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The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time
Ant writes "An article at the Radar lists the ten most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, the editors excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm." My favorite: 'Feed Me!' begged the packaging for 1996's Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid. And much like the carnivorous Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, the adorable lineup of Cabbage Patch snack-dolls appeared at first to be harmless. They merely wanted a nibble--a carrot perhaps, or maybe some yummy pudding. They would stop chewing when snack time was done -- they promised. Then they chomped your child's finger off."
cocaine is a hell of a drug
they actually made a radioactive energy kit FOR KIDS?! Why don't they just put "For ages 8 and up, especially terrorists" on it? They could build a dirty pipe bomb (radiation spreading) using just a couple of those kits probably. Btw I've injured myself with airsoft guns many times and I'm pretty careful and since you're actually shooting at other people with them unlike BB guns, airsoft guns should definitely be there instead.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"It's unclear what effects the Uranium-bearing ores might have had on those few lucky children who received the set"
Exactly. It has the N-word in it so it must be dangerous, right? I highly doubt kids who played with this would have even got a fraction of the dose that they normally get from naturally occurring radon. But any risk is too great, right?
Part of the reason the world is so anti-nuclear is that simple science educating toys like this are banned and exaggerated anti-nuclear views (like that of the author) remain unchallenged. Perhaps my generation was the last one where parents normally bought their children electronics and chemistry sets. Today we would fear that the child would be shocked or chemically burned (regardless of the probability).
Do not reach into Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid with remaining fingers.
I actually had #9 the Battlestar Galactica Missle Launcher. I remember from the Viper Pilot figure in the picture.
Of course, the discontinueing of these toys wouldn't be needed if people would use their common sense. Then again, I guess that is too hard to expect from the average American.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
The problem with (America) is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be capital punishment for stupidity, let's just remove the warning labels from products and let the problem solve itself.
And yea, after reading the article, hehe. Wow. I wish I'd had the Atomic lab. Oh the fun I'd have had with that! Those bastards that snapped my bra in high school would have MAJOR issues now...
*Maniacle laughter followed immediately by a chase scene involving a bunch of men in white coats*
And just how and why did they make a doll that had a motor type thing that could chomp 35 fingers off cumulatively?
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It's the all black costume that makes you look like an Invisible Pedestrian. None of the drivers will be able to see you- carry out clandestine missions at night in the middle of the road without getting spotted. I didn't see the Invisible Pedestrian Costume listed here so they must have liked it.
I don't see the Bag-O-Glass listed either. Another stimulating, wholesome toy.
The Battlestar Galactica one seems a little silly. It was recalled because some kid put it in his mouth and shot a missle down his throat? Well no shit pieces of plastic are dengerous if you swallow them. Chess pieces are dangerous under that definition. What makes them any different from the 100000 other toys that shoot plastic missles of some kind? A little unfair to add them to that list imho.
It's sad, before even opening the article I knew that lawn darts would rank #1 on the list. I guess it mildly annoys me because they aren't that dangerous if you know how to use them properly. Just make sure that there's nobody down range, and don't do anything stupid with them (like throw them straight up over your head) and no one gets hurt.
I remember playing with Jarts as a kid (<10 years old) many times over. No one ever got hurt from it. There was enough common sense to keep people behind the shooter when playing the game. I guess it seems silly to me that people keep picking on Jarts because there are so many other "dangerous" things out there as well. Jarts is in a small way, a slow form of archery (sharp objects propelled at a target down range), and know that it can be made relatively safe if the proper precautions are taken. I suppose that even something as innocent as playing horseshoes could be dangerous too, should someone take a blow from a heavy chunk of metal to their head. But it's always Jarts that gets picked on. According to a wikipedia article the incident that led to the banning of lawn darts was mostly a result of the combination of lawn darts and beer. That's frequently a bad combination of anything.
Of course without lawn darts, we wouldn't have neat T-shirts about them. The rest of the list is interesting too. I'm surprised at how many kids that mini-hammock (ranked #3) has managed to strangle over the years.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
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I'm kind of surprised that chemistry sets and wood burning kits failed to make the list. Nothing says child safety like hot sharp iron and alcohol burners.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
For some reason I'm thinking of the following exchange in "Hogfather":
The mother took a deep breath.
"You can't give her that!" she screamed. "It's not safe!"
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather, IT'S NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
"She's a child!" shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
"What if she cuts herself?"
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
Uranium-238 generates no alpha-radiation, it generates BETA radiation. You know, same stuff that the Potassium in you generates. U-238 is about as unsafe as lead for the same reasons (being a heavy metal), but radiation is not one.
Great Intellect...
...but we were talking about the parents here I think ?
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One thing that was somewhat surprising was that a few girl toys made the list (cabbage patch and sky dancers).
Also, the motorcycle one that jams the throttle sounds really dangerous. The kids didn't do anything wrong - it was just defective.
I'm surprised the Honda Kick and Go didn't make the list. I remember that I got one of those as a kid just before they were pulled off the market because they were dangerous (I'm not sure exactly why they were dangerous.)
