I worked at a company called Jones Plastics in Louisville Kentucky right out of high school. My first day on the job was operating a mold injection machine that was making Castle Grayskull.

My cousin had all of it. All the playsets. It was a basement of playing tables set into rows of playsets with the figures to fill them and he would never let me play with them. But one night during a stay over, I snuck out. I clung to the shadows and down to the basement I went, while everyone was asleep. When I turned on the light... I swear to god I heard angel's. I played all night long. In the end I put everything back the way it was and he was none the wiser.

My first action figure fortress was a cardboard house my mom made for me when I was 2.....I'm 42 and still own it....lol

How could you forget the best playset of all, Dan? Your bed! It was everything from the strange surface of a mysterious new planet to the bottom of the ocean to a cliff overlooking the battlefield (aka the floor). I'll stay subscribed, for now, but just know that you are on thin ice, mister!

Dan, this list made me nostalgic for my favorite action figure playset growing up , the staircase. Serviceable as a cliff side or a underground fortress with many levels below ground, it entertained me and my brother for hours.

I must say, of all the playsets that I had the privilege of owning and playing with back in the day, my all-time favorite is the LJN WWF wrestling ring!! I can't even begin to express how much fun my buddies and I had with this thing, and of course, the WWF figures. Very, very powerful memories right there!!

10- Bedroom 09- Living room 08-Styrofoam packing material 07- Wooden blocks 06- Legos/Megablocks 05- Construx 04- Erector 03- Cardboard boxes 02- Picnic table & benches 01- Front porch with driveway Lets be honest, most of these sorts of things got far more use than store bought playsets. We may have set up our GI Joe Command Center on the front porch, but you can't fit all those action figures, vehicles and weapons emplacements inside the Command Center. Plus, everybody's Skystrikers, X-Wings and Starbird Intruders looked awesome lined up on the driveway (if nobody was parked there).

There's a retro toy store near me that had a USS Flagg in the front display window for a while. Not sure how complete it was, but it was definitely impressive. In its place now are multiple Castle Greyskulls. *Multiple* There's an entire neighborhood of Castle Greyskulls where one USS Flagg was.

As a one-time USS Flagg owner when I was a kid in the 80s, everyone knows that this is the all-time #1 playset (and holy grail of toys) back in the 80s.

Dude, come on. Styrofoam. It's often found in the very cardboard boxes you speak of. Sometimes it has multiple compartments that serve as various rooms and hallways throughout the "base" that your imagination makes it out to be. And then when the other side attacks you get ultra-realistic battle damage!

My favorite as a kid was the Panosh Place Voltron Castle of Lions. It was big, came with two vehicles (one of which made the center tower), covered with guns and had a bunch of neat features for the action figures straight from the cartoon.

I wish my parents could've afforded any of the playsets I wanted when I was a kid. The Technodrome, the Kenner Death Star, the Ghostbusters Firehouse, and the Batcave were all on my wishlist. My preschool class had a Castle Greyskull in its toy collection, and everyone raced to be the first to play with it during playtime. And I actually recall a few different Batcaves over the years, but the most elaborate one I remember was the Batman Forever Batcave, which had three or four separate platforms all connected by a zipline.

Tree wasn't number one? Grandma's bookshelf coming in behind dirt?! No room on the list for stairs? I'm confused and angry!

I used to bunch my comforter up to make mountains and bases, don't feel bad about your picks dan

As I child, I was never really in to playsets. As an adult, I regret everything.

Totally with Dan on this one... The sofa, the rug, the staircase, the bed (rappeling my GI Joes from the top of my bunk bed!), cardboard boxes, styrofoam packaging, my sister's Fisher-Price house (great for urban warfare scenarios, more so if you made barricades out of Lego bricks), my dad's studio (forbidden land)... Best playsets ever!

Thundercats cats lair

Often, especially with my Star Wars action figures, the front or back yard was the greatest playset imaginable. As a kid I was able to reproduce Dagobah, Endor and (in the winter) Hoth.

Fort Kerrium from BraveStarr was a pretty decent playset as it was the entire place when unfolded and a fortress when neatly tucked away. Good times.

You could never go wrong with cardboard boxes

No Transformers? Fortress Maximus? Metroplex???

The full garage for M.A.S.K was pretty bad ass. It was one that I was really proud of having as a kid.

As a kid i had a 4 sided castle in the corner of my room for several years. The Cat's Lair was in front, Castle GraySkull was on the right, Snake Mountain was on the left (so i couldn't see it at night when i was in bed, don't judge) & Boulder Hill from MASK in the back, but i called it Mount St. Hilary because that's where the Transformers base was. i had a few others along the way (TechnoDrome, Ewok Village, Fort Kerium, that big ass GI Joe Shuttle) but those main 4 stayed there for years before i finally moved them. And whenever i'd go to my mom's during the weekend i'd pack up my figures & transformers & literally evict my sister's Barbies from her dollhouse & use that as my figure's vacation house.

