The 8 Most Wildly Irresponsible Vintage Toys

Cracked.com ^ | October 19, 2011 | Tracy V.

[EveningStar]

These days, if a stuffed animal's plastic eye so much as wiggles, that toy is recalled faster than you can say "class action lawsuit." Back in the day, though, child safety consisted of just getting out of the way and letting natural selection do its thing. If a kid was too dumb to play with a toy the right way, well, he'd just have to learn to get along with one less eye.

[mdmathis6]

“Two MS Degrees in engineering fields sort of debunks the IQ drop with every use”

No it doesn’t...you might have had 4 MS degrees!(tee hee...just kidding)

[cloydlloyd]

Used up many cans of mom’s hairspray and a book of matches... fire ants hate flame throwers. Another fond memory involves snap n pops at the mall, 2 boys on the second floor. Said memory ends with mall security if I recall.

[Hoffer Rand]

Clackers!!

I still have a set of the glass ones. Before they got all wussie and started only making them in plastic.

[Bob]

In 1977, at the height of the Lawn Jart popularity craze, an estimated 120,000 people died each year due to Lawn Jart accidents.

Do you have a source for that figure? It seems unimaginably high to me. Could that perhaps have been the number of injuries rather than the number of fatalities?

[JoeProBono]

[mdmathis6]

“M80s also made it perfectly acceptable for boys to play with Barbie dolls”

Depending on what location of the body they exploded upon?

[RJS1950]

I am certainly familiar with both of these “toys”.

[The Great RJ]

I somehow survived having a chemistry set as a kid and even did glass blowing experiments. I also played with fireworks and rode my bicycle without a helmet as did my friends. Strangely I never was injured and only had one friend suffer a broken arm falling from a swing set. According to today’s nannies at least half my generation should never have made it to adulthood.

[pfflier]

It wasn't even an airshow, it was an air race. I can just hear it "When airplanes fly, people die".

Indy car racing next??

[wolfman23601]

It is an ongoing fight I have with my wife. I refuse to make our son where a helmet riding the bike in the neighborhood.

[frithguild]

I can still remember that smell ...

[Calvin Locke]

I did the American Basic Science Club kit a month.

About all I remember from the nuclear kit was that it came with a bit of radium painted on head of pin and stored in a cardboard tube to protect it from abrasion.

I don't recall any uranium.

And yes, it did say to get dry ice to "see" the particle decay.

Oh, and that "projector/illuminator" was came in an earlier kit, maybe the photography and/or optics.

[PowderMonkey]

MY EDC rig in 1962:Mattel Tommy Gun

[frithguild]

real bows and arrows for Christmas

They were in the Sears Christmas Catalog.

[PLMerite]

“We used to cast Tiki heads and put them on a leather thong.”

Somebody’s going to really misunderstand that.

[12Gauge687]

I had something like a bazooka called the Sonic Blaster - boy, was that loud.

[frithguild]

Used up many cans of mom’s hairspray and a book of matches

You should have tried Endust - it had a wide dispersion nozzle and an amasing orange flame!

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

In 1977, at the height of the Lawn Jart popularity craze, an estimated 120,000 people died each year due to Lawn Jart accidents.

I suspect that you were having a bit of fun when you posted this, because the actual number was a bit closer to...four. As in four total, not per year.

[JoeProBono]

[pigsmith]

I still have an iron like Ruth has. And it still gets hot.