My parents still have mine, I think. The last time I was at their house, they had my daughter riding it and I was like "no way - those things were recalled" and they were like "you rode it and you are still alive" and I was all like "yeah, and you guys kept a vicious dog that mauled children and I have scars on my face to prove it, so I'm not interested in hearing parenting advice from you".
So, there you go.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
A few months ago there was an article at Poynter.org, about how journalists hate getting assignments for these seasonal safety articles even more than people hate reading them. Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, all annual observances that "we all experience together," strike fear and loathing into journalists, who cower under their desks when the editor approaches.
You are probably right, but I think that water rockets for kids under 6 are almost as scary (fun). I had a blast with those. They can be very powerful. One can have a lot of (mass x velocity) by the time it hits and shatters a window.
I am actually disappointed that the old model rockets did not make it onto the blacklist! Those freaking things really were dangerous. I had a quad-E engine 2-stager that could lift several hands full of nails over 500 feet into the air, and then dump them when the chute was deployed. Don't ask me why I know this... ask the local police. I also used them as "nukes" in bottle rocket fights with the other one-eyed freaks in the neighborhood. Counterbalance a duct taped egg onto one of those babies and gauge the trajectory properly, then you were invincible!
FairTax baby!
Even adults can barely contain their jealousy when the little brat from down the block whizzes by on that shiny plastic hog.
Much like Seinfeld and people who owned a pony as a child, so am I and people who owned these things. My cousins had not one, but two of them. A fact that they never seemed to realize meant that they should give me one. Despite the fact that I told that to them constantly.
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I used to have the cheap hammock when I was a kid - is was great, because without a bar you really could wrap it around yourself like a cocoon and then have someone swing you for a full 360 loop. I'm rather surprised they were strong enough to hold...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is assholes like you who replaced those awesome wood playgrounds of the 80s with that plastic shit so kids can't get splinters. It is assholes like you who replaced gravel with that shitty rubber matting that they put on playgrounds now-a-days.
Nobody wants kids to exercise common sence, they are asking parents to supervise their own fucking children.
Childhood, like life, is not risk free. If you make it risk free it fucking sucks.
Oh, and by the way, in case you didn't get it, Fuck You.
Do you remember those steel Tonka Trucks? The ones that were big enough you could bend over as a small kid and 'drive' them around?
When I was a kid, I remember this kid named Don who lived down the street from me. One afternoon he drove his dump truck over to another neighbor's house who happen to be baby sitting me and my siblings. He came running up the sidewalk leaned down with his head tilted up looking at us screaming his head off as he was faking running us down with his truck. He didn't notice an uneven step in the sidewalk and it caught the front tires of the truck and stopped the truck cold. Since he wasn't expecting it, his arms buckled and he fell teeth first onto the back of the truck slicing his lip just under his nose and removing several of his top front teeth.
When he stood up, and it was like slow motion, his upper lip fell down below his lower lip, but still connected on either side. He made a spitting motion and what looked like bleeding cicklets fell on the sidewalk. He looked down and then up and wiped his mouth and when he moved his hand, I could see his tongue exploring the hole where is teeth and lip used to be. And then it was just like a fountain turning on, everything went very bloody and he began to scream. He cupped his mouth with both hands and ran home with a very distinctive trail of blood following him. Later, his mom returned to collect his teeth so they could be reinserted, but the teeth were wrecked. Most of them weren't even connected to the root(?) anymore, but sheared clean off.
Don moved a few years later but I hardly ever saw him again. His face was really disfigured and the wound was obvious. He was self conscious of it and I know he got made fun of.
I just remember how popular those toys were. I had the grader, but it wasn't as good for 'driving' around so I never did. Considering what happened to Don now that I'm grown-up, thank dog.
A cloud chamber and a small amount of radioactive isotopes are not dangerous, at least not any more than common household chemicals. And while they may have been "linked to Gulf war syndrome", the US military claims it's harmless and has not trouble using it around civilians in large amounts.
It's a disgrace that this science kit is found among a list of dangerous toys; the journalist should be ashamed of his ignorance.
A more recent candidate for the list... the wego kite tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEgTzSrTDMI
This thing isn't on the market for obvious reasons. :)
I bought a cheap hammock without bars 2 years ago at wal-mart for my dorm. Under the loft, above the futon. Dont pass out drunk in a crappy hammock though, you will wake up with a sore neck. Or completely wrapped up and turned upside down in it as several people found out...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Wham-O had at least two products that should be good candidates for the above list, but I didn't see them.
First (and more obvious), the Slip N Slide, and all of its various incarnations and copycats.
