I used to love to play with erector sets
I had one of those, I'm thinking 1969ish. The creatures came in the form of little flattened blocks and you put them in the cooker so they'd open up.
I also had a geology set with lots of different mineral samples. One of those samples was a chunk of asbestos.
Johnny Reb Cannon. I took head off the ramrod and converted it into a makeshift harpoon gun. It was awesome (and unsafe).
Now yer talkin. Brother had one around 1962 or so. Darn thing was nearly lethal.
Ask my cousin, she took one to the chest for tattling.
GI JOE (the real one, not the puny pretenders)
Johnny West
Big Jim
Major Matt Mason
Action Jackson
Mego Super Heroes
Captain Action
Stretch Armstrong... We broke one and a bunch of goop came out.
I forgot about Jonny West. I had hours of fun messing around with those toys.
I also had the Mattel Vacu-form machine... It would basically heat up thin sheets of plastic, and then you would pump the air out and the plastic would form to your "mold" to make race car bodies and other toys. When Creepy Crawlers came out, you could buy molds that would fit on the heating tray of the vacu-form to "cook" the plastic into all kinds of worms, bugs and other critters. My favorite was a shrunken head that I'd make with glow in the dark plastic. I'm sure the safety nazis would have a field day with something like that today!
What was the name of Johnny West's Indian sidekick? I can't remember for the life of me.