Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Lite-Brite Making Things With Light


Lite-Brite by Hasbro - A Childhood Favorite




Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, we kids loved playing with hot things such as the Easy Bake or Holly Hobbie ovens. It's no surprise Hasbro's Lite-Brite made us smile big. Who wouldn't enjoy sticking tiny colored transparent pegs into a hot-as-hell black screen powered by a high-voltage light bulb?

More importantly, who didn't get down with the jingle? I mean, how could we resist singing along to commercial which includes the line, "Outasite making things with Lite-Brite"

Oh the joy of shutting that overhead lighting and taking in the finished product. I can remember the anticipation as if it were yesterday.

P.S. The Bozo The Clown image always freaked me out. Still does.












29 comments:

  1. Loved the light bright. My grandma had one and we'd play with it for awhile and then spend 30 minutes trying to find all the little plastic lights scattered everywhere.

    Do they still make these?

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  2. I loved my lite brite, too. Ahhh...some toys were just meant to bring back good memories. :)

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  3. Oh my gosh... all those little pegs EVERYWHERE. They were a pain in the butt, but a really cool toy.

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  4. I always wanted the refills to make Bozo and bugs. My parents didn't get me any of it. I was stuck with capsella– motorized legos.

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  5. Scream! This was my absolute favorite! Outta sight, making things with lite brite!
    Cheers,
    Robyn

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  6. Wow, that takes me back. I *loved* that! And I had the oven and Holly Hobbie stuff. Those advertisers must have read our whole generation hook, line and sinker.

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  7. I just hope these were still available. The commercial sounds pretty exciting...:)
    I hate clowns. One guy in particular - Ronald McDonald! eerie

    Have a good day!:)

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  8. I see what you mean about that clown - he looks a bit... disturbed. yikes.

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  9. You did it again! Took me right back to one of my favorite childhood memories. How did you know?? I have to search your blog and see if you have a Strawberry Shortcake post somewhere. Then I will be convinced that we are long lost BFF's.

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  10. Do you remember how the black paper got all over your hands?

    I had one and then bought the newer version for my girl a couple of years back. The pieces drove me nuts!

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  11. Another Lite-Brite fan here!

    I have fond memories of trying to negotiate the rainbow Lite-Brite pegs out of the mustard-colored shag carpet that I had in my bedroom back in the late 80s.

    We still refer to it as the "Light-Brite carpet".

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  12. I used to love that mess. The Popeye ones were my favorite.

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  13. Well, these were incredibly fun to play with and create cool things! We never were able to do as will as the littel punk on the commercial. We had a lot of, shall we say, "abstract" or "impreesionist" work on our lite-brite!

    Thanks for the memorie, Ally!

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  14. Wow - it must be early. I just had to follow that up to let everyone know I'm not a COMPLETE idiot :)

    well
    little
    pinks
    impressionist
    memories

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  15. ...punks...

    I'm going home and back to bed now...

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  16. I LOVED my Lite-Brite!

    I actually still have it in a box somewhere in my basement, along with the cool patterns to follow.

    My husband and I went through some boxes last year to try and get rid of things, but I could not part with my Lite-Brite!

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  17. i LOVED lite-brite! do you remember colorforms?

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  18. I just used it to make perverse images and spell out bad words.

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  19. I was so jealous of my friend Jenny who had this and also Speak 'n' Spell.

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  20. We didn't have that here, or at least I can't remember it. But I really want it! Maybe we had it. I really feel like it was something I would have loved as a child. So cool (or hot as the case may be)

    The Clean White Page

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  21. I had such fond memories of not actually playing with it but watching the commercials. Those marketing people were awesome.

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  22. OMGosh, I LOVED my Lite Brite...I was more a free-style artist, than a follow the pattern one, LOL.

    My favorite were Colorforms, as someone else mentioned. Unless they bent and wouldn't stick any more, boooooo.

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  23. I loved the lite brite too! I got my 8 year old the newer version a few years back and it just wasnt the same....she didnt seem to think it was nearly as cool as I did either!

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  24. I loved the Lite-Brite too. I played with it as an adult with my kids.

    And I've always felt like I missed out on something with the Easy Bake Oven. That came out long after I was grown, but whenever I see one in the resale shop I'm tempted to buy it and try cooking something just for fun.

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  25. I had a KISS theme Lite Bright back in yesteryear (not a a hole theme, but the screen for the logo)and I thought I was the shit when I finished that.

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  26. had it. and loved it, and you know how i talked about hoarding things?? yeah, it's still out in the "memory box"... pegs and all.... =)

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  27. I loved my lite brite! I never made anything that resembled art, but I was very good at filling every hole with a colored peg.... I took me a really really long time, but when I finished it, I felt like I accomplished something.

    Then my little brother would come downstairs and take out all the pegs and rip all the black sheets of paper.... He was 2, but I know he was just doing to make me angry....

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