Today's dangerous toys pale to those of past

Chicago Sun Times ^ | November 26, 2003 | MARK BROWN SUN

[KneelBeforeZod]

'Tis the season for dangerous toy warnings. The Public Interest Research Group issued its 18th annual "Trouble in Toyland" report Tuesday, while the Consumer Product Safety Commission was releasing its list of toys cited for safety recalls. Last week was the 31st annual presentation of the "10 Worst Toys List" from WATCH -- or World Against Toys Causing Harm.

You know the drill by now: toys that might choke a kid, toys that could put You know the drill by now: toys that might choke a kid, toys that could put somebody's eye out, toys that could poison you if you chewed them up, many of the toys so obscure that you'll never see them on the shelves.

Through ever-increasing levels of vigilance, diligence and litigiousness, we Americans theoretically keep making our toys safer and safer year by year.

I was just wondering then: How do you explain the fact that the world into which we're sending our children to play is becoming more and more dangerous every day?

Is it possible we're spending so much time sweating the little things that we've lost track of the bigger picture?

Unfortunately, I have no answer to these deep philosophical questions.

What I have is a list of my own: Favorite Dangerous Toys from Childhood.

It's a compilation actually from interviews with other guys. It's amazing that we're all still alive to talk about this stuff. Just don't let your kids read this. They'd be jealous.

First off, there used to be toy guns, lots of them.

Let's set aside for a moment the issue of BB guns or pellet guns, which were always a matter of parental dispute.

There was a time when nearly every boy had a six-shooter with a holster. Most of them fired plastic bullets.

The projectiles didn't move fast enough to break a pane of glass, but they could have certainly "put somebody's eye out" under just the right circumstances.

There were toy rifles, too. Spring-loaded ones with big cartridges.

"I had the Johnny Seven," one protective father told me wistfully. "It was seven weapons of destruction in one. You could pull out the Lugar or convert it into a grenade launcher."

Neither he nor I would allow our kids anywhere near such a thing now.

"Don't forget the dart guns," said another product of a pre-PIRG childhood.

Oh, yes, the dart guns with the hard plastic darts and the rubber suction tips. When you removed the tips, you could do some real damage to your little brother, but you had to keep in mind that his chance would come, too.

I was surprised to find one of those dart guns on this year's most dangerous toy list. I suppose the Chinese are still churning them out somewhere.

There were also bows and arrows with the same suction cup tips. Every boy knew that these could be removed and the arrow point whittled down into something more useful.

My friend Pittsburgh John did this one better. He and his brothers were allowed to have toy arrows with actual steel tips that they would let fly at squirrels and rabbits.

"I don't think we ever hit anything. I'm surprised we never killed one another," said Pittsburgh John. That possibility never curtailed their use, but when the boys started using the bow and arrow inside the garage and put holes in the wall, their father had to put his foot down.

The hazard posed by other toys was only slightly more subtle.

Take the Vac-U-Form from Mattel, which used a sizzling 110-volt hotplate to mold small toys from melted sheets of styrene plastic. The Vac-U-Form heating plate was also later used for Creepy Crawlers and Thingmaker molds.

There's no telling how many ways these would flunk the safety tests today. They could burn you. They could burn the house down. There were toxic materials that let off what were probably toxic fumes.

Boy, oh, boy. What a great toy.

"A sense of danger is what makes a toy interesting," observed another very proper father.

This particular father reminded me of the most important rule about toys: You can never keep a kid from using a toy for a purpose for which it was not intended, not that this would deter either of us from trying to anticipate each and every one.

"You can make anything dangerous depending on what you do with it," he observed. "Superman capes were dangerous because then you'd jump off the garage roof, which I did."

OK, he might be a special case.

I received varied opinions on the potential danger from chemistry sets in that time period. Everyone has a story about combining the various chemicals in random ways that they thought might blow up the house. But nobody could cite any example of actually blowing something up that way.

