not familiar to me. While researching on YouTube, I found some real treasures.

Recently my sister-in-law and her soon to be husband decided it was a good idea to buy my 5 and 6 year old a Lite Brite. I can remember advertisements about Lite Brite as a child and thinking it looked like a neat toy. Lite Brite is a neat toy for children but a headache for parents as there are many different colored pegs that get lost everywhere. My vacuum cleaner now has more of the lights than the Lite Brite. Lite Brite equals vacuum cleaner food. Not good. For sentimental purposes, here is a nice commercial I found about the toy on YouTube. youtube.com.

Another game that caught my eye during the early 1980s was Trouble. The pop told you what spaces to move. Interestingly, this is an older version of the game but contains the same basic premise. Trouble has sold many games in their time so why fix what works? To walk down memory lane and visit Trouble here is a commercial I found on YouTube. youtube.com

A popular toy spanning several decades is the Slinky. I never could get my Slinky to hobble down the stairs like in most Slinky commercials. Usually the Slinky lasted about an hour before being twisted up and unable to be used. "Slinky for fun, it's a wonderful toy, it is fun for a girl or a boy" until it gets wrapped around itself and is useless. There is supposed to be a remedy for it being wrapped around itself but I never learned it. Here is a 1970's classic commercial for Slinky. youtube.com

A toy I wanted more than any other was the Easy Bake Oven. My parents did not instill the value of cooking/baking in me as a child or an adolescent. In 2001 at the young age of 24, my father-in-law bought me an Easy Bake Oven as a joke. I still have the oven and plan on giving it to my daughter when she is old enough. It is remarkable to me how different the oven looks now and how back then it used real Betty Crocker mixes. youtube.com

Most children at least in the United States have played the game Operation. I do not have the steadiness of hand required for this game and could never play it. Many versions of Operation now exist. We purchased the Sponge Bob version for our son last Christmas and he beats me every time. For a walk down memory lane here is a 1970s version of an Operation game. youtube.com

The pinnacle of 1970s toys came in the later part of the decade with the release of Atari 2600. Atari 2600 was the game system that made Pac Man what it is today. This specific commercial was for Berzerk, an Atari 2600 game. It shows an older lady leaving to go to an arcade to play the game when the young boy told her they could play at home on Atari. youtube.com