Radar looks back at the most dangerous playthings of all time

skydancers are still on the market. i have friends whose children have them. MY kids HAD them. not any more. not only will they take out an eye, but also any lamps, vases, and other nearby and expensive items.

Hey what about Clackers? What's better than two glass balls on a string that smash into each other?

Yeah, my sister bought my daughter a Skydancer. I gave it to my mother in law to show my daughter and left to run some errands. When I returned she told me how it almost took her head off! I had never seen the thing before and didn't really know what it could do.

what about sockem' boppers? "more fun than a pillow fight?" ya right...i knocked my brother out with those things. oh and all my freinds. not just because i hit too hard but because if they fell they always hit there head on a table or somthing.

What about everybody's favorite summer toy - the Dive Stick. It was a plastic stick that sank to the bottom of the pool. It would stand up becasue the bottom of the stick was weighted.

You then raced your friends to the to collect as many as possible...problem was some kids raced ass first and well...found their own bottoms had a little added weight.

In 1999 (i think) Wal-Mart recalled more than 9 million of the buggers.

Sock 'em boppers: definitely worth noting. They were indeed 'more fun then a pillow fight,' until a right hook to baloon pop and unconcious victim put an end to the fun--an all to common occurance for this little brother.

These heavy inflatable fist-concealers would serve the three brothers in my family well for a time, until--inevitable 3 years in a row (do parents learn?)--a good solid knock to the temple would be not so soft and cushioned any more. There's nothing like watching the youngest of 3 go flying off his feet and onto the couch unconcious (literally). Merry Christmas indeed.

anyone remember "superlastic bubble plastic"? you had what looked like a tube of toothpaste and a large straw. together, you could blow permanent colorful bubbles. but don't inhale once you've started blowing a bubble because the fumes were toxic and could cause lung damange.

good times.

I might also cite a popular toy from the 1960s that generated a significant number of minor injuries -- the Superball. This ever-bouncing demon was as hard as a golf ball and could zing at your face from completely unexpected directions. What fun it was to slam one into the wall of the classroom and watch all the students ducking and dodging frantically, trying to avoid being superballed in the eye!

many boy style bicycles in the 60s-70s had a 6 inch or so stick shift on the top most bar of the frame. many kids got impailed on those bikes like the schwinn orange krate.

Just a comment on a comment - "superlastic bubble plastic" is still on the market and available in many grocery stores. The package I recently acquired (for nostalgia's sake, really!) has a number of "eye" pieces that can be stuck on the colorful ballons.

It's labeled "Colorful Plastic B-Loon" and only has 'CAUTION: Flammable mixture. Do not use near fire or flame.'
and
'WARNING: Choking Hazard-Small parts. Not for children under 3 years'

Oh, and the somewhat obligatory end-note:
'Made in China'

Nice - I have a little divot in my forehead from a lawn dart, compliments of my sisters.

I had Creepy Crawlers when I was a kid (and my Mom still has it in the attic) and it was my all time favorite toy. I never burnt myself, but then again I'm not a spaz.

I'd like to add the "Water Wiggle" to the list. It was plastic head with a water jet nozzle that you would attach to your garden hose. The force of the water would cause the head to "fly" in a jerky manner all around the yard.

No child EVER got impaled on the stik shifter from a Schwinn Stingray. I'm sure many boys hit the thing with their nether regions (me included), but NONE EVER GOT IMPALED.

I'd like to mention a toy that my employer currently carries: Power Pogo. It advertises a reported 4 feet of solid air beneath you! That's right, kids! Why climb all the way to the roof to jump off when our pogo stick will get you just as high into the air?
"Not recommended for children under the age of 8 years."
That's reassuring. Notice they don't say not to use it indoors. Guess what'll be on next year's recall list.