Second, was a sort of tetherball variant they sold in ~1985 called "Zing Zang". It featured an adjustable steel pole with a spike on one end (designed to be inserted into the ground), and a wire coil on the other end, onto which a cord with a captive tennis ball was attached. The tennis ball cord would theoretically start in the middle, with each player (holding a hard plastic "raquet") assigned a different direction (clockwise or counterclockwise). The goal was to get to the top or bottom of the coil to win. But most kids I knew would just swing the pole around like a giant two-handed flail, bringing down tennis ball torture on opponents... while trailing a steel spike behind them that would often go forgotten until it lodged in someone else's knees or groin or chest.
I'm all for kids learning through play and as a kid some of the most dangerous things I played with were motorways, tall trees, cigarettes, alcohol and... well you get the idea. This top-ten list is a hoot - and I can sort of see why poisonous plastic things might not make a great present. But you have to wonder when those responsible for controlling what kids have acess to start insisting all apple trees have matresses put under them, just in case. And in so doing, take away all the fun of real world learning - it's one thing being told that something is dangerous but far better and fun to learn first hand that snipping a worm in two doesn't make two worms, only two halves and a bit of goo.
This whole 'unsafe toy' argument is a cop out. Last time I check my house had toxic materials, choke, and inhalation hazards all over the place.
.22 calibre rifle and ammunition without fear of being seen as some kind of nutcase. These days parents with the same are viewed as a threat.
What makes the place safe is a parent who uses some common sense and judgement. Parents used to be able to give their 10 year old child a
Ultimately the world is a dangerous place - for the careless and ignorant. The point should not be to keep children isolated from these risks, but to raise and educate them to manage to live with them sensibly.
The beatup is typically a combination of small people needing a forum in which they can be important, and protecting manufacturers from circumstances where a good dose of personal liability and contributory negligence on the parent should be considered.
It's not the world, it's not the children - it's the parents who need protecting
Sure they may be dangerous, *but you haven't lived* until you've driven your Power Wheels Motorcycle through a barrage of uranium tipped lawn jarts while navigating an obstacle course of hammocks.
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I remember a toy that I had around 9 years old... it was called Mr. Football (and had a catchy jingle) and it was basically a device that threw football passes. Unlike some modern air gun versions that work only with soft foam footballs, Mr. Football was simply a timer and high-powered spring catapult. I begged for it, and my parents got it for me. But they realized it was dangerous and kept it locked up in the shed, only allowing my friends and I to use it while they were around. So of course I had to steal the key.
This took only a day or two, and soon my friends and I had Mr. Football out and operating without any adults around. This was wonderful because we knew well that a football was about the least interesting thing you could load into a catapult. We started with rocks, then open soda cans, and eventually insects. It was extrodinarily fun. Until the accident.
While trying to launch a caterpillar, we were waiting for the catapult to go off, when the little creature managed to get to the edge of Mr. Football's powerful plastic hand. With the timer only a couple seconds from going off, one of my friends went over to make sure the caterpillar didn't escape. I warned him to get away from the thing, but too late -- it went off and smacked him right in the face. He fell to the ground and was crying. We went over to check him out. He had a bright red abrasion on his cheekbone and brow, but he seemed okay at first. Then we noticed that his eye was filling with blood. Specifically the iris; the white was normal save for being a bit bloodshot, but the bottom half of the iris was filled with blood. He said he could see but that it was blurry. We sent him home and told him not to tell his mother or we'd all get in trouble.
Of course we all got in trouble. He had to go and get several surgeries on his eye to correct the damage, and I was told it wouldn't ever be 100% again. He moved away a year later so I don't really know. A lawyer or someone like that came by once later to pick up the device, because I think there was a class action suit, though my family wasn't involved in that. I don't think the item was on store shelves a year later. Not sure how much my friend's injury had to do with that.
Anyways, I was sort of hoping to see it on the list, but no dice.
Cheers.
...that certain articles tend to attract "Americans are dumb" comments like flies to dog poop? For the life of me, I can't think of anything that we do that is particularly more stupid than anything are friends across the pond (or other parts of the world) are capable of. I could certainly make a long enough list of idiotic things I've seen in other parts of the world.
Perhaps one of the dumbest things we humans do is to turn a blind eye to our own stupidity, while pointing it out in others. So, to great extent, that is where common sense starts.
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It has to be the bicycle, no? I distinctly remember my friends and I doing head on collisions on purpose on our bicycles. It was a form of jousting without the lances, I think. Man, the things you can get away with when you're under 100 lbs.
Anyways, I think we should ban bicycles.
Just kidding.
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Which is exactly what the US government and corporations don't want to happen. Look at the laws being enacted, the charges and/or suits being filed and the way our school system is run. Sure wouldn't have wanted people with these attitudes today back when me and my friends played chicken in the park with our ever present pocket knifes. Never even heard of anyone actually getting hurt while playing chicken, but then we usually didn't play chicken with someone whose knife throwing we didn't trust. Now we had a few make some awful faces while playing stretch with them, grab their groin and sit down for a while. We wandered the towns and countrysides with our pocket knives and either a bb gun, slingshot or a bow often. Every once in a while some property got damaged but was extremely rare that anyone got hurt to any degree worth complaining about. Often the slingshots and bows we made ourselves. Heck, we even used to make cannons with pipes and firecrackers or even some gunpowder some kid had made.
