A great old Lionel commercial

A fun to watch classic!

These never get old.

Wonder how many film "takes" it took to show these working correctly?

Too bad YouTube doesn't have the video for this:

"Wow... send it to my house!  Lionel!"

Jon 

I remember the day Alan Shepard went up in the project Mercury capsule.  It was a big deal even tho it was only a few minute suborbital flight.  A car like that on my strictly toy layout would be kinda neat.

CWEX....you just made my day!!  It has been a typical Monday but this sure helped!!

Thanks,

Alan

Alan glad to help the day...  Here is another....

Yeah Chris, it was tough being a kid in those days.  You talk about a long wish list back then. A wish list was all it was though for me while growing up.

Thanks for sharing.  Have a nice day.

Ken

When you look at what that child is limited to for entertainment with all the great choices kids have available today, like all else from the 50's and 60's that fell from favor, its a testament as to why in this day and age Its difficult to imagine how Lionels traditional product line could ever see that high level of popularity again.

Joe

This one from 1980 is pretty neat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O1BmX5DMmk

I believe one of the TM Books mentioned the trains in the commercial came right out of the Lionel archives, some brand new still in original boxes.

Remember boy...

That phrase just kills me!

I'm a huge fan of 50's and 60's Black and White TV shows and commercials. Thanks for posting. My kids are not fans although they wil watch with me on occasion. Something magic happens when I watch B&W shows, everything slows down. Always puts me in the mood to run a few laps of conventional. 

I had not seen all of these before and didn't realize they called them Science Kits in the first two commercials. Thank you very much for sharing! Put a smile on my face!

Made me remember the US' post-Sputnik first satellite launch:

p

If only it had gone as well as that tricked commercial.

Pete

Hi Chris ,

Thanks for posting these clips, it's such a joy to watch

Alex

Glad you all are enjoying them...it really is a treat to watch these. 

Great Viewing, Thank You.

I enjoyed watching, thanks

Doug

Thanks for posting these clips. I have never seen these before. But a department store here in town use to have all of these cars....that is where I "dreamed" a lot.

didn't realize they called them Science Kits

I believe the science kits were actually a separate line that started out as Lionel-Porter kits.  As I recall, they were mostly chemistry kits and it seemed to me that they were made to compete with the A. C. Gilbert line of science kits.

Found the following link: http://www.chemheritage.org/di...t-chemistry-set.aspx

I noticed that also.  Can they say that ? 

Sad part is, I remember those commercials...

Those were the days. my 2-4-2 and a minute man car....

Yeah, why didn't they think up some good stuff to help sell the girls' trains? Could have had nice pastel houses and stores and stations, and gondolas with seats to haul the dolls around in.

Just curious.  Did anyone who actually owned those accessories ever get theirs to perform as well as the ones in that commercial spot?

Pete

Got to give Lionel credit. They really knew how to advertise back then. They made the trains and accessories look far better than they really were. After the kids ran to the store to get these space toys; as soon as they got home, they operated nothing like what was shown. You'd be lucky to get more than 1 second of flight out of those contraptions.

 Maybe they should have mad Rail Road Barbie !!!

Thanks that was enjoying 

And that was the beginning of the end of Lionel.

Thanks for posting Chris.

I saw this thing in a commercial, I think it was on a TM video.

When was the space ship made?....60's or so?

I've been looking at some old Lionel catalogues from the 1950's and they're a bit strong with hype. Also the drawings of train items aren't entirely accurate, for example showing a much smaller pilot gap on an FA loco. Can't help but wonder if that's part of the reason why sales were falling off by the late 1950's.

Thanks for the amusing vintage videos.