How about the Crawl-a-gator? I had one of these before i could walk. it was a large flat piece of plastic, shaped and colored to look like a cartoon aligator that had castors on the bottom. I guess it was supposed to help kids who couldn't walk yet learn the concept of movement and show them how to crawl in that position. Problem was, kid's fingers kept getting crushed under the castors and weight of their own body. Hell, i didn't learn to walk until i was 7 years old. :D

superballs - yes! my dog swallowed one unbeknownst to my brothers and me while we zinged probably 10 balls around the house. a few years later after several bouts with not being able to eat, our dog couldn’t even swallow water and we had to take her to the vet. "There's something spherical blocking her stomach" was the news. Sure enough, they operated and removed the superball, with acid marks around the surface but it was still smooth and bounced like new. Our dog was like a pup again, full of energy. I say we remove from our existence all small round things that bounce.

Remember the easy bake oven? how about the "Thingmaker" for us old guys! and oh yes, the "Water Weeny"... Surgical tubing with what resembles an ink pen tip inserted and filled with water. Oh what great fun puting your friends, neighbors and siblings eys out!

Remember the easy bake oven? how about the "Thingmaker" for us old guys! and oh yes, the "Water Weeny"... Surgical tubing with what resembles an ink pen tip inserted and filled with water. Oh what great fun puting your friends, neighbors and siblings eys out!

apucodell's Dad decides to reply.....

It wasn't really three years in a row for the sock em boppers. I think it was more like every other year.

Heck, maybe I should get them agin this year now that the youngest brother is the biggest! He can now get revenge.

Dad

apucodell's Dad decides to reply.....

It wasn't really three years in a row for the sock em boppers. I think it was more like every other year.

Heck, maybe I should get them agin this year now that the youngest brother is the biggest! He can now get revenge.

Dad

apucodell's Dad decides to reply.....

It wasn't really three years in a row for the sock em boppers. I think it was more like every other year.

Heck, maybe I should get them agin this year now that the youngest brother is the biggest! He can now get revenge.

Dad

Man, I had *all* these toys! (Well, OK, not the radioactive chemistry set. Wonder if I can find one on eBay?)

OK, Mr and Mrs Healthy; how many of you are actually missing digits or eyes from these specific toys? How many people do you *personally* know who are? As I recall, we actually knew this stuff was dangerous, and amazingly enough, our parents both recognized the dangers, and they "got it" that we knew, too. If we behaved dangerously, we were "educated" not to. Gosh, I was even allowed a firearm as a kid. What were we thinking?

My brother nearly chopped my ear off with a stick, yet we still find sticks fully available to children of all ages. Ditto bathtubs, slippery food and dare I say it... stairs--all of which have killed and maimed not dozens but thousands of children. Where should it stop?

I loved my Johnnie Reb cannon (no, not from the South). So did all my friends; dude, bean your little brother from 35' away? How could you resist?

Davey

CHRIST ALMIGHTY, these kids don't even know how to lie in a hammock? Rassem frassem.

Oh i had so many of these toys! Lawn darts were wonderful! i even got one through the foot courtesy my siblings. but then i was the youngest and the one set up as a target. I also have the Cylon Raider toy and yet those missles (which i still own) can lodge just about anywhere. in the ear and in the throat. luckily we had a Hiemlich chart in the house that my mom put up and unbeknowst to her it got used a bit. Did i mention i was the target of a lot of crap from my siblings?

Another childhood treasure chest of death was the home chemistry kit. My kit had a bunch of toxic chemicals along with an alchohol burner. The kit came with a booklet that offered "fun, safe" experiments to do, but how much more exciting to mix up a bunch of chemicals at random and heat them in a test tube over the burner until something happened! Usually, you ended up with congealed glop, but once in a while the test tube would send out clouds of gagging fumes or even explode in a hail of glass splinters!

Ladies, at least mostly...remember "Fresh 'n Fancy"? The make-your-own makeup kits? Not only did it make 8 year olds look like whores, but it would leave one hell of a rash!
BTW, "Jarts" fricking ruled!