Frankly we have been going downhill for years. I think we were more responsible as kids and our parents even more so when they were kids. Until our kids can roam around freely again and learn from exposure to things and doing they will never be as capable of taking care of themselves or feel as responsible to being a good citizen. If we keep crowding the kids into the cages of the public school system and locked into large group stuff after school we shouldn't be suprised when they start behaving the way rats do in overcrowded pens at the pet store. Same goes for adults!
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Sadly common sense and children are rarely together. My cousins have scars from Jarts (and then darts, and penknives).
They used to play some kind of splits/chicken. They would throw the Jart left or right to the person and the person would need to do the splits. In order for it to count it would have to be thrown in range of the other person to pick up while making them go through the pain of moving the legs further apart.
They got jarts in thier feet and legs.
One of them also got one in the hand after they were playing some kind of knife throwing trick that you see in the circus.
The Water Wiggle was a toy which would attach to the end of a garden hose, and jet the water out of a plastic hood looking thing in such a manner as to chaotically fly around the lawn. Responsible for at least one death according to this page.
I am not old enough to have experienced this thing myself, but have heard horror stories both from my parents and a and the mother of a friend of mine. She actually knew someone who was seriously messed up by one when she was growing up. Surprising it wasn't mentioned in this particular article.
http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/ ;)
A friend of mine who has a one year old kid once said to me: "he [the kid] hasn't lived when he doesn't have any scars when he reaches puberty." My friend is right of course. There are toys in that list that I would gladly give my kids, if I had any. The Sky Dancers, the cannon and the Creepy Crawlers I think are particularly cool and not too dangerous.
-- Cheers!
What happened to the idea of kids playing to practice for the real world?
That's the purpose of play for the rest of the animal kingdom, with the various wild cat species being the best example (play centers around hunting skills and establishment and maintainance of heirarchy, when they grew up those innocuous activities became "real", and because they had practiced in youth, they make better decisions)
people are too sheltered now.. and even i was when I was a kid. This is one of the things I dislike about my fellow liberals.. it's one thing to be egalitarian when people ask for it and truly need a helping hand or protection from active disenfranchisement.... its another to overprotect and thereby deny real life lessons to both kids and parents. In real life you will often handle or live around objects which can cause you harm, and parents should realize that if their toys don't do it they can rest assured their kids will manage to get other everyday objects to serve that function. At the same time, making toys which are not idiot proof will teach kids how to take proper precautions both in everyday movement and when handling tools with similar risks.
For example:
When I was 7 I was given the gi joe crusader..
this thing had articulated everything.. including landing gear.. which was made of thin hard and jam-prone plastic with way too much spring tortion.
one day this gear jammed, and in the process of being freed literally ripped off my thumbnail.
But guess what.. nobody sued..
My nail healed, and I learned the importance of handling with care anything which could potentially jerk uncontrollably by experiencing a relatively minor injury.
I mean, imagine if I had made this arguably inevitable mistake with more "adult" tools.
Getting hurt, just like copyright infringement, is a question of "when" in life, not "if". If you prevent one means people will inevitably encounter another through which to learn these lessons.
That said.. this list is far from accurate.
There are antiques i've seen from the turn of the century which have such gems as open flame, boiling substances, and serious electrical hazards.
it should really be read as "the 10 most dangerous toys produced since 1950"
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I'm just happy to see that lawn darts made the top of the list. When I heard the title of this article, that's what I immediately thought of.
You'll shoot your eye out...
Sorry had to be said
Tickle Me Elmo Extreme goes on a killing spree. News at 11.
was caused by me unfortunately. me and graddad had the rings in front of us facing eachother across the lawn, and one of my darts missed the ring and hit my grandfathers foot instead, the tip went right through it.
Thank you slashdot for brightening my life with the misery of others, especially bratty children!
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28331 I still have Jarts from the 70s at my grandma's house, by the way. And they're still fun.
I didn't see anyone mention those guns that shot the plastic discs.
WikiLink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_gun
Good cheap eye shooting out fun right there!
fingers
Damn ad-heavy split up articles.
1. Lawn Darts
2. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
3. Mini-Hammocks from EZ Sales
4. Snacktime Cabbage Patch Dolls
5. Sky Dancers
6. Bat Masterson Derringer Belt Gun
7. Creepy Crawlers
8. Johnny Reb Cannon
9. Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher
10. Fisher-Price Power Wheels Motorcycle
So it seems they missed the latest threat:
The Nintendo Wii
- http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/
Example injuries from that site:
- Girl Dislocates Knee While Playing with Wii
- Attack on Girlfriend Proves Fatal to Boyfriend's Wii Privileges
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
1. Tinker toys. I can't be the only kid who made a crossbow for himself out of these.
2. Chemistry sets. Explosives and poison for young anarchists.
3. Home electronics kits.
4. Chemical rocketry sets.
5. Water rockets.
6. Boomerangs.
Plus all the other stuff kids commonly played with: tire swings, dirt bikes, slingshots, bb guns, shuriken, lighters, etc. and other improvised toys. Maybe kids are safer now that those things are pretty much on the forbidden list in the US, but I'm pretty sure they have less fun.
