Favorite Christmas Presents, part two

In 1975, when I was seven years old, I came downstairs on Christmas Day to one of my favorite Christmas presents of all time, the Evel Knievel action figure with wind up motorcycle. My younger brothers, who were only three and four years old at the time, also got one.

The toy worked like this: You'd place Evel on his motorcycle, place the motorcycle on the wind up launch pad, and turn the hand crank like a madman (This is probably the impetus of the shoulder injury I had earlier this year). Once you were completely exhausted you pressed some switch and Evel took off on the motorcyle. Sometimes he'd pop a wheelie while he was riding. You could take him up a makeshift ramp. The TV commercial (see below) always showed Evel nailing the jump and then merrily riding away into the sunset in a manner that defied real physics. That didn't matter, though. As kids we all understood that the real fun was watching Evel wipe out.

We didn't have the van or the rocket ship or anything else, just Evel and his motorcycle. I absolutely LOVED this toy. Unfortunately, I also recall that it didn't last very long. I think we broke it fairly quickly, probably because we eventually started setting Evel up to fail, creating ramps that ran directly into walls and doors. Still, it was fun while it lasted.