Glad to see the Ghostbusters HQ got the shout-out it deserved. One of my favorite toys ever. As a bonus, since it's supposed to be in New York, you could make it work reasonably well while playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Great crossover potential--who doesn't want to watch Egon Spengler and Donatello invent a way to recapture the spirit of dead samurai master summoned by General Krang from Dimension X?

I love playsets. I miss them. I mean now some toy companies sell diorama and diorama pieces. Playsets are dioramas you play with anyway.

One of my favorites was my mom and dads grow room in the basement. The weed made a great jungle.

The ghostbusters firehouse is still my favorite. The amount of hours and years I got out of that thing…still have it too. I also had and loved the 89 batcave.

Got the USS Flagg for Christmas '85 - still my greatest present ever.

Castle Greyskull is a good choice for number one. It was more attainable. I and a lot of my friends had Greyskull. I only knew one kid who had the USS Flagg, and I knew a lot of kids.

8:03 Is that his younger brother. Or a young Bruce Campbell.

i used to envy the kids in those toy commercials because they got to play in those detailed toy sets.

I always found the stairs to be the best playset. Nothing was quite as satisfying as ending a long battle with throwing all the bad guys over the edge.

My grandma’s living room decorative shelf...it served as Skeletor’s tower for a couple of years 😂 My favorite base that didn’t make the list is Cap Power’s Mountain Base, love that base

Thunderbirds Tracey Island was the playset I always wished I could have as a kid! Instead I just used the space under my bed as a hangar to house my Thunderbirds.

Cardboard boxes are amazing. My brother and I filled an entire huge basement room with cardboard boxes that we painstakingly assembled to make a cardboard Manhattan (completle with Empire State Building) for our TMNT figures.

I've never seen a fun list show devolve into existential dread so quickly. SO MUCH BLOOD!

i allways wanted the Command Compound from kenner Jurassic Park

Dungeons and Dragons had an awesome playset!

I can honestly say that as a little girl, anything and everything became a playset for my dolls. A small suitcase that used to belong to my grandmother became either a bathroom, walk- in closet, or a backstage dressing room. I had a child size rocking chair that if I laid it on the side, it became the front door to a house, if I laid it on it's back, it became a food stand. My Barbie Dreamhouse rarely got used and if it did, the middle part of the house often used to be either a spaceship as I imagined my dolls traveling through space or duplex apartments. When I've told my husband about all this, he just looks at me strangely and I just laugh, but he appreciates the fact that I was a kid with a vivid imagination.

I actually had that big GI Joe base set. I inherited it from my cousin when he got too old for GI Joe. I used that thing for years with all my various action figures. Absolutely loved that playset.

I had Snake Mountain. And it's still up in the attic somewhere :)

No Snake Mountain, no Thundercat's Lair, no Voltron Castle of Lions, no Sectaurs, no She-Ra castle, no Black Star, no Fortress Maximus, no Jurassic Park Command Compound, no Millennium Falcon...

One of the best playsets I ever had was a blue rocking chair in my grandmother's living room. I have vivid memories of playing with my older sister's Star Wars figures there in the late 80s/early 90s. A close second were wooden blocks in the play room at that house. I like the spirit of your list, Dan.

Wow. Fortress Maximus got shafted. It's a playset that changed into a character that also could be set on display in a corner. FM could easily replace almost any set on this list.

Come on?!?!?!? where is the batcave love?!?!?!

Why is everything bloody? WHY DAMN IT? WHY?

The USS Flag is the holy grail for me. I had lots of G.I.JOES and vehicles, but this one was always out of reach. A local vintage toy shop/museum has one it it was the first one I actually saw in person and it's as glorious as I always imagined.

your videos have always had such high production value! and they’ve gotten even better lately! love these videos

The coffee table was a more than serviceable Cloud City.

A decent list. I'd also add Starriors base, and Gobots Command Center. And not quite Play sets but the WW2 Stomper Tanks set with the movable track and blocks was a great set as was Crossbows and Catapults. Make your own bases with that stuff or combine. Like Starriors base at the end of the Stomper track and missile support from that GI Joe boardgame where you shot foam missiles at cardboard spring loaded targets. (Though we mostly just whipped the missiles at each other because it was fun.)