In some countries (like in Switzerland) minors can go train shooting using actual military riffle (starting from 16 years old, as far as I remember. They are allowed to keep the riffle at home) and using air riffle even younger (starting from 13 years old. There was a law wanting to lower that age to 10 y.o.).
Safety is strictly enforced in the shooting ranges and the young receive complete instruction about avoiding hazards before getting the actual gun.
Accident are rather rare.
Not that I appreciate the situation (I hate guns), but, just to mention that *YES* as long as you keep safe, lots of stuff that are apparently forbidden in the USA (according to TFA), are just madeless in other countries just by asking for parental supervision/better safety mecanism/whatever is required to avoid stupid accidents.
I mean... Making a *darts*-game forbidden ?!? Just because some idiots got drunk and/or didn't follow basic safety principle ? By making it forbidden one's only embarrassing all the other 99% "normal" people out there, who just took the necessary precautions and now feel that this again will make the rest of the world think that Americans are idiots.
Under your logic, candles on birthday cakes should be made illegal until a kid turns 16 y.o. because some idiots may try to put them off with his bare hands instead of blowing.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
More like "Ten most AWESOME toys of all time".
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
There was this think called common sense.....something lacking, thanks to personal injury lawyers and stupid judge/juries that allow such stupid lawsuits. Plus, back then, they didn't know a lot about radioactivity.....
Where is the Bag O' Glass? Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set? Mr. Skin-Grafter? General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit? Doggie Dentist? How about Johnny Switchblade, Adventure Punk or the Teddy Chainsaw Bear?
What kind of kist is this?
Waitasec... Under the "SkyDancers" entry, it mentions "broken ribs". I can see the other mild forms of damage, particularly eye injuries, but how the hell would six ounces of plastic and foam, even spinning as fast as its little plastic launcher can make it, manage to break bones?
I took issue with a few other entries as well, but it seems like many of these "dangers" don't really involve the toy itself, much like "injury while under the influence" - The alcohol doesn't hurt you, your actions while drunk hurt you.
Some stupid kid probably launched one of these off the roof to see how far it could go, then proceeded to fall off the roof. Do we blame the toy for that?
when I was a kid, you insensitive clod.
All we had was rifles and shotguns.
And enough sense to know these WEREN'T TOYS.
Nobody got shot, lost an eye, or anything.
Perhaps that's because lawyers were rare, back in the day...
Waa Waa.
That argument only makes sense if most people were working minimum wage, but most aren't. The fact is that most families could do fine on the single income of one parent. But they are too selfish to take care of their kids because they want that new car every five years, a big house in the 'burbs, to eat at restaurants twice a week, a kick-ass computer network and that that sweet new plasma-sceen TV.
Problem is, buying stuff is not parenting.
When I was in my early teens I started making "fireworks", which looked suspiciously like pipe bombs. A took a thick steel tube, hammered one end flat, filled it with home made gunpowder and hammered a wooden bung into the other end (and I dread to think what would have happened if the hammering had set it off...).
To ignite my first effort I placed it on its side on a brick, and set a blow torch to heat it up. Realising that the bung would shoot out at high speed, I stood a few yards behind it; as Newton predicted, the steel pipe shot backwards, fortunately just missing my leg, but it did powder a brick in the wall of the house.
Of course, I wasn't discouraged and kept making bigger bombs. Until I got bored.
I suppose my point is that for every child who gets permanently injured, there are thousands doing incredibly stupid things but suffering no ill effects. Supposedly dangerous stuff isn't actually that dangerous.
C'mon those are all toys. If you really want to get hurt, buy a weapon.
They didn't even mention the best part!!!!
Caps, my ass. The cool thing about this _line_ of toy guns generically called "Shoot-N-Shell" was that they fired hard plastic bullets from heavy brass cartridges. You would buy a whole set of ammo: bullets, cartridges, and caps. You'd push the bullets into the cartridges and put an adhesive cap for effect onto the tail of the cartridge. The bullets were driven from a spring in the cartridge and fired when the hammer struck it.
I, in fact, had the Derringer Belt Gun but they made a whole line of solid metal Shoot-N-Shells from six-shooters to rifles. And don't begin to believe that they had the politically-correct red plastic attachment you see in the photo. Real little guns for little people back then.
Shoot-N-Shells were fantastic boy toys -- except for the putting out eyes thing. The fact that they weren't as powerful as BB guns perversely encouraged shoot-outs.
********
And a note on #7: If we are going back to the early 50s with the Gilbert set, there were far more lethal toymakers than the Creepy Crawler. Kids were melting lead at home to make toy soldiers well into the 60s.
Right back at you. You are also being rude, you have also been modded insightful and your arguments are also lacking.