Awesome artilce, but you neglected to mention the "Creepy Crawler's" CONSUMABLE version "Incredible Edibles". It came with "Gobbledy Goop" and tasted awful. I actually ate that crap and I'm sure that I shaved several years off my life with that one. At least my folks didn't get me that Jonnie Science™ Home Cyclatron . . .

I'm glad someone mentioned Incredible Edibles. God, were those things AWFUL! My friend and I ate one batch, couldn't hack them, and then tried feeding them to the dog. Apparently, he was smarter than we were, because he ran the other way. Also, I wanted to mention Jarts were available LONG before the '80s. We played with them as kids in the early/mid 1970s. Definitely before 1974. LOVED those things, even though one nearly pierced my foot one time. Ah, the happy days of childhood.

Had this toy.

I remember how much fun lawn darts were. My cousin hit me in the head with one. Don't remember what happened after that. Have a lot of trouble remembering things since. But I remember the lawn darts were fun.

my brothers and i played with those and we all survived.

I feel that we are leaving out an awesome toy that caused me so many summer injuries...the slip and slide. If there was a rock or stick under the slide, you were scraped from head to toe, cause once you got going you were commited to the end.

I remember how much fun lawn darts were. My cousin hit me in the head with one. Don't remember what happened after that. Have a lot of trouble remembering things since. But I remember the lawn darts were fun.

How many people have been injured by horseshoes? How many injuries from playing frisbee? I hear bikes are pretty dangerous - should parents who never taught their kids not to ride on the train tracks be allowed to collect tens of millions from Union Pacific?

Anybody want to compare the number of deaths and injuries from jarts with the D&I rate for bikes? For tree climbing? The ultimate demise of Jarts wasn't because the product was inherently dangerous - pretty much everything is - but because lazy, selfish parents steadfastly refuse to supervise and instruct their kids. "Mom! Billy wacked the croquette ball really hard and it hit me in the knee!" "I'm calling my lawyer! They should never be allowed to sell such a dangerous product!" Or "hmm... this toy comes with live rattlesnakes and a chainsaw. Well, since National Toy And Fun Emporium, Inc has 50 billion in annual sales if anything happens I'll get rich, so I think I'll buy this for my 18 month old. That'll keep him quiet while I watch my soap opera."

When me an the brother were wee lads we used to pick foxtails, stick them in the end of a drinking straw and inhale. The foxtail would stay at the end for a second or two and then scream down that straw like a rocket! We would laugh hysterically at the gagging sound we made as it struck the back of our throats. I haven't seen foxtails in a long time. I wonder if they have been recalled?

How about the game Quicksilver, the little plastic maze with the silver blob you could move around (and sometimes split into several blobs)--I recall it was hexagonal, around the late 80s or early 90s. They didn't really mention that the 'quicksilver' really was...well, quicksilver, or actual mercury, and that it was easy to break the maze accidentally. Look, a new toy to play with! That one got profiled in a kids magazine I read when I was little.

Looks like this story has been "dugg":
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Top_10_most_dangerous_toys_of_all_times

I second the clackers comment. God, they were awful. Absolutely guaranteed to remove teeth, and to scatter high velocity shrapnel after shattering. Should be #2 after Lawn Dart.

On the other hand, skis, horses and bicycles have led to far more injuries and deaths than these toys -- the main difference being that those risks ought to be clear.

BTW, making playgrounds safer did dramatically lower ED visits for significant head injuries and reduced lifelong disability rates. Sometimes blood-sucking lawyers are our friends.

Where can I buy the office version of Lawn darts?

Check out http://www.JartParts.com and http://www.JartsGame.com

Craziness taking jarts off the market. Why not go for croquet sets as well - don't know how many times I've seen my aunt club her foot with the mallet. Those were special times.