So many play sets that where not mention but you brought back memories. And styrofoam!!! When I was a kid I remember now , that my parents got a ceiling fan and I used the styrofoam to make a Star Wars Hoth play set from one of my moms magazines during the holiday. I thank you so much for getting my thoughts back to that time , it was truly priceless!!!!!

My grandmother had these fake plants that made an awesome secret base on top of her coffee table. That green foam was great for sticking weapons in to create the ultimate playset!

While perhaps not as big as the others I always had a soft spot for the 90s X-Men Headquarters Playset. The whole thing would close in such a way it would become a caring case for your other figures.

How is G1 Fortress Maximus not on the list? He was a playset with a ton of play features AND THEN YOU STAND HIM UP

The Captain Power: Power Base is by far one of the most innovative play sets of the 80s!

I had all those He Man things. I got it for Christmas and played with it everyday. The had such cool toys back in the 80s.

these lists make me sad cause I never got playsets as a kid, only figures and occasionally a small vehicle, nearly all of my play was theatre of the mind.

No Hyve??? It had a giant puppet SPIDER!!!

Im a playset collector and the only one I dont have on that list is the Classic MOTU Eternia set. I still hunt for it but cant substantiate it's price tag. I remember it sitting on KMarts shelf...and I passed on it to buy an entire wave of MOTU figs and vehicles. Surprised the the GIJoe Defiant playset isnt on here...its enormous and heavy! Another fave, the GIJoe Mobile Command Center and Wheel Warriors Battle Base was pretty sweet too. Another excellent video.

When I was a kid my stepdad worked in a coal mine. One day he brought home a case of standard size bars of "Lisa" branded soap. No idea how many bars, at least several dozen. I could build the best forts and walls out of that stuff. Combines with a green flannel sheet the possibilities for landscaping battlefields were endless. No joke on the books too, I still have the set of encyclopedias i used as kid.

I enjoyed the video, but I also have this urge to contact the authorities after seeing some of the pictures of your playset picks. Oh well, I'm sure it's fine. Great video!

The Ewok village would have made my top ten.

Can’t believe there was only one Star Wars. I loved my Dagobah set. Awesome. Also, loved MASK! Those toys were so well-made and so innovative. Can’t tell you how many lawns I mowed to collect those vehicles!

I with the furniture as playsets though, when I was a kid my nan had one of those old desks with loads of shelves and pull out sections. But to me it was a sick mission control for my Action man figures, turned that sucker into a fortress in my mind and I still think about it today. This channel has got me really nostalgic since I've found it, it's great

no batcave sad that was my first playset and only for a long time would use it all the time and would bild a city for the my storys to take place

Can someone tell me why everything is covered in blood or ransacked?

Great List and another great video. This really brought back some good memories of actual and improvised play sets I had as a child - including the legs of the dining room table and chairs as the Endor forest for my speeder bike. By the Power of Cardboard Box!

Yeah, like Dan, I had lots of figures, but, I was a little light on playsets. I had a sandbox, and, a dogwood tree in my backyard that stood in as an HQ for my GI Joes. I built some cool stuff with scrap wood, and, string.

No Fortress of Fangs? I am disappoint community

Sorry, but where is the *GI.joe Defiant playset?* For me, it's the beast!!!! Ever made!! 😀

Nothing better than Castle Grayskull and in this era Classics Castle Grayskull is a dream come true..

What I want in best of video is having zero clear shots of what is being listed and instead having them described to me in between the same joke being repeated non stop. What a great video.

Mighty Max!!

Hey cardboard is good it was the multipurpose playset for any tight budgeted dirt poor individual, just ask Nintendo and its overpriced Labo game set.

I totally understand your own list. That's all my playsets were growing up. Stack of books to me were mountains and hills to give the warriors better view advantage. Shelves were the towers and fortresses that they guard. 😀

I loved the ESB Hoth Playset with the collapsing corridor, and the Dagobah playset with the quicksand. but my favorite was He-Mans Snake Mountain - because I got one for Christmas. I loved that Castle Greyskull commercial... I wanted one so bad.

Best play set - Lego

No "Hall of Justice" this sucks

Dude I feel your pain. Though I had about half of the playsets I usually had to play with your choices. Ahh the fond memories of those massive bookshelves and all those boxes lol

I played with the G.I.Joe Mobile Command Center. Or I would make a play set outside. With sticks,rocks,dirt,nails and string. I even dug some little fox holes for my Joes. I had everything a little runway for my Sky Strikers and my Tomahawks and a vehicle depot for all my ground assets. You talk about some fun times. I would spend hours and hours outside building and playing wars. Man those were great times.

This "my pick was" is idiotic if they asked for sets.. just inflates the vid length...