And you are completely sidestepping the GP's point by nit-picking. The point is not the material. It is easy to find rather fun, educational, and (god forbid!) exercise-inducing toys that don't exist anymore and have not seen suitable replacements because of the safety-first mindset, like the 12-foot jungle gyms (at least where I live). The fact is that you cannot sanitize all danger out of a child's life (or an adults life) and the attempt to do so is going to strip the valuable lessons (and the physical activity) that a child gets from play. It is similar to the terrorism debate. Would you trade your freedom for safety? If you would, I would suggest that there is something wrong with your head and not the GP's.
Oh, and if you don't think that danger is a part of your life, I suppose you did not drive to work this morning? That is more dangerous than a lawn dart. I suppose that you never go hiking/backpacking/rockclimbing/skydiving/jogging
And coffee should be served chilled.
I used to have one toy that certainly should have made the list. I don't remember who made it, but the toy was an enclosed, circular plastic maze with a nickel-sized ball of mercury contained within. The idea is that you tilt and rotate the toy to maneuver the mercury drop into the center of the maze. Imagine what would happen if the plastic broke. Imagine how many of these toys were simply thrown away in the garbage.
Come to think of it, my father may still have it somewhere. I'll have to find it and take it to the hazardous waste disposal site when I visit next time.
http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/flubber/flubber.h tml
If that cannon came back to the market today, people would think that the rebel flag was more dangerous than the projectiles. Whiners.
get over it. Kids will hurt themselves. When my sister got her firstborn, I asked if she would take any precuations. The only thing she did was put a vase up high. For the rest nothing. All corners were just as sharp as before. Het reasoning was that if he would bump himself, he would cry and then stop doing it.
That what doesn't kill you, make you stronger.
As a kid I have broken my share of bones and am sometimes still surprised when I hear that some people never had broken anything as a kid. The thing that hurt most was loosing a fingernail when I drove over it when on the skateboard.
Kids have been coming home crying and under blood for several centuries, so what is up with the current wussies? How can they learn that a videogame is just a game if they have no sence of reality? If you hit somebody in a game or in real life is different. Try it out. Also you will learn that a game does not have a bigger brother and the person you hit in real life does.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Sadistic as it may be, that picture with the jart stuck through the kids shoulder is priceless!
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
1. Lawn Darts
2. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
3. Mini-Hammocks from EZ Sales
4. Snacktime Cabbage Patch Dolls
5. Sky Dancers
6. Bat Masterson Derringer Belt Gun
7. Creepy Crawlers
8. Johnny Reb Cannon
9. Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher
10. Fisher-Price Power Wheels Motorcycle
Honorable Mention: Manley Toys Disco Light
His toys were very controversial, however I'm pretty sure they were safe. Take one of his most popular toys, a bag of medical waste, which he called "Johnny Doctor," or the hand gun, "Johnny Street Gang (no ammo included)" that he tried to sell. Of course, there was also the bag of broken glass he marketed as "Bag of Broken glass," however I assert that the light refraction off of the glass shards made that toy educational; it taught kids the science of colors and light.
Everyone knows about BB guns but when I was a kid Daisy sold this strange cast iron thing that you were supposed to attach paper bullseye targets to. In other words it was a big, flat piece of metal that kids were supposed to shoot at. The purpose? It produced a truly awesome *ding* sound when you hit it. "You'll shoot your eye out!"
Crossbows and Catapults was a game where two players build little castles and then try to destroy each others castles with the aforementioned medieval weapons. Made of hard plastic, powered by rubber bands and firing solid plastic discs that weighed about an ounce it was a lot of fun. But being boys my brother and I were unsatisfied with the catapults destructive power so we augmented it with about a dozen extra rubber bands, increasing the catapults force so much that its plastic frame actually warped when we pulled it back to full strength. We had turned a child's game into a pair of homemade honest-to-god slingshots. We soon found that shooting them at each other was much more fun than knocking over little castles. Getting hit by one meant a bloody silver dollar size welt. My brother actually sent one through a single layer of sheetrock.
When I was a kid, we would swing sticks, throw rocks, climb trees and rooftops, jump in puddles-ponds-lakes, slide on ice patches, crash bikes (without padding from head to toe), and found any other pontentially dangerous activity that a typical kid would be able to find. These toys are the kinds of things that I might have messed with in my down time like when it was raining. The collective risk of injury from all of these toys was probably far less than any one of the activities mentioned above.
Lawn darts? Hell, we made spears. Find a nice, relatively straight stick, grind one end down to a point, viola. Chuck at each other at your own risk. U-238? I suppose the various electrified fences that my relatives used to corral pets and livestock would count as similar. Projectile hazzards? Hell, anything that I could pick up was a potential projectile hazzard.
Growing up was an interchanging pattern of play and pain. We'd go until we found a painful boundary, recover, and repeat. In fact, it seemed the activities that were most enjoyable were the ones in which such a boundary was likely to be encountered. I'd probably have taken a much stronger interest in electronics and chemistry early on if someone had explained it in terms of blowing stuff up.
