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.

[Sherman Logan]

Lawn darts are essentially plumbata, the darts that replaced the Roman soldier's pilum in later imperial and Byzantine days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbata

[Daffynition]

Are you my brother? [post #35] ;)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I bought a gross of M-500s back in the early 80s, each was equal to about a quarter stick of dynamite. We quickly discovered there was no need for a rod and reel. Fish just boiled up.

[Alex Murphy]

MYRON: That kid's going to need some serious therapy.
HOWARD: Oh, don't say that.
MYRON: Mm-hmm. I know what I'm talking about. See, I never forgave my father. One Christmas, I wanted this one special toy: Johnny Seven O.M.A. Gun. You remember those?
HOWARD: No.
MYRON: I still remember the commercial. Two kids playing out in the backyard:
'Johnny to Peter. Enemy sighted.'
'Roger there! Open fire!'
Johnny would whip out his Johnny Seven O.M.A. One-Man-Army Gun. Seven guns in one!
HOWARD: Huh.
MYRON: [Chuckling] Thing looked like a blast. Of course for my old man, Christmas was just another opportunity to let me down. I never did get that Johnny Seven O.M.A.
HOWARD: Sorry to hear that.
MYRON: It don't mean nothing.

[buffaloguy]

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

Really cool.

[THE_RAIDER]

Click Clacks!!!

[Aqua225]

It seems to me the real danger with all of these toys would be a lack of parental supervision.

For example, we lost radium to the nuclear fear-mongers, and even now, tritium is a super controlled substance, allowable only in very small quantities (in my experience, so limited it doesn’t actually generate enough light, when it is used for that purpose with phosphors).

Even the Europeans allow enough tritium to be useful, as there are very cool lighted key chains that use tritium, that are outlawed here (free Americans, funny, hehe, harhar).

I think what changed, was not that children became more blunt in their childhood IQ, but that parents were more interested in things that took them away from their children, even in the environs of their own homes. So bothered in fact, a lot of people just skip having any kids nowadays.

[Bean Counter]

yah....go tell someone today about your leather thong and they sure won’t be thinking about the same thing you are.

I build model ships for a hobby, but if I ask someone if they model they think I want to take underwear pictures of them...

So many words change meaning over time.....

[gargoyle]

...In England even the cops didn’t carry guns, but, they had 50,000 deaths a year from soccer matches. Walk into a bank in London, “hand over ole’ the pounds, I’ve got a soccer boll!!! “Shht Ian, he’s serious, that’s a Spalding!!!

[Cowgirl of Justice]

I flew with a pilot who had a mustache. He told me that when he was a little boy, his parents gave him and his brother real bows and arrows for Christmas. They were smaller than adult versions and were made for kids. They ran outside with them and withing five minutes, he said he was running back in the house, holding the arrow that his brother shot at his face. The arrow pierced his gums right above the cupid’s bow and through the skin just beneath his nose. I laughed so hard!!! He has the mustache to hide the scar!!! If you knew this guy, you would have laughed too. He was the best beer drinking, fishing buddy I have ever had.

When I think of all the things I did and walked away unscathed, I am just soooo glad that my sister and I didn’t get bows and arrows, swords or flamethrowers for Christmas when we were kids. We did pillow fight though and it got pretty violent when we threw away the pillow and attacked each other.

Good times.

[kidd]

I want one

I want one bad

[Fresh Wind]

The only one of those toys I had was the chemistry set. The best part was mixing chemicals at random just to see what would happen.

Except for the stove, there was not a single toy in that article I wouldn’t have loved to have had.

[dead]

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

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Growing up an Army Brat in Japan, I found fireworks of every variety in most of the toy stores. My favorite were “cracker balls,” about the size or a small marble that would explode if thrown on a hard surface.
A handful of these and a sling shot spelled a ride home with the MPs.

[pterional]

Super elastic bubble plastic . Great stuff.

[pfflier]

One website I just referenced said lawn darts were banned after three deaths.

Now on to Soccer deaths in England. Probably three deaths due to the game and the rest due to the rowdy fans.

[prof.h.mandingo]

They worked really well blowing up toilets at my high school. They eventually locked the bathrooms. The only bathroom open was in the gym. True story.

[50sDad]

I can recall when liquid mercury came in a glass capsule with your "Science of the Month" box. LOL!

When I was about 12, our public library had a weatherbeaten hardbound book called something like "The Boys Book of Fun" that showed you useful things like how to make a motor out of tincan parts and LIQUID MERCURY. No kidding. Another useful thing was the article on how to DISMANTLE ROMAN CANDLES and repackage them to do cool new things.

One of my pet peeves is Government protecting me from fireworks. John Adams said the 4th should be celebrated with them, good enough for me. Anyway, I propose we do with fireworks what they have done with Sex Ed in the schools. We should teach young boys ABOUT fireworks. "They love them. They are "going to get them ANYWAY" and will only want them more if you tell them no! We should teach them all about fireworks...how to make them, where to use them, maybe demonstrate how to set them off in class. And as "Protection", every boy should be given REALLY LONG MATCHES for free, without their parents knowledge, just to make sure they are 'safe'."

[doorgunner69]

I blew up a lot of stuff real good with M-80s. $.05 apiece all year long at Rocky Mountain Fireworks in Denver in the late 50's.

Many a red ant hill is now a crater thanks to them!

[21twelve]

“The M80 made ALL other toys a hundred times more interesting, for one instant usually.”

LOL - SO true! Although gasoline was also good for that. Driving GI Joe through the “line of fire” with a jeep loaded with firecrackers.

“Fire Ball”. Street hockey with gasoline soaked tennis balls. (Short lived when one went under a parked car and scared even us 10-year olds to death even though nothing happened. Mike skinned his legs though as he slid under the car to kick it out.)

“Match toss” into a coffee can with a touch of gasoline in it. (Got that idea from Dad watching him light the grill!)