I had Creepy Crawlers, and burned the crap out of my hands. I also got an electric guitar from Gibson's Disount store, and it nearly electricuted me when I tried to play it barefoot and sweaty in my garage in Beaumont, TX in 1966. We didn't need dangerous toys though. I remember going around after Christmas, and gathering up all the neighbors trees and piling them up, then swinging from my friends treehouse and landing in them!

Who remembers the Star Trek phasers that shot those little plastic disks at extremely high velocities? I must have gotten a whoopin a dozen times for leaving welts on my little brother with this thing. Man that was one mean toy.

How about those water rockets that you put a small quantity of water in, attached it to a hand-held pump and put as much air in the thing as you could before releasing it? Poorly aimed rockets definitely put out a few windows in my neighborhood, that is for sure!!!!

Who needs a lawn dart to inflict damage on your siblings??? A nice pair of sharp scissors does the trick as well-- ask me how I know.

You neglected to mention that the biggest fans of Lawn Darts/Jarts were, in fact, not children, but "adults." The very best way to play Lawn Darts was after spending the afternoon with friends, and Tangueray and tonics. It was an even greater challenge to play in the dark. And, why didn't caps make the list???? My daughter and my nephew, when they were about 8 years old (30 years ago), took an entire roll out on the sidewalk, got a huge rock and let it rip. The dog pooped on the floor and the neighbors came running. Nothing like a little gunpowder to keep the kids occupied.

C'mon! A little common sense and the kids would have been instructed to stand at lease 10 ft back from a tape line, row of rocks or whatever. We had, and still have, a blast with those things. The plasic is becoming a little brittle though.

North American "Fear Culture" knows no bounds. If parents would, oh I don't know, SUPERVISE their children from time to time toys like lawn darts could still be enjoyed. I'd much rather watch my kids play lawn darts than see them get fat and myopic from playing X-Box 10 hours a day.

Suckerman. ouch! My brother had a red one. It was THICK rubbery material with suction cups all over it. The idea was that you could throw it onto glass or any slick surface and it would stick. It did, sometimes. His favorite thing was to chase me around and WHACK me as hard as he could with that thing, and man it hurt! He hit my dad once and the thing ended up in the trash. My brother then told grandma that Suckerman was the ONLY thing he wanted that Christmas - and he got another one!

Hot Wheels Melt Your Own cars. It was similar to the Creepy Crawler thing. You got cubes of wax and molds to melt the wax in a little bucket and then pour into the mold and voila! You have a freshly made Hot Wheels. The melting bucket was encased in plastic, but I have to say, my brother was very crafty at getting the wax into the mold and then dumping the hot wax (or throwing it) on to me. It wasn't TOO hot by that point, but still left red marks.

Lawn darts went by another name 2000 years ago: the Roman army called them 'plumbata' and they were handheld infantry weapons.

Aw, come on! Anybody can be hurt with anything, anytime. It's a matter of natural selection and some of these toys just helped that along faster. There's a reason why some people get hurt while thousands or millions more don't with the same item. Think of items like these as well designed tests to weed out people who probably shouldn't reproduce to begin with.

We had lawn darts when I was a kid and we took a lot of risks but we never threw them near anyone. I also had a biology set with a real scalpel, a chemistry set with real chemicals, and the Thingmaster.

I'm sorry about the kids who got hurt or worse. It'd be cool to still have the lawn darts. Maybe they could treat them like guns and require a certain age along with a background check. "Are you on record as having done any really stupid and dangerous things?" Of course, there's always eBay.

More mindless banter re toys. Kids who grew up in the 1970's were healthier and had better sense than todays tweens and teens, and we weren't OVERWEIGHT! Lawn Darts were great fun as long as used with care, like ANYTHING else. You worry warts are the bane of common sense.

Air blasters were scary- these big air guns with a
rubber wall that wet back with the suction trigger
and when released shot a powerful blast of air-
good for blowing out ear drums, though this never happened..