Anyway, the important thing was I had an onion on my belt.
IMHO, any guy that wears a bra in highschool had better be prepared for a bit of hassling.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
It doesn't biodegrade though and it's tricky to recycle. Oh won't somebody think of the environment!
Dangerous? Not compared to other toys not on this list! As near as I can tell, the criteria for this list is a commercial toy sold after 1950.
The common wooden top. Take a block of hardwood, lathe it into the classic top shape, then stick a sharp nail in the point. Wind it with string and throw it hard at the sidewalk. Helps to explain why Uncle Jack is missing the tip of his pinky finger.
Marbles and jacks. Obvious choking hazards. But more than that, marbles of yesteryear were ceramic with lead based glaze. Swallow one of those and you're poisoned. I'm amazed our grandparents lived long enough to breed.
Slingshot. Yes, I know the list deliberately excluded them, but just think how dangerous they are. Even when used responsibly, the elastic could snap, ripping your arm while sending the projectile into your brother's eye.
Yo-yos. While not particularly deadly, they have an amazing tendency to give concussions to small children trying to do 'round the world.
Sticks. Baseball bats. Cricket bats. Plain old hickory stickball stick. You don't need much imagination to know how dangerous they can be.
Balls. If the swinging bat doesn't hit the catcher, that rock hard baseball might. Ever been hit by a softball in the head? The "soft" in the name is a cruel irony.
Toy boats. There can't be anything dangerous about a toy boat, can there? No. Not unless you're running along with your toy sailboat, trip, and get impaled through the heart with the mast.
Sigh. Childhood is so dangerous.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
When I was a kid my brother and his friend were playing lawn darts. Stupid neighbour's kid decided to walk in the way and took a lawn dart to the head! The neighbours happened to be Jehovah's Witnesses and didn't take their kid to the hospital. I think the kid was ok, but lesson learned. Don't use sharp objects around Jehovah's Witnesses!
to this: http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/ymboa/ymboa.html my childhood was bland even though it was not so much spoiled by clueless journalists and other sissies.
It says on the page:
"Warning! - Many subjects outlined within this site are extremely dangerous and are provided here for information only. Please don`t experiment with high voltages or chemicals unless you are fully conversant with safe laboratory practices. No liability will be accepted for death, injury or damage arising from experimentation using any information or materials supplied."
Sounds like fun, but please be kind to animals and dead bodies of criminals, and don't kill yourself or others.
Je me souviens.
Time for parents to grow up and take some responsibility. If your kid isn't mature enough, or responsible enough, to play with a toy, then that toy is in no way something you should let your kid play with.
Bang on! In some cultures, especially long ago, kids weren't reckoned according to their chronological age, but according to their 'chore age': "Oh, she's old enough to fetch water, but it will be a while before she can weave". "Son, I think you're old enough now to watch the sheep."
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
When I was about 8 I found my father's lead soldier kit in my grandparents' house. Worked perfectly - a little 4 or 5 inch electric cauldron with no lid, just basically a bowl in which the lead melted, and then you poured it into the molds for some nifty 19th century soldier figures. No safety glasses, gloves, warning stickers. Just chucks of lead and lots of heat. That was FUN! Still, I don't think I'd let my own kids do that nowadays...
I tried to have a conversation with a friend of mine about how African nations could be pulled out of the violence and poverty they have.
Among my friend's reactions:
1) We should use the CIA to pick somebody to run the country.
2) As soon as we go in there and help them with farming and water projects, they'll use the money to attack us.
3) Why should we do anything to help somebody when they'll never pay us back.
So, much like the poster you're talking about above, we have a group of people that is WAY too large that are scared to death. They can't see the good in anything anymore. That everybody out there is out to get us, and rather than eat, they'd like to fire missiles at us.
It's depressing.
Sorry to partially hijack the thread, but the poster you replied to, my friend and the rest of these panicky types need a cookie.
My mom says I'm cool.
And now all the kids pout when I say "sorry, no kids under 15 are allowed on this". I don't even tell parents that back out of the way when they see my helmet how much safer it is than just bicycles. I saw a government "warning" on tv this morning how 8 kids die every year in bike accidents for not wearing a helmet.
What part of learning about avoiding strangulation in a hammock or playing around with radioactive materials is going to prepare kids to be adults?
After reading that story, my face - and eye - feel funny. Ack!
'nuff said.
Though I'm way too late to get modded, and most mods probably won't recognize it.
Yes, most people work for more than minimum wage, but that's easy when it hasn't been raised in 7 years.
The fact is that most families could do fine on the single income of one parent. But they are too selfish to take care of their kids because they want that new car every five years, a big house in the 'burbs, to eat at restaurants twice a week, a kick-ass computer network and that that sweet new plasma-sceen TV.
Once again, fuck you. Between the decline of unions and stagnant wages, the income level for the middle and lower classes has stagnated or even declined. But costs have skyrocketed - fuel, housing and health care have gone through the roof.