I've got to be careful. Kids really did get hurt with some of these toys. And I don't want to diminish the work of the safety watchdogs. You can't argue with somebody trying to protect kids.

Another buddy, Scott the Jeweler, had a favorite toy cannon that he fired off in a closed garage. It didn't really shoot anything, but it made one heck of a noise, the louder the better as far as Scott was concerned. These days there's a special category on the watch lists for dangerously loud toys.

Come to think of it, Scott is a little hard of hearing.

[Mike Darancette]

The "Lawn Dart" was a great toy for the whole family.

[muawiyah]

My first thought too!

LAWN DARTS

[Delta 21]

Happy FUN BALL!

-only $14.95-

* Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
* Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
* Happy Fun Ball Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
* Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.


Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:

* Itching
* Vertigo
* Dizziness
* Tingling in extremities
* Loss of balance or coordination
* Slurred speech
* Temporary blindness
* Profuse sweating
* Heart palpitations


If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.

When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...

Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.

Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.

Happy Fun Ball

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

[Conservative4Ever]

After a quick scan of the article...I didn't see any mention of the EasyBake Oven......some things are just too sacred for PCness. Still remember my Dale Evans cowgirl outfit complete with sidearm and holster. Talk about being Queen of the West...

Red

[KneelBeforeZod]

I just saw an ad with the new and improved version of the easy bake. Over the ones I remember from the 70s anyway.

sleek black accents...none of the girlie pink explosion...

maybe they are trying to get boys to play with it...after all, all the great chefs are men. (except julia c.)

[Vermonter]

Could we have a show of hands for anyone who knows someone who put someone else's eye out with one of these toys from back when?

I'm sure it happened, but not to anyone I ever knew or heard of

(let's not forget slingshots and electric trains for the dangerous toy list)

[ServesURight]

I remember the science sets for kids that contained LOTS of chemicals and glass beakers.

[KarlInOhio]

And the followup ad:

Happy Fun Ball -- still legal in 16 states.

Yikes, I feel old. The line "Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq" reminded me that this came out during the first Iraq war.

[annyokie]

My brother and I loved our "Thingmaker". Many were the times we scared the bejesus out our mother with the giant spiders.

[Inspectorette]

Oh those chemistry sets were great. My friends and I whipped up a concoction one time that spattered all over the kitchen ceiling. Try as we might to clean it up before the parents got home (we were about 12), it never did come off.

[KneelBeforeZod]

I shocked myself a couple times with my train set. of course it was nothing serious...

[netmilsmom]

WHAT is a Happy Fun Ball?

[Tijeras_Slim]

There was some gunk in a tube that you could blow into enormous multi-colored bubbles circa mid-60's. I played with it a lot. It had a distinctive odor which when I happened upon it again when I was in my 30's came from a can marked Acetone. LOL! I was a sniffer and didn't even know it.

[chindog]

After a quick scan of the article...I didn't see any mention of the EasyBake Oven......some things are just too sacred for PCness.

EasyBake Ovens are still available. I was in Wal Mart yesterday, and they had a big display of them on sale for $8.88.

[annyokie]

Did you ever have one of those airguns that you could pump up and they made a "bang!" noise? If you jammed the barrel in the dirt you could really sting your little brother in the backside.

[KarlInOhio]

It was a fake advertisement on Saturday Night Live. It had about 10 seconds announcing the product followed by about 90 seconds of disclaimers and warnings. It was SNL at its finest. See post 4 for the entire script.

[daylate-dollarshort]

Yep...had one of those. Made by Gilbert. Made delayed incendiary devices and really great stink bombs. Wonderful!

[Vermonter]

And heaven forbid any child today got a cap gun.

The horror of it. All that dangerous gunpowder in the hands of innocent children.

We used to buy the stuff in huge boxes and probably had enough powder to load shotgun shells

[gorush]

Erector sets and chemistry sets...lots of metalic pointy parts or the ability, at the very least, to make a huge stain, whether toxic or otherwise.