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Today's dangerous toys pale to those of past
Chicago Sun Times ^ | November 26, 2003 | MARK BROWN SUN

Posted on 11/30/2003 2:08:21 PM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: christmas; santa; toys
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To: NewRomeTacitus
No, no. It was a regulation-size dart. A Jart would have surely killed her. Whew. Memories already fuzzing up at 41, not good.
We played Jarts for years without incident. Good game.
201 posted on 11/30/2003 5:52:04 PM PST by NewRomeTacitus (Kids, don't be the last on your block...)
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To: dalereed
I guess the lawn chair guy killed himself not too many years ago. Probably had something to do with never living it down.

That one was almost as funny as the guy who mounted some JATO's to his car. I almost had to change my shorts when I read each the first time.
202 posted on 11/30/2003 5:57:32 PM PST by Orangedog
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To: Ichneumon
Effective December 19, 1988, all lawn darts are banned from sale in the United States.

I was wondering how far the thread would get before somebody pointed out that it is literally a Federal Offense to sell Lawn Darts. Yup. Klackers too. The cite is somewhere in the CSPS rules, a Federal Regulation. If you sell 'em at a yard sale, you're breaking a Federal Rule.

203 posted on 11/30/2003 6:00:03 PM PST by Cboldt
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To: Fresh Wind
Lysol and lighter is for flying insects. Spiraling down in a wiff of smoke made me imagine WWI dogfights.
Also had to see what would happen to a garden slug in the new-fangled microwave. Cleaning every square inch happens.

Guess I'm not making PETA's Christmas list this year.
204 posted on 11/30/2003 6:00:52 PM PST by NewRomeTacitus (Kids, don't be the last on your block...)
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To: Cboldt
When Lawn Darts are outlawed, only Outlaws will have Lawn Darts.
205 posted on 11/30/2003 6:02:29 PM PST by Delta 21 (I dont need no stinking spell checker !)
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To: Merdoug
You said: The most fun I ever had as a young kid was with a plain old piece of cardboard. Rub that sucker with grass to get it slick and down the hill you go!

The best toys were always the home made stuff. We played for DAYS on an old mattress we dragged over to a swing set and jumped out of the swings onto it. That was so great!! One store-bought toy I remember consisted of two cardboard tubes, one barely smaller than the other. You attached a rubber "rocket" to the top of one tube, then inserted the tube into the end of the other tube, pushed down hard, and off flew the rocket. If that wasn't enough fun, the water rockets were fantastic, AND got you wet!! We only got in trouble when we started aiming them horizontally instead of into the air..... OH!! and how about those plastic parachute men!! The parachutes usually tore up pretty quickly so we would get handkerchiefs out of dad's drawers.... As Bob Hope would say, thanks for the memories!!!
206 posted on 11/30/2003 6:03:46 PM PST by NCLaw441
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To: NewRomeTacitus
lol....poor little toads....I will burn in toad hell one day for my (our) crimes!

Regards.
207 posted on 11/30/2003 6:04:51 PM PST by wardaddy ("either the arabs are at your throat, or at your feet")
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To: Orangedog
... the 1997 Darwin Award honorable mention!

I remember this event, but it was in 1982.

On the actual Darwin awards site, there are even pictures!

Click here.

208 posted on 11/30/2003 6:07:00 PM PST by forsnax5 (The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.)
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To: forsnax5
Thanks for the good link. I took the first thing that google threw at me.
209 posted on 11/30/2003 6:11:18 PM PST by Orangedog
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To: NCLaw441
Those water rockets were one of the best toys ever invented. All you needed was the water, and you could have fun all afternoon. Wonder if they still sell them? Probably not; they're too much fun. One of my first science experiments was putting an ant inside the rocket and pumping it up with air to see how much "pressure" he could take. Didn't bother the little bugger a bit. They'll still be around when we are long gone! :)
210 posted on 11/30/2003 6:14:07 PM PST by Merdoug
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To: NCLaw441
The best toys were always the home made stuff.

Ain't that the truth. I remember the old wood crates my dad brought home from where he worked that, somehow, our imaginations turned into a tank, or a rocket ship, or whatever.

211 posted on 11/30/2003 6:14:49 PM PST by Fresh Wind
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To: lil'bit
How many still have their 60's clackers?

Those must have come back in the 70's! 1 week after they became popular they were banned from school. LOL!

212 posted on 11/30/2003 6:15:27 PM PST by Dianna
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To: in the Arena
LOL!!
213 posted on 11/30/2003 6:16:09 PM PST by Major_Risktaker (Did you have more freedom in the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's or today?)
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To: Merdoug
I think I am going to have to go hunting for water rockets for my kids..... (ok, and for me too)
I have gotten them these air power rockets, and they are pretty cool, as are the airhogs airplanes powered by air... a little fragile though.
214 posted on 11/30/2003 6:16:38 PM PST by NCLaw441
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To: Fresh Wind
We used a wooden fruit crate, a two by four and two halves of a roller skate to make a scooter. Kept you busy all day. First making it and then riding it.
215 posted on 11/30/2003 6:17:47 PM PST by Vermonter (No sweatshop labor was used in the production of this tag line)
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To: Merdoug
Those water rockets were one of the best toys ever invented.

A couple of years ago one of my sons got a car which attached to a water pump thing. Pump it up and the car takes off, spraying water everywhere. They thought it was pretty cool. We like stomp rockets too.

216 posted on 11/30/2003 6:21:50 PM PST by Dianna
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To: KneelBeforeZod
My parents would have been locked up. Over our childhood, they bought kb2614 and me boxing gloves, pellet guns, glow-in-the-dark light sabers, plastic missile launchers and a host of other items we could use against each other. Then they wondered why we fought all the time.
217 posted on 11/30/2003 6:26:25 PM PST by meowmeow
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To: KneelBeforeZod
HGTV is going to have on Toys We Grew Up With tonight.

Will be on right after the show that is on now...Under the tree 2003.

218 posted on 11/30/2003 6:26:48 PM PST by CARDINALRULES (Hip Hip Hooray!!! Tino is gone to Tampa Bay.)
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To: Orangedog
How about the match guns that fired a lit wooden match made from wood clothes pins?
219 posted on 11/30/2003 6:30:53 PM PST by dalereed (,)
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To: KneelBeforeZod

I had one like this (little more simple)...Probably in my parents basement somewhere. lol

220 posted on 11/30/2003 6:32:24 PM PST by smith288 (Did you even look at yourself in the mirror when you left the house??? Ugh)
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