Take your elitism and shove it.
"Oh, here's the problem: somebody set the doll's switch to 'Evil'."
Table-ized A.I.
i.e. the supid ones need to be weeded out early. It's not like we don't have fun making more of the little bastards. ...is that the dumb ones can hurt others before they hurt themselves. The 10 year old idiot with a lawn dart can take out the eye of a passing Eagle Scout before he takes out his own.
My grandma tells a story of a neighborhood kid who was coming back to the farm after doing some hunting. Rather than empty his gun, he shoots his last round into the family's outhouse. Problem one: his sister was using it at the time. Problem two: now he's an only child.
The toy every boy wanted.Two urethane(I presume)balls molded onto two 16" or so strings attached to each other with a ring.The point was to use physics to make the balls clack and rebound at the top and bottom of the swing.(I realize a safer toy with a handle is on the market,much shorter and smaller).The recall came after it was found that not only would the balls shatter but could smash bones astonishingly easy.It was way too tempting to use these as a bola on you cat or siblings.Great status symbol for a boy in the early '70s.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Did anyone else see that first picture of the kid that had a jart stuck in his shoulder and immediately start playing with it in Photoshop?
When my father-in-law passed away a few years ago, as we cleaned up the garage, we found an original boxed set of Jarts. They were a little scuffed up, but all the pieces were there. I thought about selling them on Ebay, but what the heck, they might still be fun!
So, I took them to a NASCAR race at Richmond, where you tailgate all day long waiting for the night race. Guess what? Drunken red-necks love dangerous toys - they were the hit of the horseshoe set! A wild horseshoe gives you a bruise. A wild Jart gives you a story for the boys back home.
Probably from jumping out of the way after "Oh jesus it's coming at my face!"
It has the N-word in it so it must be dangerous, right?
Radioactive niggers. Everybody run!
Spaceballs the Flame Thrower! The kids love that one...
Seriously though, I fondly remember Jarts. About the only dangerous thing that ever happened when I used them was a broken birdbath (and I was aiming for it). I vaguely remember hearing about some kid who put one through his skull, but I assumed that was just an urban legend. Guess not... I wonder if my grandparents still have that Jarts set? It would be cool to show my kids how 'dangerous' toys used to be. Those things were fun!!!
ohh man were those fun!!!!
Who needed the gun? My brother and I would take a roll of caps (100 per roll), lay it on the pavement, and hit it with a sledge hammer.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Bewitched is under copyright; ie semi-permenently lost to history. Another example, perhaps?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
"...and we'll all be gay when Johnie comes marching home." Its also interesting the way it ends with, "and girls want one too."
My god, man! Are you mad?! Somewhere, at this very moment, a terrorist is reading this! How dare you reveal our weaknesses to the enemy?! What next, suggesting that they steal television remote controls? You sick, sick bastard.
I had a rock collection set that I received as a gift - complete with a nice specimen of asbestos.
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
Don't bother reading. The author wants 'total safety' to be implemented, meaning that Kids will no longer be allowed to play with anything. CSPC bureraucratic unlimited power dreams realized.
The items listed, like lawn darts, flying toys, plastic darts and cap guns are objected to because they have caused problems when swallowed, or when thrown at someones face. No admission that anything might have been the fault of a person using anything wrongly. Most of the argumenst seem to be from some lawsuit, and are almost totally devoid of reality. You can only imagine what she must think of BB guns, or bow and arrow sets. A Kite would be one of her greatest nightmares. Just imagine how many kids could be strangled with the string, or poked in the eye by a stick! One cap gun was presented as a problem because caps might be set off near a childs groin! She actually wrote that. Proof yet again that the only unlimited resource is stupidity.
As previous posters comments show, one science kit had 'radiation' as the primary problem. The amount of radiation was less than that recieved from exposure to sunlight in the park, but that has no relevance to this clueless child abuser. (Yes, limiting children the way this person wants to is abuse.)
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
The most dangerous toy I've personally ever seen was the original Mr. Potato Head.
It didn't come with a potato. You used it with real potatos. It was a bunch of parts like eyes and a nose and arms and stuff, with long, sharp spikes on the other end. You'd drive them deep into actual tubers instead of some soft vinyl thing.
Now that was a dangerous toy.
Sportsstuff Wego Kite Tubes Withdrawn from Market after Reports of Deaths and Injuries
and how do I know this? - I gave my nephew one for his birthday.
Reportedly, it was loads of fun, right up until his older brother ignored a few important safety instructions then violated what is printed on each side of the tube in large, friendly letters:
Never kite higher than you are willing to fall
thereby earning himself an impressive goose-egg and blown sinus from an estimated 30 feet up at 40 mph. The recall notice arrived in my inbox shortly after. The good news is, no lasting damage, although he looked an awful lot like Saku Koivu right after that eye injury. Even more amazingly, his mother (the nephew, not Saku's) is still speaking to me.
Darn, I wanted to try it myself.