This commercial is actually from 1959 (not 1962). The items and cars described are in the 1959 Lionel catalog and this commercial appears in the 1959 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast video I just saw on Vimeo.
Every time I watch this, just for fun, I love the way the kids look at each other with those huge smiles right after they've blown up the boxcar. A sign of things to come for the Lionel company!
Brings back so many memories 😉 in 62 my brother got his 1st Lionel Train for Christmas 🚂 the kids in this are bout same age as my older brother & I , He still Collects Lionel trains 😉 He's 68 🚂 Merry Christmas Everyone 🎄 🎅💗
I got my first LIONEL in 1956. The following Christmas it ran on Super ‘O’, and the train and track are still around the Christmas tree today!🎄🚂 I still collect them too, and got my 2 year old nephew into trains😃 Merry Christmas to you too!
This is where a Lionel started to lose its direction it was trying to make itself popular as a toy but it should have promoted it as a hobby. Practically everybody had a cheap circle of Lionel track that just went around the Christmas tree at Christmas time and the only time it came out of the closet was at the holiday season. You took the track out you set it up you played with it you took the track apart you put everything back in the boxes and you put it away. It wasn't like you built a layout with scenery and buildings and people and accessories. The helicopter car would launch the helicopter one time it would hit the wall and get destroyed. They tried to stay current with the space race with space cars and launchers and stuff like that and real hobbyists weren't interested in that type of crap. The continued cheapening of the line turned off and insulted many of their customers. Lionel made good stuff mediocre stuff and some downright garbage. Not everything they made was Cadillac grade. You could make a decent o gauge layout for the same space requirements as a big h o scale layout. Remember when everything under a Christmas tree including the wrapping paper the tree itself the ornaments everything was American made to close they got for Christmas for American made the toys they got for Christmas for American made everything we had used to be American made and now nothing is American made how sad that is.
American Citizen Historic background: 1962 is post WW2 America and the Cold War is on. Kids play cops and robbers, play “Army” etc with toy guns. Also space, rockets and airplanes have caught the fascination of kids. Less and less do they want to just play with a train. So as an attempt to stop the declining sales, Lionel introduces things like rockets etc to try to create more interest. The decline that started around 1956 only continued by 1962, and 7 years after this commercial Lionel closed its doors in NJ and sold to General Mills Corp model division who produced the trains until 1985. 2 more sales and then sold to its present owners, Lionel just celebrated its 120th Anniversary as one of the most recognizable icons in America. Should kids have been firing rockets and shooting toy guns? It was a different era. Today they are told they can have safe spaces and there are people who think gender identity should be, well, you see where I’m going with this. Life isn’t perfect. Every generation is born into “something”.
Yeeesss, mom and dad, what better way to build your child's strong character than a train that blows things up and makes magical childhood memories over and over again. Just look at that smile on little sister's face as she cradles that murderous little copter! It's a gift of violence that'll keep on giving for the rest of their lives. :-) :-)
This commercial is actually from 1959 (not 1962). The items and cars described are in the 1959 Lionel catalog and this commercial appears in the 1959 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast video I just saw on Vimeo.
Every time I watch this, just for fun, I love the way the kids look at each other with those huge smiles right after they've blown up the boxcar. A sign of things to come for the Lionel company!
Brings back so many memories 😉 in 62 my brother got his 1st Lionel Train for Christmas 🚂 the kids in this are bout same age as my older brother & I , He still Collects Lionel trains 😉 He's 68 🚂 Merry Christmas Everyone 🎄 🎅💗
I got my first LIONEL in 1956. The following Christmas it ran on Super ‘O’, and the train and track are still around the Christmas tree today!🎄🚂
I still collect them too, and got my 2 year old nephew into trains😃
Merry Christmas to you too!
I always liked Super “0” track too and still use it extensively.
Yes, and that was a Soviet box car blowing up in 62! Super memory.
🎆subscribed 🎆
Toy trains and Christmas 2
55 years 1962-2017
Great commercial, but when you think about what happened in 1962, the IRBM launcher that comes with it is a bit fucked up.
i think lionel would be the only reason i wish i was born during that time or just time travel and buy the trains XD
Awsum 🚂😎👍
Just realised triang/hornby re scaled these to be items in the battlespace range.
Wow. Kids learn to launch rockets into train cars!
But I think Lionel Should make a redo if this Toy train commercial.
This is where a Lionel started to lose its direction it was trying to make itself popular as a toy but it should have promoted it as a hobby. Practically everybody had a cheap circle of Lionel track that just went around the Christmas tree at Christmas time and the only time it came out of the closet was at the holiday season. You took the track out you set it up you played with it you took the track apart you put everything back in the boxes and you put it away. It wasn't like you built a layout with scenery and buildings and people and accessories. The helicopter car would launch the helicopter one time it would hit the wall and get destroyed. They tried to stay current with the space race with space cars and launchers and stuff like that and real hobbyists weren't interested in that type of crap. The continued cheapening of the line turned off and insulted many of their customers. Lionel made good stuff mediocre stuff and some downright garbage. Not everything they made was Cadillac grade. You could make a decent o gauge layout for the same space requirements as a big h o scale layout. Remember when everything under a Christmas tree including the wrapping paper the tree itself the ornaments everything was American made to close they got for Christmas for American made the toys they got for Christmas for American made everything we had used to be American made and now nothing is American made how sad that is.
Did the rocket have an atomic or chemical weapons warhead?
I think it had a plastic one. Just a hunch.
American Citizen
Historic background:
1962 is post WW2 America and the Cold War is on. Kids play cops and robbers, play “Army” etc with toy guns.
Also space, rockets and airplanes have caught the fascination of kids. Less and less do they want to just play with a train. So as an attempt to stop the declining sales, Lionel introduces things like rockets etc to try to create more interest. The decline that started around 1956 only continued by 1962, and 7 years after this commercial Lionel closed its doors in NJ and sold to General Mills Corp model division who produced the trains until 1985. 2 more sales and then sold to its present owners, Lionel just celebrated its 120th Anniversary as one of the most recognizable icons in America.
Should kids have been firing rockets and shooting toy guns? It was a different era. Today they are told they can have safe spaces and there are people who think gender identity should be, well, you see where I’m going with this. Life isn’t perfect. Every generation is born into “something”.
Why a trainset with a missle launcher xD
mariksourcemaps why not?
Lionel vs space age
@@TailsFan369no2 Lionel with Roy Cohn as CEO :-( This CRAP drove the company under a few short years later.
I have a Train Set!
Meaning of.
Yeeesss, mom and dad, what better way to build your child's strong character than a train that blows things up and makes magical childhood memories over and over again. Just look at that smile on little sister's face as she cradles that murderous little copter! It's a gift of violence that'll keep on giving for the rest of their lives. :-) :-)
Sarcasm?
@0:40 - Did Comrade Trump have this?
What?
Yeah that Russia bullshit never panned out another one of your guys libtarded lies! TRUMP 2020
He had REAL nuke launchers until Biden replaced him. Of course he might get them back come January, 2025.