Seen In San Francisco: Childhood's End -- Trove of Nostalgia-Inducing Toys Left, Broken, on Street

Joe Eskenazi

​There's a well-worn old joke about a gorgeous young woman walking into an elderly man's hotel room, gasping, and exclaiming "I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong room."

The old man laughs and assures her she's in the right room. "You're just 50 years too late."

Your humble narrator was only 25 years or so late to this marvelous pile of junked toys, spotted on Church and 16th taking up space next to a trash can. Yes that is a G.I. Joe helicopter and a Robotech-like Transformer jet.
Oh, I remember these toys -- though, in my memories, they aren't made out of such cheap-looking plastic, and you could choke on the little missiles and other projectiles much more easily. You could also shoot your eye out, kid.

For my money, I'm not sure there was any better execution of the Transformers concept than the "Jetfire" robot-plane. It's two things kids love: Robots and planes. That's much more fun than the transformers who converted into a tapedeck -- high-tech! -- that didn't really play tapes; a gun realistic enough to get you plugged by a trigger-happy cop; or whatever this is.

Those toys sure do look beaten up. Hopefully they were played with and not simply destroyed.