He is nt as funny as he thinks

Mattel Captain Power - Power Base! I had a lot of fun with that when I was little... It all so served as my 1989 Movie Batman's Batcave when I was playing with him too...! Great fun!

I still have my 1982 castle greyskull. I was a birthday gift and I just kept it. Still in great shape.

I remember my best friend ever had that ORIGINAL he-man castle.. his words exactly were "this will knock your socks off!".. i haven't thought of that in 30years.. he died a few years back. Best friend ever. damn

I had the G.I. Joe giant dual missle truck, Castle Greyskull, & a couple of the collapsible hot wheels playsets!!😁 ahhh... Good times..😁

I built my own out of cardboard, hot glue and packing tape. Had castles, space outposts, hangars and others. My Grandfather built me a castle with a draw bridge, trap door and a dungeon. Closest thing to Castle Greyskull I ever had.

God bless my grandmother. Thanks to her I had a good amount of Play sets and bases (even though I too used cardboard boxes). Here's what I had: -Castle Grayskull -Snake Mountain -Doctor Doom's Castle (Secret Wars) -Castle of Lions -Fortress Maximus -Scorponok -Sewer Playset (Old version) -Technodrome I shudder to think how much all that costs especially adjusted for inflation.

For me, it was the original Kenner Star Wars Droid Factory. It was Lego Star Wars decades before actual Lego Star Wars. Dozens of droid parts made for countless combinations. It was a veritable gold mine of entertainment value for a robot-loving '70s kid like me.

I totally and completely agree with you, Dan- cardboard boxes is where its at! Playsets were absolutely unattainable to me as a child, so I simply constructed my own out of- you guessed it- cardboard boxes. Made my own Castle Greyskull complete with sculpted skull face, towers and a working "jawbridge". Later on, I built not one, but two Transformers playsets. The Autobot base included Teletran-1, a repair bay and a recharging station. The Decepticon lair included a dual laser cannons, weapons storage, an Energon Cube creator and an Autobot jail. *No, I'm not making this up- I really did make this stuff (I had very few friends). Unfortunately, they were all eventually thrown away by my well-intentioned mother, and no photographic evidence remains to back up my claims.* That being said, I loved the act of building my own toy playsets (strictly out of cardboard, toy packages, Scotch tape, Elmer's glue, string, and a few odd plastic bits & pieces) and truly enjoyed playing with them as much (or more) than an actual toy playset. So much of the imagination involved in the act of playing has been, sadly, lost in this digital age. As much as I wanted all the cool toys as a kid, and all the awesome stuff available today, I wouldn't trade what I did have- and what I made up in my head- for anything. *BTW, a folding cardtable with a blanket over it: best playset ever!!! :-) :-) :-)*

The Palitoy Action force Headquarters was THE GREATEST playset ever....A thing of beauty

I have enjoyed your channel for a year or two now I think you have a quality show because you really care about your subject material. I can tell your heart is all in with this channel, its really cool to see people that are crazy passionate about their craft . so great job man keep em coming. I need a good Nightcrawler. The way things are going, its only a matter of time. I really dig this years silver surfer

That's crazy, I had the castle gray skull got from a yard sale in the mid 90s. I have to admit though, I always had the most fun with my makeshift cardboard sets and my sister's doll house for some reason.

My brother had that castle greyskull when we were kids and all the figures to go with it lol. He’d bring it over in the weekends my dad had custody and we’d play with that thing for hours. Now I’m 20 years old working my life away lol. Good times

Existence is pain. LOL Dan was telegraphing his Maximum Gothness all along I love how it all just winds down like Too Many Cooks.

I'm with you. The couch, shelves and dirt were my playsets as a kid.

Even as a kid, I loved the molding for castle grey skull.

Being born in '93, playsets were a thing that were becoming rather scarce as time went on. None of the toy lines I used to play with had, or if they did, either I didn't know of their existence or were Micromachines style playsets. Playsets at the time were, basically, reduced to Micromachines and Mighty Max style playsets, and the ocasional Lego and Playmobil sets. The 2005 King Kong toy line had a Skull Island playset that I sometimes regret not getting at the time, when it hit clearance and was dirty cheap (probably because playsets weren't popular), but then I remember that it was just 5 modular pieces of hollow plastic and a paper playmat. The only ones I recall ever having were: one Kinder Surprise paper castle, a Playmobil Pirate Ship (if you consider it one), a Dexter's Lab Mighty Max type playset, and the Armada Optimus Prime's trailer. I still have the later three.

I had castle greyskull. Enjoyed it so much!

I know Dan's playsets are a joke played up for fun, but as a poor kid... most of what Dan was touting there WERE my playsets, so I kinda appreciate them being listed here. I did have the Playmates sewer lair though!