I'd like to talk to you about guys. You know, the guys that come in little plastic buckets, molded green plastic. The guys of Toy Story and Toy Story II.
That's just about all there were for boys in the "action figure" (read: doll) category when I was a kid with the exception of G.I. Joe.
When you played with guys, they were your guys. If you played against someone you had your guys and they had their guys. It didn't matter if the dog chewed one and it couldn't stand up any more. It didn't matter if you'd broken off the gun "on accident" (you know, by doing something predictably stupid but without bad intent). It just didn't matter. They were your guys.