Jarts; the subject of one of our most repeated family stories. One boring summer afternoon when I was about seven years old I was attempting to amuse myself by throwing the lawn darts as high as I could. The back of my unsuspecting grandmother's head was the receipient of one of my more successful tosses. The sheer horror of seeing the shiny blue jart and her now shiny red (previously white) hair was to much for me so I took off running down the road. Since we were home alone and this was a fairly high speed, high traffic road (by yesterday's standards, anyway), she had to remove the jart herself and then chase my stupid seven year old butt down and drag me home. She was a strong woman and lived another 37 years after my famous stunt but she never did let me use the lawn darts again.

I remember doing the Creepy Crawler thing. I really don't believe the burns were nearly as bad as "the critters were toxic, too." What would really happen is you would get woosie from the fumes and face plant into the hot plate.

I had lawn darts, toys that launched projectiles at deadly speeds, superballs, chemical labs and many other so-called "dangerous" toys as a child, as did my siblings, yet I never hurt or injured myself as seriously as I did on my bicycle or skateboard.
I say if you can't stand the heat, get away for the searing hot plate!

OMG, your commentary had me laughing out loud! I'd have to categorize this as brilliant! Thanks for the laughs. :)

Lisa
http://www.bunk-beds-loft-beds.com

I wonder why skateboards aren't on this list. Way back in 1992, over 56,000 kids went to ERs with skateboard injuries, and 1,900 of them had to be hospitalized.

The Skydancers whose heads flew off and flew fast enough to cause harm were pulled off the market. My daughter was one of the girls in the "Pretty Scents Skydancers" commercials that ran. By the time the Pretty Scents came out the word was already out about the previous, dangerous, models of these toys. It was too late for the toys. Moms didn't want to buy them after the problems with them. The company gave my daughter and her younger sister lots of the toys to take home. They are still in their original boxes along with a video of the commercials. Who knows, maybe these things will be interesting "antiques" someday.

Ok we had lawn darts as kids.. first my Parents saw to it that we all new how to use them and SUPERVISED us as we played.. My feeling is if the parent would get outside and off the couch and teach their children and watch there kids play ALOT of these accidents wouldnt happen.... everything in life can be dangerous if not cautious!!!!!!

To the guy who said he didn't get burned by his Creepy Crawlers because he's not a spaz: You are not only a spaz, but you're completely compulsive. How can you NOT get burned by that thing? It was like handling molten lava!
Also, when my daughter was little, she broke her collar bone on a slip-n-slide. Good times.

ZenCueist Re: Skateboard injuries "way back in 1992".

In the 60's, my cousin took one of my metal skates apart, nailed the front and back halves to a piece of wood, and I had a skate board. I painted flowers on it and fairly flew along the sidewalks and down the neighbor's steep driveway (and mostly avoided the ends of nails sticking up through the board).

I would tie a jumprope to my cousin's bike and "ski" at high speeds behind him. Of course, the family photo we had taken that year featured me with a split and puffy lip and two knees skinned to the cartilage. Guess, when I fell, I should have let go of the rope.

Good times.

OK, I am sure the actual #1 "toy" which basically guarantees an injury is the old Wood Burning kit! The box showed really cool Indian head and horse images that can be produced with the kit contents (the “iron”, some tips, and a block of pine) all I ever produced were my initials in just about anything in the proximity of an electrical outlet.

The “Wood” burner is an electric iron that draws enough current to show up on the power grid as a small village. Needless to say that flesh is instantaneously converted to the fourth state of matter (plasma) when it comes in contact with the iron.

My guess is that any artist involved in this medium has a nickname like “Lefty” or “Three Fingers”.

