My mom and I are watching Gangs of New York and having a completely unrelated conversation. We ended up, somehow, talking about old toys.

She said her favorite toy was a "white train with a teddy bear that played records" in disbelief of such a device, I googled it. First result... The Tomy Tuneyville Choo Choo Train.

Despite searching for a long time, she never could find it (or even find the name), but she wanted one badly. It took me one google search to find it. An hour ago, you could have bought this one on Etsy, but I snatched it up as we were talking.

She remembers playing with it on the dining room floor, just before her parents got divorced.

It's hard for me to remember most of my childhood, but I think my favorite toy (I had a lot of them because I was a spoiled brat until my little sister was born), would be either this Kiddicraft Musical Puppy wind-up toy or my Barney Banjo. (It took me longer to find the wind-up toy than it did my mom's 1975 record train!).

I remember winding up that puppy and singing along with it (bark bark! ever few bars). And I remember my mom buying me that banjo after I'd gotten out of one of the numerous surgeries I had to have when I was little. I still have the musical puppy, and I think I still have the Banjo in storage.

This got my thinking.

On one hand, my mom and I both liked toys that played music, and between her train and my wind-up musical puppy, there isn't much difference. But the banjo had a laser! (or IR, whatever). Then I thought about my little sister's toys when she actually was little. Toys have changed, and that's kind of interesting.

So, what were your favorite toys as a child? What do you remember the most about them? Do you still have them?