Mark wrote:

(Yes, I'm still ****ed off about the total crap sitting on store shelves
wearing the Tonka brand name. Hasbro, you suck, and I don't mean that in
a Wreck way.)

Only damage to the Tonka was the bed side got bent. Axles didn't bend and
the tires didn't break.

Those were toys built to last.

Yes they were! I have some old Tonka stuff from the '70s myself. The
plastic windshields and cab interiors look worse for wear, but the metal
stuff is still fine. I have a couple of pumper trucks with little rubber
push bulb things to shoot water out a hose. They still work.

I watched Tonka's downfall with my son. Around '94, we bought a dump truck
and a back hoe. He eventually broke the back hoe, after digging lots of
real rocky dirt with the thing for hours on end. In around '97 we bought
him another one. The whole arm and bucket on the thing were PLASTIC. It
lasted a couple of months.

The first one was made in America. The second one in China. What's worse,
they started slapping Tonka logos on all kinds of Chinese low budget crap.
The kind of cheap little car stuff you'd buy for your kid to give away at a
birthday party. Nothing even Tonkaesque about them.

I hate Hasbro. Look around. They're the Microsoft of the toy world. They
own Parker Bros., Milton Bradley, ad nauseum. You can tell when they've
taken over someone new because you go to buy a new copy of a favorite old
game, and now it's new and incredibly crappy for twice the price.

Sorry. Rant off. I know this is totally off-topic, unless you go so far as
to mention that they do still sell ultra premium Monopoly sets with wooden
houses. (OBWWR... wooden houses, see...)

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/