Here's another one: I don't remember what the name was, so I'm going to call it "Hey Kids! Let's Melt Some Plastic & Inhale the Fumes!" It was like an e-z bake oven, but for stained-glass-like suncatchers. You would put the metal framey thing on a small round metal tray, then pour colored plastic crystals into the different sections. Pop it in the oven, which had a convenient window on top, and voila! Instant art! Of course, the fumes of melting plastic might have caused a migraine or too, and the cheap plastic window may have led to some minor burns, but hey! It's all in the spirit of fun!

wusses! toys i got to play with as a kid included: bows, shotguns, backhoes, motorboats, farm tractors, mad bulls, irate mother sows, dynamite, and chain saws. my father REQUIRED his children to carry a pocketknife and a lighter(well, yes, there was a compass in that list too). my siblings and i were allowed to play with these things because my dad TAUGHT us the dangers involved...and then trusted us to be responsible. funny, since we were treated as responsible creatures, we acted that way. go figure.

Shakespeare had the right idea: kill all the lawyers. Today's underage boys have the prospect of a military draft. There they can break things and injure (and kill) people for Wall Street.

JARTS are FUN!!!

I can`t believe they banned this game!

I still have my old set from 15 years ago. We use them at every family picni and have only had 1 accident. My brother sharpened them on a grinding wheel and a ladies foot was impaled because she was not paying attention to the match.

Otherwise we have used the safely hundreds of times.

Bring back JARTS!!

My dad bought a set of these on an auction site (ebay wont sell them) and we play them a lot, my friends come over and we play. it's awsome, if your at least a little careful it's really hard to get hurt.

My cousin got a Johnny Reb Cannon for Christmas one year. We spent an hilarious afternoon shooting the ornaments off the "kids" Christmas tree in the basement.

I thought the licking the balls thing came after ingesting the GHB.

i think a dangnerous toy is, yes you guessed it right, the Wii. You may think it crazy, But in the paper, it said a lot of people die from Wii boxing because they can't beat a level,they get angry and kill thereself,(I'm happy I don't have one so I don't have one).

I completely agree with all that here is told
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You forgot the kitchen playset the plastic spoons and forks can be swallod and could block off breathing x x
-

pandadude ur rong why wud u kil ur self if u cud not get it inleas u hav a disease or anger problims

(an aside: Gertrude, PLEASE speak English. You are only demonstrating your low level of communications "skills" when you post in sophomoric "text-talk".)

Now, the toys. As a kid, I had a bow and arrow - and the arrows had sharp metal tips. Yes, more than once they ended up in an unintended location, but never in a person or animal. I also had a CO2 powered 22 caliber pellet gun which was capable of killing small animals with a single shot. (I know this, because my neighbor unintentionally trapped a skunk and I had to dispose of it.) This, too, fired hundreds of lead pellets without accident. Then there was the 22 caliber rifle that I got for Christmas at age 10 and was allowed to use in our wooded range without supervision. Strangely, again no accidents.

For the ultimate in "would you let your kids do this?" (and I would, because I've trained them, as I was trained.) Remember lead soldiers? Remember lead type for newspapers? (No? Then I'm older than you.) We used to go to the local paper and haul home as much old type as we could carry - usually we'd score about 50 pounds of it. Then it was off to one of the kid's house to use the old saucepan reserved for that purpose on the open-flame gas stove; melt a few pounds of lead and pour it into the soldier molds. You're just not going to believe this, but 4 or 5 boys between 11 and 14 could make hundreds of soldiers from molten lead (several hundred degrees!) and not suffer a single burn among them. (We also knew enough to ventilate the kitchen and not sniff the molten lead.) How did we do it?!? We used FREAKIN' COMMON SENSE!

We had jarts, darts, hammocks, pools, caps, bb guns galore, no seat belts, wood burners. mercury in everything, "removable parts" , common sense, NO LAW SUITS, no t.v's in our rooms, we had parents who parented-not coddled, we walked to school, rode our bikes, and stayed outside as long as we could, summer or winter. We ate every meal together and ate what was put in front of us. We didn't "graduate" from every level of learning. We were expected to pass and move on to the next level. Graduation from day care unheard of. Day care for that matter was unheard of, families raised their own. For the love of God, we were told to find something to do. What a great life we had.

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