All Wound Up

I've always loved wind-up toys. Back when I was a kid I had tons of the little wind-up animals and robots (most made by the manufacturer Tomy.) Penguins and Geese and Chicks and R2-D2 knockoffs - they were all fun and probably inexpensive which would explain why my Mom bought me so many over the years.

Nowadays if I find them at the flea market or a garage sale and they 1) work 2) aren't broken and 3) are cheap, I will usually bring them home for my little intern to play with. Unfortunately when I do find them they rarely work, and if they do they are rarely cheap or unbroken. The following three are recent exceptions (well, for the most part:)

I just brought Snoopy home this past weekend. He has your straight-forward walking motion wind-up feature. He was made by Aviva Entertainment and does not have a manufacture date on him. One of his foot-prongs is broken off, which is pretty par for the course for these type of wind-ups, but he still walks ok and displays well so I can forgive the slight blemish on an otherwise beautiful example of wind-up-dom.

Donald Duck waddles like a wind-up goose I had as a kid (you  probably had one too!) He works perfectly and looks great. Donald Duck was manufactured by Tomy and also lacks a manufacture date.

Mickey Mouse is another Tomy release and is the only one with a manufacture date: 1977. He's also missing a foot-prong, and doesn't walk well without it (although his wind-up motor runs fine). But having Donald already, I couldn't pass up on this guy when I found him at the flea market a few weeks back. I'm guessing Donald is probably also a 1977 release, as both Disney examples have sticker eyes and similar aesthetics.

I'm pretty sure I had a hopping Woodstock when I was a kid, I'll have to be on the lookout for him to complete the quartet!